16 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel
subjectivity occurs in “the margins” of history and involves the
individual “rupturing” what he calls the “historico-social totality.”^45
The image Macherey describes here is, I contend, a fitting represen-
tation of the interpretive procedures Phillips encourages the reader to
employ, particularly in Higher Ground and The Nature of Blood. As I
demonstrate, these novels situate us in often-precarious and confusing
interpretive positions from which we feel ourselves capable of peering
through the material fabric of history to conceptualize an image of
humanity that we paradoxically realize is impossibly universal.
In the latter portion of the chapter, I turn to A Distant Shore , which
in place of a multitemporal, polyphonic structure employs a twin-
voiced narrative set within a single historical moment. However, in
spite of the significant departure in form, the novel also attempts
to encourage the reader to adopt a critical cosmopolitan vision that
is similarly attentive to the attitudinal and epistemic influences of
sociohistorical context. This is achieved primarily through a sophis-
ticated critique of static notions of belonging, particularly those that
postulate a fixed conception of “home.” I then argue that Phillips
appears to suggest that fixed ideas of home are fundamentally linked
to the kind of reactionary impulses that underlie xenophobia and
discrimination toward the Other. Referring to the work of Avtar
Brah and Paul Gilroy, I contend that Phillips subverts and expands
the notion of home to one that is inclusive, and is determined more
by the material realities of the present rather than by an essentialist
and mythical idea of the past. In so doing, he promotes a more f luid,
cosmopolitan idea of belonging.
In the second chapter I apply the term “materiality” in a differ-
ent, although not incompatible, sense. Whereas in the first chapter
it is employed in reference to the material conditions of an individ-
ual’s historical reality, in the succeeding chapter, the term is used to
refer to the physical, embodied quality of life (human and animal)
and how it is organized and controlled as a form of social power.
Employing Foucault’s theoretical work on the corporeality of power
relations, I argue that Waiting for the Barbarians , Elizabeth Costello ,
and Disgrace frame profound ethical questions within the material-
ity of the body that suffers—both human and animal. Beginning
with Waiting for the Barbarians , I explore how Coetzee’s fiction