Not Dead Yet: Rescuing the Silent Voice of May Young in Ali Smith’s There but for the
In line with the rest of Ali Smith’s fiction, There but for the intimately binds the aesthetic and the political, as shown in particular by its imaginative articulation of what gets to be spoken or written and what does not. Silence and invisibility form the core of the novel, as its main event cons...
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| Xuất bản năm: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc, |
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| Tác giả chính: | |
| Định dạng: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Được phát hành: |
Études britanniques contemporaines
2021
|
| Những chủ đề: | |
| Truy cập trực tuyến: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| id |
openedition-oai:revues.org:ebc_11548 |
|---|---|
| record_format |
openedition |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
voix silence Ali Smith There but for the infantia voice silence Ali Smith There but for the infancy |
| spellingShingle |
voix silence Ali Smith There but for the infantia voice silence Ali Smith There but for the infancy Tollance, Pascale Not Dead Yet: Rescuing the Silent Voice of May Young in Ali Smith’s There but for the |
| description |
In line with the rest of Ali Smith’s fiction, There but for the intimately binds the aesthetic and the political, as shown in particular by its imaginative articulation of what gets to be spoken or written and what does not. Silence and invisibility form the core of the novel, as its main event consists in the puzzling behaviour of a man who disappears during a dinner party and locks himself up for months inside the guestroom of his hosts. His silence is matched by that of May Young, an old lady who lives between the four walls of a hospital and only speaks ‘within the confines of her head’. The question of why May Young’s voice matters and how it matters in the general economy of the novel is one way of approaching the central riddle of the book. May’s story seems to result from one main imperative: to rescue from silence a life made invisible. While the old lady may be considered by some as good as dead, her lively monologue proves rather the opposite. But while it rescues a voice from silence, the novel also rescues its silence—a silence which stands in sharp contrast with the loud vacuous dinner conversation during which Miles, the mystery man, absconds. May’s mute resistance, like Miles’s disappearance, bores a hole into the fabric of social so-called exchange, small talk riddled with deadly clichés. Silence becomes a productive force that compels us to listen rather than talk. Challenging the received notion of a ‘second childhood’, May’s monologue invites us to reflect instead on the value of ‘in-fancy’ and what Jean-François Lyotard calls our ‘debt to infancy’. May’s silent voice can be the name for an idiom that manages to weave together the spoken and the unspoken and to resist both the threat (or temptation) of absolute silence and the deafness of self-sufficient discourse. |
| author |
Tollance, Pascale |
| author_facet |
Tollance, Pascale |
| author_sort |
Tollance, Pascale |
| title |
Not Dead Yet: Rescuing the Silent Voice of May Young in Ali Smith’s There but for the |
| title_short |
Not Dead Yet: Rescuing the Silent Voice of May Young in Ali Smith’s There but for the |
| title_full |
Not Dead Yet: Rescuing the Silent Voice of May Young in Ali Smith’s There but for the |
| title_fullStr |
Not Dead Yet: Rescuing the Silent Voice of May Young in Ali Smith’s There but for the |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Not Dead Yet: Rescuing the Silent Voice of May Young in Ali Smith’s There but for the |
| title_sort |
not dead yet: rescuing the silent voice of may young in ali smith’s there but for the |
| publisher |
Études britanniques contemporaines |
| publishDate |
2021 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/ebc.11548 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/ebc/11548 |
| _version_ |
1877293405832216576 |
| spelling |
openedition-oai:revues.org:ebc_11548 https://doi.org/10.4000/ebc.11548 urn:doi:10.4000/ebc.11548 https://journals.openedition.org/ebc/11548 2021-11-15T01:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/febv https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Not Dead Yet: Rescuing the Silent Voice of May Young in Ali Smith’s There but for the Études britanniques contemporaines Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2271-5444 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1168-4917 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc Tollance, Pascale voix silence Ali Smith There but for the infantia voice silence Ali Smith There but for the infancy In line with the rest of Ali Smith’s fiction, There but for the intimately binds the aesthetic and the political, as shown in particular by its imaginative articulation of what gets to be spoken or written and what does not. Silence and invisibility form the core of the novel, as its main event consists in the puzzling behaviour of a man who disappears during a dinner party and locks himself up for months inside the guestroom of his hosts. His silence is matched by that of May Young, an old lady who lives between the four walls of a hospital and only speaks ‘within the confines of her head’. The question of why May Young’s voice matters and how it matters in the general economy of the novel is one way of approaching the central riddle of the book. May’s story seems to result from one main imperative: to rescue from silence a life made invisible. While the old lady may be considered by some as good as dead, her lively monologue proves rather the opposite. But while it rescues a voice from silence, the novel also rescues its silence—a silence which stands in sharp contrast with the loud vacuous dinner conversation during which Miles, the mystery man, absconds. May’s mute resistance, like Miles’s disappearance, bores a hole into the fabric of social so-called exchange, small talk riddled with deadly clichés. Silence becomes a productive force that compels us to listen rather than talk. Challenging the received notion of a ‘second childhood’, May’s monologue invites us to reflect instead on the value of ‘in-fancy’ and what Jean-François Lyotard calls our ‘debt to infancy’. May’s silent voice can be the name for an idiom that manages to weave together the spoken and the unspoken and to resist both the threat (or temptation) of absolute silence and the deafness of self-sufficient discourse. There but for the, comme l’ensemble de la fiction de Ali Smith, associe intimement esthétique et politique, notamment à travers l’articulation que le texte nous propose entre ce qui trouve à se dire ou s’écrire et ce qui n’y parvient pas. Le silence et l’invisibilité sont au cœur de ce roman centré autour du comportement mystérieux d’un homme qui, lors d’un dîner, disparaît de la table de ses hôtes pour s’enfermer dans leur chambre d’amis pendant des mois. Ce silence se voit dupliqué par celui du personnage de May Young, vieille dame qui vit entre les quatre murs d’un hôpital et ne parle plus qu’à « l’intérieur de sa tête ». Tenter de comprendre la place de la voix / du silence de May Young dans l’économie d’ensemble du texte est une façon de se rapprocher de l’énigme centrale du roman. L’histoire de May semble en effet obéir avant tout à la nécessité de briser la prison silencieuse dans laquelle le personnage se trouve enfermé : son monologue flamboyant dément à chaque ligne l’impression qu’elle pourrait donner de n’être plus qu’une vie en sursis. Mais tout autant qu’il extrait une voix du silence, le roman donne une place à ce silence — en marge de la conversation verbeuse et creuse du dîner duquel le mystérieux Miles s’extirpe. La résistance silencieuse de May, comme la disparition de Miles, perfore le tissu d’un échange réduit à un bavardage ininterrompu. Le silence devient une force qui remplace la parole par l’écoute. Remettant en question l’idée selon laquelle elle serait « retombée en enfance », le monologue de May nous amène à réfléchir à la valeur de « l’in-fantia » et à ce que Jean-François Lyotard nomme notre « dette à l’enfance ». La voix silencieuse de May triomphe dans un idiome qui tisse le dit et le non-dit et déjoue aussi bien la menace (ou la tentation) du silence absolu que la surdité d’un discours auto-suffisant. |