Hipatia Argüero Mendoza

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Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Ian McEwan’s
Atonement are novels that do not share many characteristics. The first is a magical
realism novel constructed by a series of stories revolving around a main character. The
second is a lineal story that lacks fantasy and deals with reality in a very crude way. The
third is divided into three parts: prewar, war and postwar, and is built as a sort of
autobiographical fiction seen through the perspective of several characters.
These works of fiction are different in almost every detail; they do not have a similar
topic and the characters are as far from one another as could be imaginable, separated
by time, context, geography, and even the exercise of fiction within fiction.
The differences are easily observed, but the similarities lie behind a thick layer of
intertextuality: they are related to each other by references to a common literary past.
They also achieve a deep dive into human nature and the things that, naturally, make
humans inhuman.
Literature has a curious habit of constantly paying homage to itself. It is impossible to
write now without the notion of what has already been written. Literature is referential;
it is a form of imitation of life, or more accurately, representation. Tradition cannot be
deleted from this process and it is of vital importance when reading a literary text to
know, or at least guess, that it possesses a historical background so vast it would be
futile to claim complete originality. It is what T.S. Elliot writes about in his essay
“Tradition and the Individual Talent”:
“The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his
own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of
the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of
the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence
and composes a simultaneous order.”
The only debatable matter in the fragment above is the notion of literature of Europe,
which of course contains an overwhelming amount of literary milestones, but it seems
to be somewhat negligent regarding non-European works which are just as valuable and
important sources of tradition. Not taking Elliot’s eurocentrism into account, everything
else is undeniably true: there is a historical sense within literary creation. This sense of
“feeling the whole of literature” is manifested in Carter’s, McEwan’s and Coetzee’s
novels through a complex web of intertextuality.
There is a literary reference that proves to be particularly interesting in both Disgrace
and Nights at the Circus. Byron’s poem “So We’ll Go No More A-roving” is sung by
Mignon, the frail girl with the tragic past and by David Lurie, a romantic whose life
crumbles to pieces forcing him to acknowledge the end of his roving days. Byron’s
poem is heartbreaking, it is a song of goodbye for a love that has been given up, though
not in the traditional sense, but through a cold perspective that knows and understands
that the heart must indeed rest and that love simply wears out.
The meaning of this romantic poem is completely opposite in both novels: Coetzee’s
main character, David Lurie, specializes in romantic literature and admires Wordsworth
and Byron, constantly quoting the first and working on the life of the second.
They all died young. Or dried up. Or went mad and were locked
away. But Italy wasn’t where Byron died. He died in Greece. He
went to Italy to escape a scandal, and settled there. Settled down.
Had the last big love-affair of his life. Italy was a popular
destination for the English in those days. They believed the Italians
were still in touch with their natures. Less hemmed by convention,
more passionate. (15)
It is interesting that this character is trying to write about Byron’s escape to Italy to
avoid scandal during his own escape from his own scandal. The farm on the Eastern
Cape is Lurie’s Italy; Bev Shaw is his last love –not great, nor actually love-. David
Lurie’s life somehow mimics the chapter of Byron’s life he is trying to transform into
an operetta. The result is tragically comical, for the words in which he describes Italy
could be applied to the Eastern Cape. Both David Lurie and Lucy, his daughter, are
aware that the farm is located in a part of South Africa where their Western ways are
not the common ideals. The people surrounding Lucy’s farm are in touch with their
nature and less hemmed by the conventions acquired in city life. Country life proves to
be more passionate and appears to be savage, but it is not exactly that, just as Italians
were believed to be more passionate, as if passion were a matter of nationality. What is
misunderstood for savageness consists mainly of a different set of laws and different
means to survive, perhaps crueler, but certainly not savage: for savageness implies lack
of rationality and nothing could have been more rational than the attack on Lucy’s
farm. It was a perfectly calculated plan to, either get rid of her, or take over her land.
Disgrace’s hero, then, is an expert on Byron. Byronic references are more than justified
in this novel. “So We’ll Go No More A-roving” is a lament that gets in the middle of
Lurie’s sentences, it is intentionally signifying the utter sadness of the situation, the
sudden ending of a life under control. It is when he thinks the lines of this poem that he
surrenders and finally accepts that they have lost, and there is nothing he can say to
Lucy change what has happened.

In Carter’s novel Byron’s poem is sung by Mignon, a frail girl with a tortured past, who
does not understand English. She simply sings a song she knows by heart. The poem is
the soundtrack to her personal history, her tragedy. Mignon’s song is also signifying an
abrupt ending, but in this case, it is not the end of prosperity, but of abuse. Walser, a
journalist that became a clown, is moved mainly by the reasserted fact that she does not
understand her own song. The stanzas of the poem precede a part of Mignon’s past and
link the story to the present in which she is literally and metaphorically naked, her soul
exposed for us to judge and pity. The words seem to matter less when uttered by
ignorant lips; they do not actually mean anything to the girl who sings with a voice as
tattered and frail as her body. The meaning of Byron’s lines change dramatically from
one character to another, the exact same words, the exact same poem, but different
realities to represent: David Lurie’s world crumbling down and Mignon’s crumbled
world being slowly picked up from the ground.

When reading these novels there is one thing for certain: sex is a problem. It could not
be stated more clearly than in the first line of Coetzee’s Disgrace in which the narrative
voice that focuses in David Lurie, a college professor of 52, confesses to be proud of
having solved the sex problem rather well. It can also be found in Nights at the Circus,
where the main character Fevvers, a woman only too human to be considered a goddess,
is constantly harassed without actually being touched (or so she claims all throughout
the novel) and goes through a series of events related to sex and the misfortunes it
brings. Finally, sex is the trigger of Briony’s never ending search for atonement in
McEwan’s novel. Even though sex is referred to as something desirable, it becomes a
synonym for tragedy.
The case of Disgrace is probably the most extreme, being a novel that deals with rape
and its social consequences. David Lurie, a respected professor technically does not
rape one of his students. He goes through a legal process that dances around the fact that
he abused his power and practically forced someone to have sex with him, and
concentrates in what a story like that can do to the image of the school. The
consequences, of course, are only to prevent scandal but do not take the victim into
consideration. As a reader it is difficult to judge the actions of David Lurie; the story is
narrated in an extremely focalized third person that may just as well be first person, for
it knows what the main character is thinking at all times and ignores the feelings and
thoughts of the rest of the characters. It is not possible to judge David Lurie’s abuse of
power under the same