Naslov
Virtually There: Spectral Ireland and European Stereotypes in the Novels of Paul Murray

Autori
O'Malley, Aidan

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
National Stereotyping, Identity Politics, European Crises

Urednik/ci
Barkhoff, Jürgen ; Leerssen, Joep

Izdavač
Brill

Grad
Leiden : Boston (MA)

Godina
2021

Raspon stranica
267-284

ISBN
978-90-04-43455-4

Ključne riječi
Paul Murray ; Irish Literature ; Contemporary Ireland ; Celtic Tiger ; Immigration

Sažetak
Paul Murray’s three novels, An Evening of Long Goodbyes (2003), Skippy Dies (2010) and The Mark and the Void (2015), constitute a humorous panorama of contemporary Ireland as they chart the ascent and supposed death of the so-called Celtic Tiger. This is an Ireland that has unmoored itself from history and has replaced the dilapidated spiritual authority of the Catholic Church with the guidance offered by the invisible hand of the free market. When this Irish iteration of late neoliberal capitalism failed, the country found itself incapable of imagining any real alternative to it. This contribution illustrates how these novels employ non-Irish European characters to dramatize this process. During the boom years Ireland came to encounter Europe much more directly than before through inward migration, especially from parts of the continent that had not featured in earlier cultural and political constructions of Europe. Murray’s novels explore how the stereotyping of European immigrants was essential to the operations of the phantasmagoric Celtic-Tiger Ireland. However, as this essay also shows, the comic exaggerations employed in the satirical representation of this spectral dynamic in Murray’s most recent novel gesture back towards, and repeat, the stereotyping the novel is explicitly critiquing.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Književnost

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