Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel

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30 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel


memories, thereby problematizing an easy empathic connection
between reader and protagonist.^18 Vickroy declares that such writ-
ers engage in a “delicate balancing act by trying to lure readers into
uncomfortable or alien material, sharing victims’ pain with readers,
shifting between what can and cannot be revealed, or appealing to
readers through popular forms of writing (memoir and fiction).”^19 I n
the case of Irene, then, Phillips presents the reader with an interpre-
tive and empathic challenge. This is a challenge that is set not only
by virtue of the narrative’s obscurity and “jigsaw”-like quality, but
also by the nature of the thoughts and mental processes of the char-
acter herself, which are not always appealing or sympathetic. On
more than one occasion, we observe Irene making bizarrely unpleas-
ant observations about the people around her. In one memorable
passage, the narrator comments that Mr. Lawrence, an acquaintance
in a library in which she works, was “one of those doomed people
who had not, and would never learn how to conceal their intent”
(p. 81). The narrator then proceeds to explain in an acutely idio-
syncratic manner that if Lawrence “wished to indicate that he was
angry with Irene he would stare at the facial hair on her top lip,
then scratch his recently acquired, razor-thin moustache and smile”
(p. 181). The peculiarly defensive sequence of thoughts in this pas-
sage reflects, of course, Irene’s paranoia and sense of vulnerability as
well as her weakening grasp of mental stability. But importantly, its
rat her mea n-spirited tone a lso places before t he reader a not her obsta-
cle to a straightforward empathic engagement. This encourages the
adoption of a self-reflexive form of empathy, one that is sensitive to
the fact that the individual’s peculiar experiences of history (that is,
their experiences of a particular material context) might preclude
their ability to communicate their stories in conventional ways.
Another feature of Irene’s narrative that contributes to this sense
of heightened interpretive sensitivity is the constantly changing
morphology of her name, which mutates from “Irene,” and then
to “Irena,” “Irina,” and others. These changes, effected to make
it easier for English people to pronounce her name, epitomize the
polyphonic nature of the character’s narrative and, indeed, serve
once again to reflect her fractured sense of identity. This frame of
mind is revealed explicitly toward the close of the narrative when

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