Writing wrongs, (Re)righting (Hi)story? : “Orthotita” and “Ortho-graphia” in Thanassis Valtinos’s Orthokosta
Part of : Γράμμα : περιοδικό θεωρίας και κριτικής ; Vol.8, No.1, 2000, pages 151-165
Issue:
Pages:
151-165
Author:
Abstract:
The debates over postmodernism have prompted some historians to condemn the way in which literary and cultural critics flirt with facts (or “facts”, to be more precise). It is rarely the case that literary critics turn on historians for shortcomings in their reading literature; even when, haughtiness aside, this approach might prove constructive. One such instance might be in undertaking a critical appreciation of the response of leftist historians to the Greek novelisi Thanassis Valtinos’s Orthokosta of 1994. The novel, which considers events related to the Greek Civil War, provoked the most heated cultural debate in Greece, in the summer after its publication. This article focuses on the relation of Valtinos’s challenging novel, and the ensuing debate, to the ongoing textual and ideological confrontation with that war. It places the issue in the equally anxiogenic field of historiography and literature, and considers how one reads and writes correctly about matters that defy such ambitions. The article maintains that a close reading of the novel’s paratexts will show how the debate over these issues had already been staged, and theorized, in the book itself.
Subject:
Subject (LC):
Keywords:
μυθιστόρημα, μεταμοντερνισμός
Notes:
Περιέχει βιβλιογραφία
