Rites of passage

This article deals with two novels by the Irish writer Colum McCann: Songdogs and This Side of Brightness. Reading the narratives of both texts through the work of anthropologist Victor Turner, the essay reveals how McCann's characters undergo processes of liminal experience, which occasion structural changes in their familial relationships and in their individual identity. Turner's work primarily focused on the ritual behaviours of tribal groups and how liminality was used as a physical means toward spiritual ends; I diagnose similar dynamics in McCann's two literary fictions. Notes 1. See Syndergaard Syndergaard, Rex. 1974. "Wild Irishmen" and the Alien and Sedition Acts. Eire-Ireland, 9(1) [Google Scholar], '"Wild Irishmen" and the Alien and Sedition Acts'; and Gibbons Gibbons, Luke. 2004. Ireland, America, and Gothic Memory: Transatlantic Terror in the Early Republic'. In 'Contemporary Irish Culture and Politics. Boundary 2, 31(1): 25-47. Special issue [Google Scholar], 'Ireland, America, and Gothic Memory'. 2. Said Said, Edward W. 1993. Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage. [Google Scholar], Culture and Imperialism, 395. 3. Chambers Chambers, Iain. 1994. Migrancy, Culture, Identity, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Migrancy, Culture, Identity, 4. 4. Clifford Clifford, James. 1992. "Travelling Cultures". In Cultural Studies, Edited by: Grossberg, Lawrence, Nelson, Cary and Treichler, Paula. 96-116. London and New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar], 'Travelling Cultures', 101. 5. Elsewhere McCann has referred to his generation of writers as 'the international mongrels - our motherland and fatherland is actually found in story. It's whatever kind of story grabs you by the scruff of the neck or turns your heart a notch backwards', http://www.powells.com/authors/mccann.html. 6. In his biographical essay on Colum McCann, Joseph Lennon writes on the McCann family history of emigration: Emigration has had an impact on McCann's family for generations. Before McCann was born, the McCann family lived in England, where Sean McCann's father had partly grown up. Colum McCann's grandfather, Sean 'Jack' McCann, who had taken part in the Easter 1916 Uprising in Dublin, had taken his family to England in the late 1940s, and his family had grown up with a sense of alienation from Ireland. Sean McCann as a younger man had been a football (soccer) player for Charlton Athletic, but after retiring from semi-professional sports, he and his wife Sally McCann returned to Ireland. By this time, the McCanns had three children, Siobhan, Sean, and Oona. Colum McCann became their first child to be born in Ireland in 1965, followed by his brother Ronan. McCann never met any of his grandparents, except for two visits to Jack McCann as he lay dying from gangrene. These visits stood out as very powerful moments for the young McCann, who attributes the decrepit father figure in Songdogs to his memory of these meetings. 7. McCann McCannColum. 'The International Bastards'. Irish Echo Supplement, March 1998 [Google Scholar], 'The International Bastards', 38. Cited in Wall Wall, Eamonn. 2000. "Winds Blowing from a Million Directions". In New Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora, Edited by: Fanning, Charles. 281-88. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. [Google Scholar], 'Winds Blowing from a Million Directions', 281. 8. During this time McCann worked a number of temporary jobs including as a journalist, fence-builder, ranch hand, bicycle mechanic, house painter, ditch digger, and dishwasher. 9. Wall Wall, Eamonn. 2000. "Winds Blowing from a Million Directions". In New Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora, Edited by: Fanning, Charles. 281-88. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. [Google Scholar], 'Winds Blowing from a Million Directions', 282. 10. McCann McCann, Colum. 'Interview with Luke Clancy, Writer and Wanderer'. The Irish Times, 21 June 1994 [Google Scholar], 'Writer and Wanderer', 9. 11. Camelio Camelio, StephenV. 2002. Interview with Colum McCann. Nua: Studies in Contemporary Irish Writing, 3(1/2) [Google Scholar], 'Interview with Colum McCann', 96. 12. Turner Turner, Victor W. 1986. "Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience". In The Anthropology of Experience, Edited by: Turner, Victor W. and Bruner, Edward M. 33-44. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar], 'Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama', 41. 13. Turner Turner, Victor W. 1986. "Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience". In The Anthropology of Experience, Edited by: Turner, Victor W. and Bruner, Edward M. 33-44. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar], 'Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama', 42. 14. Turner Turner, Victor W. 1986. "Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience". In The Anthropology of Experience, Edited by: Turner, Victor W. and Bruner, Edward M. 33-44. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar], 'Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama', 42. 15. Turner Turner, Victor W. 1990. "Liminality and Community". In Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates, Edited by: Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Seidman, Steven. 147-54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar], 'Liminality and Community', 153. 