“One thing does not exist: Oblivion.” The Poiesis of Everness and the Wildness of Art in Anita Desai’s “The Artist of Disappearance”

Abstract

Anita Desai’s The Artist of Disappearance opens with the first line of “Everness” by Jorge Luis Borges to suggest that nothing can be forgotten except for what is not strong enough to become memory. If oblivion is the main theme of this collection, the eponymous story illustrates the need to preserve (mainly from forgetfulness) both cultural and natural artworks. The ethical role of the artist as transmitter of values, together with artistic travail as a tool of preservation are particularly evident in Desai’s reference to Nek Chand’s unauthorized “Rock Garden”. In this article I explore the literary representation of desecrated natural and cultural heritage, postcolonial India’s destruction of nature cultural biodiversity, the decentralization of the human, and the agency of elemental materiality.

DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-73

Bibliography

Alaimo, Stacy & Susan Hekman eds. 2008. Material Feminisms.Bloomington-Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Barrett, Estelle & Barbara Bolt eds. 2013. Carnal Knowledge. Towards a ‘New Materialism’ through the Arts. London-New York: I. B. Tauris.

Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things.Durham-London: Duke University Press.

Borg, Ruben. 2009. Surviving in Borges: The Memory of Objects after the End of the World. Stefan Herbrechter & Ivan Callus eds. Cy-Borges: Memories of the Posthuman in the Work of Jorge Luis Borges. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 107-125.

Borges, Jorge Luis. 1972 [1964]. “Everness” Trans. Richard Wilbur. Norman Thomas di Giovanni ed. Selected Poems 1923-1967. London:Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 207.

Bottiroli, Giovanni. “Sólo una cosa no hay. Es el olvido”. L’energia del ricordo nella letteratura.http://www.giovannibottiroli.it/en/personaggi-e-identita/solo-una-cosa-no-hay-es-el-olvido.html (accessed on 3/07/2017).

Burgin, Richard ed. 1998. Jorge Louis Borges: Conversations. University Press of Mississippi Jackson.

Cravero, Claudio ed. 2015. Internaturalità. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi. Torino 8 maggio 2013. Torino: Prinp.

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth & George Handley eds. 2011. Postcolonial Ecologies. Literatures of the Environment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Desai, Anita. 1980. Clear Light of Day. New York: Harper & Row.

Desai, Anita. 2011. The Artist of Disappearance. Three Novellas. London: Chatto & Windus.

Fargione, Daniela. 2013. ContaminAzioni e AddomesticaMenti: wilderness e follia ne L’isola di Sukwann di David Vann. Ecozon@:European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment. 4.1: 78-91.

Haraway, Donna. 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis-London: University of Minnesota Press.

Haraway, Donna. 2015. Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin. Environmental Humanities, 6: 159-165.

Iovino, Serenella & Serpil Oppermann eds. 2014. Material Ecocriticism.Bloomington-Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Kumar, Gajendra. 2002. Indian English Novels. Text and Context. New Dehli: Sarup & Sons.

Lundin, Roger. 2004 [1998]. Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief. Grand Rapid (MI) - Cambridge (UK): William B. Eerdmans Company.

Marrone, Gianfranco. 2011. Addio alla Natura. Torino: Einaudi. Menozzi, Filippo. 2015. The Art of the Custodian.Wasafiri, 30, 1: 29-34.

Menozzi, Filippo. 2015b. Tracking down ruins: Anita Desai and the ethics of postcolonial writing. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 52, 3: 1-12.

Sagoff, Mark.1988. The Economy of the Earth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Snyder, Gary. 1990. The Practice of the Wild. Berkeley: Counterpoint.

Tsing, Anna. 2012. Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species.Environmental Humanities, 1, 1: 141-154, http://environmentalhumanities.dukejournals.org/content/1/1/141.full.pdf+html(accessed on 3/07/2017).

Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1998. Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 4, 3: 469- 488.

Wojcik, Daniel. 2016. Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma.Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Kindleversion (ch. “The RockGarden of Nek Chand”).