The graveyard and the garden
Reading connectivities in Rana Dasgupta’s “The Changeling”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9002863 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Helle Schulz Bildsøe (University of Copenhagen), Ulla Rahbek (University of Copenhagen, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 190-206 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-28 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-9894 • E-ISSN: 1741-6442 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0021989416685756 |
| OpenAlex | W2581595126 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 5 |
In the novel Tokyo Cancelled (2005), Rana Dasgupta explores the contemporary age of globalization as a time of chaotic change. Tokyo Cancelled is composed as a story cycle of 13 tales. This article focuses on one of these tales in particular, “The Changeling”. “The Changeling” relates the tumultuous experiences of Bernard, who is a changeling and archetypal stranger in the pestilence-ridden city of contemporary Paris. The article explores the juxtaposition of systemic and organic networks as the central trope through which Dasgupta explores change and connectivities in a global twenty-first-century moment. We argue that the story presents a process of symbolic transformation whereby the national capital changes into a global city. This change signifies a shift from a national towards a planetary perspective. “The Changeling” comprises at least two different kinds of networks which converge and conflate into one overarching web that is the metropolis: there is a systemic network of control materialized in Montparnasse graveyard and an organic network out of control manifested in a community garden where people congregate to tell stories. Indeed, Dasgupta revisits Benjaminian storytelling as a global networking practice which, while locally contextualized in an impromptu garden in Paris, hints at an awareness of worldwide connectivity
Aesthetics · Art · Cosmopolitanism · Literature · Media studies · Mutiny · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Reading (process · Sociology · Storytelling · Trope (literature · History · Law · Walter Benjamin Studies Compilation
| Citations per year | 0.17 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2020 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |