Cosmopolitan Vision of Home, Subjectivity 53the true story of Christofal Moro. As Gunnar Sorelius brings to
our attention, a fifteenth-century general named Moro (which
connotes “blackamoor” in Italian) was appointed governor of
Cyprus “at a time when an attack from the Turks was expected,
a situation very like that found in Othello.”^72 H o w e v e r , a m o r e
intriguing coincidence is the purported fact that Moro’s “wife
died in Cyprus under very mysterious circumstances.”^73 So if the
“Othello” story Phillips references in The Nature of Blood has its
basis in genuine events, the notion that truth separates the “source
text” of Stern’s narrative from that of the African general becomes
somewhat problematic. Of course, this is not because the veracity
of Anne Frank’s Diary is questionable, but because the perceived
fictitiousness of the “Othello” narrative’s source is now thrown
into doubt.
While this helps us resolve the apparent problem identified
earlier—of Phillips seeming to invite comparison between a Holocaust
diary and a Shakespearean tragedy—it simultaneously raises another,
perhaps equally controversial question about the nature of history
and its reliability. By referencing a story with such a complex inter-
textual heritage, some of which is considered to be based on factual
events, Phillips is intentionally challenging the reader to perform the
impossible task of separating historical truth from fiction.
Again, the futility of such a task is intimately related to the (inter)
textual nature of history itself, which is always mediated, forever
being revised and rewritten, and often interpreted and reinterpreted
in different ways, depending on time and place. However, by inter-
weaving these disparate narrative threads in his novel, Phillips
appears to suggest that there are nonetheless strategies of seeing that
could allow us to “pierce through” the fabric of history, irrespective
of its “veracity” or presentation, and perceive an abstracted image of
the human subject. Such moments resonate with Macherey’s con-
ception of human subjectivity, which is achieved by engaging criti-
cally with the cultural, epistemological, and ontological parameters
found in particular historical contexts. Phillips appears to induce
such subjectivity in the mind of the reader, who is called upon to
appreciate more intimately each of the characters’ sociohistorical cir-
cumstances to effect an empathic engagement.