Dalkey Arşivi’nde Arşive Dair Şüphe ve Yazarlık Arzusu

Year 2023, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 31 - 43, 10.05.2023

Gülden Hatipoğlu

Abstract

Bu makalenin amacı Flann O’Brien’ın Dalkey Arşivi başlıklı (1964) son romanında arşivin ve arşivsel bellek mekanizmasının politikasını mercek altına almaktır. Tartışma ekseni, özellikle alternatif tarihler/arşivler tahayyül etme bakımından arşivsel iktidar ve yazarlık pratiği arasındaki ilişki üzerinde ilerlemektedir. Kitap ile arşiv, yazar ile arşivci arasında kurulan metaforik ilişkinin esas alındığı makalede, romanın eleştirel okuması İrlanda’nın bağımsızlık sonrası entelektüel ve politik iklimini göz önüne alan bir tarihsel bağlam içinde sunulmaktadır. Genel itibariyle, Flann O’Brien’ın, arşive dair tüm inşaların ideolojik kurgusallığını ifşa eden ve kanona dair her türlü otoritenin maskesini düşüren kara mizahının, yazarlık ve iktidar arasındaki ilişkinin pek çok yönünü irdeleyen bir eleştirel evren sunduğu ortaya konulacaktır.

Keywords

Flann O’Brien, Dalkey Arşivi, Yazarlık, Arşiv, Bellek, Alternatif tarihler

Archival Suspicion and Authorial Desire in The Dalkey Archive

Abstract

The central aim of this article is to explore the politics of the archive and archival mnemonics in Flann O’Brien’s last novel, The Dalkey Archive (1964). The argumentative axis moves along the relation between archival power and authorial agency, especially in terms of re/imagining alternative histories/archives. Relying on the metaphor of the book as an archive, and the author as an archivist, the article introduces a reading of the novel within the historical context of Ireland’s post-independence intellectual and political climate. O’Brien’s biting dark humour, which exposes the ideological fictionality of archival constructs and debunks canonical authority, is shown to introduce a critical commentary on many aspects of the relationship between authorship and power.

Keywords

Flann O’Brien, The Dalkey Archive, Authorship, Archive, Mnemonics, Alternative histories

References

• Bloom, Harold. Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Booker, M. Keith. Flann O’Brien, Bakhtin and Menippean Satire. Syracuse University Press, 1995.
• Clissmann, Anne. Flann O’Brien: A Critical Introduction to His Writings. Gill and MacMillan, 1975.
• Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Translated by Eric Prenowitz, University of Chicago Press, 1998.
• Duncan, Andy. “Alternate History.” The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 209–218.
• Ernst, Wolfgang. “The Archive as Metaphor: From Archival Space to Archival Time.” Open, vol. 7, 2004, pp. 46–53.
• Hopper, Keith. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-modernist. Cork University Press, 1995.
• Joyce, James. Ulysses. Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Long, Maebh. Assembling Flann O’Brien. Bloomsbury, 2014.
• Kearney, Richard. “Narrative and the Ethics of Remembrance.” Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, edited by Kearney and Mark Dooley, Routledge, 1999, pp. 18–32.
• Miller, Nicholas. Modernism, Ireland and the Erotics of Memory. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Nolan, Val. “Flann, Fantasy, and Science Fiction: O’Brien’s Surprising Synthesis.” The Review of Contemporary Fiction, vol. 31, no. 3, 2011, pp. 178–90.
• O’Brien, Flann. The Dalkey Archive. Dalkey Archive, 1997.
• ---. At Swim-Two-Birds. Dalkey Archive, 2001.
• The Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. 1., prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Winer, Oxford University Press, 1989.
• Said, Edward W. Beginnings: Intention and Method. Columbia University Press, 1985.
• Schwartz, Joan M. “‘Having New Eyes’: Spaces of Archives, Landscapes of Power.” Arcivaria: The Journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists, vol. 61, 2006, pp. 1–25.
• Shapiro, Shelly. “What is Alternate History?” Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History, edited by Gardner Dozois and Stanley Schmidt, The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1998, pp. xi–xiv.
• Stoler, Ann Laura. “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance.” Archival Science, vol. 2, 2002, pp. 87–109. doi:10.1007/BF02435632.