Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature

Cacaphonies explores why there is so much fecal matter in literary works that matter, arguing that it is a figure of radical equality and a reflection on literature itself. It follows the fecal through line in works by Céline, Beckett, Genet, Sartre, Duras, and Gary, and the contemporary authors Anne Garréta and Daniel Pennac, showing that shit remains present in modern and contemporary French literature. It reveals the aesthetic, political, and ethical potential of shit and its capacity to transform literature and life.

Format: Hardback
Length: 264 pages
Publication date: 12 April 2022
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Cacaphonies is a groundbreaking exploration of the significance of fecal matter in literary works, challenging the long-standing neglect of its role in the twentieth- and twenty-first-century French canon. Through meticulous close readings of key authors, including Céline, Beckett, Genet, Sartre, Duras, and Gary, as well as contemporary authors Anne Garréta and Daniel Pennac, Annabel L. Kim argues for feces as a figure of radical equality, both a literary object and a reflection on literature itself. She demonstrates that shit, far from disappearing from the canon after the early modern period, remains present in modern and contemporary French literature, expressing a call to democratize literature and make it accessible to all. Kim also attends to the presence of shit in this prized element of French identity, treating it as a continually uttered desire to manifest the universality France aspires to but fails to realize.

In shit, Kim finds a concrete universalism that transcends bodies, disregarding embodied differences. Cacaphonies serves as a reminder that literature and the ideas it contains cannot be separated from the corporeal envelopes that create and receive them. By revealing the aesthetic, political, and ethical potential of shit, as well as its capacity to transform literature and life, Cacaphonies offers a fresh perspective on the importance of this often overlooked aspect of literary studies.

Dimension: 216 x 140 x 38 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517910877