16. Perez Firmat Perez Firmat, Gustavo. 1986. Literature and Liminality: Festive Readings in the Hispanic Tradition, Durham: Duke University Press. [Google Scholar], Literature and Liminality, xiv. 17. It is not insignificant that Heaney is positioned in the underground in London, which is part of a longer history of Britain's transportation network that was built with the employment of the labour of emigrant Irish populations. 18. McCann McCann, Colum. 1996. This Side of Brightness, London: Phoenix House. [Google Scholar], 'This Side of Brightness Interview'. 19. Battersby Battersby, Eileen. 'Coming Up for Air: An Interview with Colum McCann'. The Irish Times, 15 January 1998 [Google Scholar], 'Coming Up for Air'. 20. McCann McCann, Colum. 1996. This Side of Brightness, London: Phoenix House. [Google Scholar], This Side of Brightness, 5. All subsequent references to this novel will be made in parentheses within the text as (TSB). 21. McCann McCann, Colum. 1996. This Side of Brightness, London: Phoenix House. [Google Scholar], 'This Side of Brightness Interview'. 22. Healy Healy, John F. 2000. Dancing Cranes and Frozen Birds: The Fleeting Resurrections of Colum McCann. New Hibernia Review: A Quarterly Record of Irish Studies, 4(3): 107-18. [Google Scholar], 'Dancing Cranes and Frozen Birds', 113. 23. See Willis-McCullough Willis-McCullough, David. 'Tunnel Vision'. The New York Times on the Web, 5 April 1998. www.nytimes.com/pages/readersopinions/index.html (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/readersopinions/index.html) [Google Scholar]'s 'Tunnel Vision'. 24. Turner Turner, Victor W. 1990. "Liminality and Community". In Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates, Edited by: Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Seidman, Steven. 147-54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar], 'Liminality and Community', 147. 25. McCann McCannColum. 'The Tunnels under New York City'. Fotoshoot Magazine A.1, 5 February 1995. www.fotoshow.com/magazine/tunnels_a.html (http://www.fotoshow.com/magazine/tunnels_a.html) [Google Scholar], 'The Tunnels under New York City'. 26. Turner Turner, Edith L. B. 1985. On the Edge of the Bush: Anthropology as Experience, Tucson: University of Arizona Press. [Google Scholar], On the Edge of the Bush, 173. 27. Turner Turner, Victor W. 1974. Drama, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar], Drama, Fields, and Metaphors, 13-14. 28. McCann McCann, Colum. 1994. Songdogs, New York: Metropolitan Books. [Google Scholar], Songdogs, unpaginated reference. All subsequent references to this novel will be made in parentheses within the text as (SD). 29. Wall Wall, Eamonn. 2000. "Winds Blowing from a Million Directions". In New Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora, Edited by: Fanning, Charles. 281-88. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. [Google Scholar], 'Winds Blowing from a Million Directions', 283. 30. Cited in Dow Adams Dow Adams, Timothy. 1994. Introduction: Life Writing and Light Writing; Autobiography and Photography. Modern Fiction Studies, 40(3): 459-92. [Google Scholar], 'Introduction', 459. 31. Turner Turner, Victor W. 1986. "Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience". In The Anthropology of Experience, Edited by: Turner, Victor W. and Bruner, Edward M. 33-44. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar], 'Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama', 41. 32. Kiberd Kiberd, Declan. 1996. White Skins, Black Masks? Celticism and Negritude. Eire-Ireland, 31(1/2) [Google Scholar], 'White Skins, Black Masks?', 173. 33. Brown Brown, James S. 1997. Things Not Meant to Heal: Irish "National Allegory" in Doyle, McCabe and McCann. Nua: Studies in Contemporary Irish Writing, 1(1) [Google Scholar], 'Things Not Meant to Heal', 33. 34. Ashley Ashley, Kathleen M. 1990. "Introduction". In Victor Turner and the Construction of Cultural Criticism: Between Literature and Anthropology, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. [Google Scholar], 'Introduction', xviii. 35. Sinfield Sinfield, Alan. 1989. Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. [Google Scholar], Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain, 24-5. 36. Bhabha Bhabha, Homi K. 1993. The Location of Culture, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar], The Location of Culture, 9. 37. Bhabha, cited in Chambers, Migrancy, Culture, Identity, 14. 38. Rushdie Rushdie, Salman. 1991. "Imaginary Homelands". In Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism: 1981-1991, London: Granta. [Google Scholar], 'Imaginary Homelands', 10. 39. Hall Hall, Stuart. 1987. "Minimal Selves". In Identity: The Real Me. Post-modernism and the Question of Identity, Edited by: Appiganesi, Lisa. London: ICA. ICA Documents 6 [Google Scholar], 'Minimal Selves', 44. 40. McCann McCannColum. 'There Goes Colum McCann, Telling his Bonfire Stories Again - An Interview with Colum McCann'. http://www.powells.com/authors/mccann.html [Google Scholar], 'There Goes Colum McCann, Telling his Bonfire Stories Again

Aesthetics · Art · Identity (music · Irish · Liminality · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Reading (process · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · History · Philosophy · Religious Tourism and Spaces

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