Modernism and Physical Illness: Sick Books by Peter Fifield (review)

Abstract

Post-Independence Ireland on performance art open the thesis up to other arguments, suggesting other ways for scholars to investigate disability writing in Ireland. In conclusion, some rationale regarding text choice and positioning of texts within the chapters would make Grubgeld’s striking analyses stronger, but this is a minor complaint against a persuasive, passionate, and urgently needed book that combines close scholarly attention to detail with the potential activism at the heart of the project. Grubgeld outlines how Irish disability life writers’ main battle is not against the constraints of the body, but against the constraints and the mostly limited expectations imposed by society. Examining the lived experiences of disability, as outlined by the many texts examined in this monograph, demonstrates how capitalist structures cannot accommodate difference and vulnerability, instead creating and maintaining systemic inequality. As a lifewriting scholar, I found the history of disability activism fascinating. Particularly pertinent was the discussion of how having a different body could affect the style of literary engagement—this is especially so in the case of life writing, surely the most embodied form of writing.