The Christian Parody in Sara Paretsky's Ghost Country
2008; Mythopoeic Society; Volume: 26; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0146-9339
Autores Tópico(s)American Literature and Culture
ResumoSARA PARETSKY IS KNOWN mainly for her novels about a Chicago private detective named V.I. (Victoria Iphigenia) Warshawski. Warshawski, as narrator of her adventures, comments at one point: Neither of my parents had been religious. My Italian mother was half Jewish, my father Polish, from a long line of skeptics. They'd decided not to inflict any faith on me, although my mother always baked me little orecchi d'Aman at Purim. (Deadlock, Ch 1) (1) More specifically, her maternal grandfather was Jewish and her maternal grandmother was a Jewish convert (Grace Notes, sec. 2); this would not make Warshawski a Jew by Orthodox standards, but it would by Reform standards-not that she is a practicing Jew, anyway. She has many Catholic relatives on her father's side (e.g., Killing Orders, Ch. 1, and Deadlock, Ch. 1). In another passage, Warshawski refers to herself as a heathen (Hard Time, Ch. 30). Finally, Warshawski at one point begins two consecutive sentences, If there really was a god [...] and If there is a god [...] (Blood Shot, Ch. 23). The second sounds agnostic; first, atheistic. Perhaps it is significant that, in standard authorial write-up in Contemporary Authors, Paretsky gives no religious affiliation for herself--but, in Total Recall (2001), dedication is a prayer to the (vii). (2) One curiosity of Paretsky's detective novels is that they have a series of allusions to other fictional detectives (Appendix). Even more curious is that fact that a detective mentioned in five of first six novels is Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey (mentioned just as Peter Wimsey). (Another character from Wimsey stories is mentioned in single novel of first six in which Wimsey is not mentioned.) The curiosity of these references is that Wimsey is hardly an example of private-eye tradition in which Paretsky is writing; he belongs to amateur-detective tradition. Further, references to Sayers's characters brings in, very indirectly, a Christian background. Of course, Wimsey himself is not a Christian (The Mind of Maker, Ch. 9), but his fictional universe is, in one major case, a Christian one--in The Nine Tailors (cf. Cawelti 119125; Christopher, Complexity). Sayers is, in addition, known as a Christian essayist, Christian dramatist, and a translator of Dante's Divine Comedy: these biographical aspects are not significant in Warshawski's references to Lord Peter, but they relate, in their indirect way, to two other references by Warshawski. One is to C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, after Warshawski has had her face cut in one novel: A torrent of images cascaded through my head--Sergio as a worm, me as evil witch in The Silver Chair turning into a worm, my terror in that little black room, and a nagging fear that my face would be permanently scarred. (Bitter Medicine, Ch. 8) Another reference to a Christian writer of same circle of Anglican friends appears when Warshawski visits a Chicago friary: A corridor ran at right angles to entrance. I crossed to it, my heels echoing in vaulted chamber, and looked doubtfully around. A scarred wooden desk had been stuck in a corner formed by entry hall and a stairwell. A thin young man in civvies [that is, not in a friar's robe] sat behind it reading The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams. He put it down reluctantly after I'd spoken several times. His face was extremely thin; he seemed to burn with a nervous asceticism, but perhaps he was merely hyperthyroid. At any rate, he directed me to prior's office in a hurried whisper, not waiting to see if I followed his directions before returning to book. (Killing Orders, Ch. 3; cf. Ch. 5) Whatever else these references to Sayers, Lewis, and Williams indicate, they suggest some knowledge of popular Christian literary culture of twentieth century on Paretsky's part. …
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