Paratactic Narrative Mode and Taxonomic Conundrum of a Postmodern Verse Novel: Reading from Bernardine Evaristo’s Lara

ABSTRACT

Verse novel genre is fast becoming a literary form through which writers express their ingenuities to produce texts having a tapestry of prosaic and poetic elements. Considering its unique structure and form, verse novel can be described as a paradigm of postmodernism that subverts or sacrifices normativity for esthetics and automaticity in narratology. The effect of this subversion is the creation of postmodern verse novels, and one area where the novels challenge conventional literature is in the use of paratactic narrative technique. The technique facilitates a juxtaposition of clausal or sentential elements with or without conjuncts, thereby enabling the production of spontaneous, conversational, rhythmic, and enjambed prose. Bernardine Evaristo, like many other postmodern writers, often employs this technique prominently. Her text, Lara, uses paratactic narrative mode in the narration of a chain of histories spanning three continents and many generations. This article, therefore, examines the signification of paratactic narrative technique and other postmodern models in Lara. The importance of the mode in textual exegesis is considered, while the article argues that parataxis yields plausible hermeneutics because of its reductionism. The approach offers a contrapuntal reading of phrasal, clausal, or sentential constituents which can begin a reductionist and textual interpretative process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/vcrt.

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. In a bid to portray the literary mode as an amalgam of the three genres of literature, it is important to note that critics have posited that verse novels sometimes contain elements of drama, even though these elements are latent and are left for readers to infer. Jeri Kroll and Leslie Jacobson, for example, see Kroll’s poetry novel, Vanishing Point, as a performance piece, submitting that every verse novel is suitable for adaptation. See “The Verse Novel as Musical Drama: Vanishing Point as Case Study.” New Writing: The Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing. 14.1(2017): 47–66. Also, in her interview with Evaristo, Concepción de León points out that Evaristo’s latest award-winning book, Girl, Woman, Other, “was written in poetry and prose but also seemed to have some elements of playwriting”. See “Booker Prize Winner ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ Is Coming to America”, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/books/bernardine-evaristo-girl-woman-other-booker-prize.html.

2. Some of the writers include: Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust (1997), Witness (2001); Nikki Grimmes’ Dark Sons (2005); Ellen Hopkins’ Burned (2006), Glass (2007), Fallout (2010); Ronald Koertge’s Lies (2012), Knives and Girls in Red Dresses (2012).

3. Constance Hale argues that parataxis “might use punctuation – commas, semi-colons, full stops – to force […] juxtaposition [of phrases and clauses]. […] it might also run one idea into another by using ands to smooth the jump from one autonomous thought to the next.”

4. See Karen McCarthy’s interview with Bernadine Evaristo.

5. As above.

6. It is her latest fuse fiction. The novel won the 2019 Booker Prize, thus making Bernadine Evaristo the first black woman to win the literary award. The award was given for the first time to Evaristo and Margaret Atwood simultaneously.

7. See https://fivedials.com/REPORTAGE/MY-FATHERS-HOUSE/for more information. Italics original.

8. This term is cited in Yai Babalola’s article which is “an apparent reference to the trans-Atlantic slave trade” (Adeniyi 12).

9. See: Daryl Sharp’s Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms & Concepts, www.innercitybooks.net/pdf/books/junglexicon.pdf.

10. Hogue, for instance, identifies two types of parataxis: asyndetic (a paratactic construction without any coordinating conjunctions) and syndetic (parataxis with conjunctions). Polysyndetic parataxis (a paratactic construction overburdened with conjunctions, especially the use of and) is probably another type. Parataxis is the opposite of hypotaxis. The latter is another grammatical category used to indicate a construction with syntactic subordination of one clause to another in order to privilege or separate important parts of a sentence from the less important parts (Baldick 119).

11. See Valparaiso Poetry Review.

12. See Chelsea Hogue’s “Parataxis”.

13. See Chelsea Hogue’s article.

14. As above.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emmanuel Adeniyi

Emmanuel Adeniyi currently teaches at the Department of English and Literary Studies, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria. He is a fellow of Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, Germany as well as World Journalism Institute (WJI), New York, USA. His research interest covers diaspora/migration studies, literary theory and criticism, eco-criticism, African literature, transcultural studies, literary stylistics, film studies, intersection between music and literature, among others.