Hearing Voices in George Lamming’s The Pleasures of Exile and Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners
This essay examines the problematic status of voice in essays and fiction written by postcolonial writers. In the light of Mladen Dolar’s study of the ambiguous nature of voice as “the vanishing mediator” between sound and sense, we look at the way in which Lamming’s essays attempt to come to terms...
Guardado en:
| Publicado en: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ces, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lenguaje: | Anglais |
| Publicado: |
Commonwealth Essays and Studies
2022
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| Acceso en línea: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sumario: | This essay examines the problematic status of voice in essays and fiction written by postcolonial writers. In the light of Mladen Dolar’s study of the ambiguous nature of voice as “the vanishing mediator” between sound and sense, we look at the way in which Lamming’s essays attempt to come to terms with the paradoxical relation between sound and meaning. In confronting the silence imposed on the writer by the colonial situation, Lamming reveals the existence of voices which characterize for him the “noises” of the Caribbean, but which he is unable to integrate into the expression of a cultural identity. His companion on the voyage to England, Sam Selvon, demonstrates in his novel The Lonely Londoners that fiction is a medium better adapted to the creation of truly Caribbean voices because of the way in which it allows the sound of the voice to participate actively in the creation of sense. |
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