Organic Connections and Creatures of Compost: When Humility Reframes the Ambition of Short Fiction
Ali Smith’s “The Beholder” and Daisy Johnson’s “Starver” unfold around shapeshifting bodies. Here, a girl on hunger strike turns into an eel; there, a patient witnesses as the growth on their chest blooms into a rose shrub. As these bodies vitally assert cross-species connections, the unspectacular...
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| Publicado en: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
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| Autor Principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
| Publicado: |
Journal of the Short Story in English
2023
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| Acceso en liña: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Résumé: | Ali Smith’s “The Beholder” and Daisy Johnson’s “Starver” unfold around shapeshifting bodies. Here, a girl on hunger strike turns into an eel; there, a patient witnesses as the growth on their chest blooms into a rose shrub. As these bodies vitally assert cross-species connections, the unspectacular accounts of the transformations confirm their humble quality. In exploring this earthly becoming-fauna-&-flora of the body, both stories can be said to constitute “compost narratives” (Haraway): fictions that deconstruct human exceptionalism by acknowledging kinship across species boundaries. This ecological concern with our condition as creatures of compost also provides a new understanding of “shortness” as a generic feature. By organically integrating their readers’ temporality, stories such as “The Beholder” and “Starver” refuse to play by the rules of “the attention economy,” and compete in the great market for our cognitive availability. Instead, they uphold ecological definitions of time and attention, as that which flourishes when we care for the ecosystems we inhabit. |
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