by
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
In spite of the narrative structure in Olivia Rana's novel "Black beach"(1), she celebrated deep simulacrums, hidden figural actors and the connection between collective unconsciousness and the cognitive development of the main character of the novel. Hence, we can find some avant garde and postmodern elements in this probabilistic distance behind the structure of events and characters in the novel, that Olivia Rana's narrator presented two discordant cognitive worlds about believing the huldufolk old tale. On the other hand, we discovered a hidden connection between human world and the other metaphoric, effective life of huldufolk characters, like Palina and her mystic imagined body. So, Olivia gave us an uncertain circular, epistemological discourse about the renewing of ancient tale in our civil moment or in some points of the future.
*Beyond The Determined Events and Characters:
In his table about the differences between modernism and postmodernism, Ihab Hassan implied to the discordance between synthesis in modernism and antithesis in postmodernism. Additionally, he put presence in modern field and absence in postmodern field.(2). So, if we meditate Olivia Rana's novel, we will notice the spectral presence and the absent, rhetoric impact of the huldufolk characters in the cognition of the father, some mystic old familiar events and in mother's consciousness and unconsciousness.
Moreover, the narrative discourse of the novel asserted a new undetermined subjectivity of huldufolk characters, like Palina who was formed as a hidden, spectral herder of the mother. On the other hand, Palina had an individual voice and identity which was linked to the old tale and the folk, alive world.
*The Deconstructive Narration:
Ihab Hassan also referred, in his table, to the creation in modernism and deconstruction in postmodernism.(3). And if we read the transformations and transferences in Olivia Rana's novel deeply, we can notice an alternative, narrative interaction between the phenomenal world and the real world, therefore, the novel confirmed the differ significations of reality and imaginary world in the same time.
*The Return to The Old, Spectral Voices:
In his book "Archive Fever, A Freudian Impression", Jacques Derrida referred to the complex operation of speaking to phantoms, that he linked the hyper view of Horatio in Shakespeare's Hamlet and the new speaking to Freud's ghosts and phantoms after his death. (4). So, the spectral voice has a poetic, special power in consciousness and unconsciousness. Olivia Rana also referred to the spectral image of Palina and her brothers behind physical reality, and she put her reader in a figural presence and conversations with the spectral huldufolk characters. Therefore, we can return to the first, metaphoric moment when Horatio saw the ghost. So, Olivia Rana confirmed this creative moment in a new, cognitive perspective of symmetrical worlds.
*Future and Unconscious Signs:
In his book "The Postmodern Condition", Jean Francois Lyotard implied to the creative presence of characters and events which came after their author in postmodern works. (5). So, these works go beyond the central structures of personality and event. Above all, in Olivia Rana's Black Beach, we noticed the creative adventure of the cognition of the becoming of huldufolk signs, their hidden, poetic spaces between the tale and the modern society and their differ future in unconscious worlds after reading the book. Therefore, they have a poetic, special life in the text and behind the text.
*Recreating The Tales of The Past in Another Context:
In her book "A Poetic of Postmodernism", Linda Hutcheon implied to that postmodern architects and artists recreate the signs of the past in new viewpoints ironically in other poetic contexts. (6). Hence, we can read these contiguous signs in many contexts behind the basic structure of time. Therefore, we can see the hidden, old past of huldufolk tale in the same time with various and different ways of thinking. We also can see them as alive singes in our moment and in novel family history, and they also reminded me of the imaginary museum of Andre Malraux in his unique book "The Voices of Silence". Furthermore, Olivia Rana returned to the past to make a new avant garde poetic life in the modern society and its deep layers of imagined tales and mystic phenomenal signs.
Finally, I support Olivia Rana's Black Beach as a one of my best books in this year, due to its spectral signs and its multiple ways of cognition.
*References:
(1) Read, Olivia Rana, Black Beach, Olivia Rana, 2020
Amazon books link at:
(2) Read, Ihab Hassan, Toward a Concept of Postmodernism, in A Postmodern Reader, Edited by Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon, State University of New York Press, 1993, p. 280 and 281.
(3) Read, Ibid, p. 280.
(4) Read, Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever, A Freudian Impression, Translated by: Eric Prenowitz , The University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. 38 and 39.
(5) Read, Jean Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, A Report of Knowledge, Translated by: Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Foreword by Fredric Jameson, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984, p. 81.
(6) Read, Linda Hutcheon, A poetics of Postmodernism, History, Theory, Fiction, Routledge, USA and Canada, 2003, p.34.
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
Art Critic
Literary Critic
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