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Naming the Bones: Bodies of Knowledge in Contemporary Fiction
- MFS Modern Fiction Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 52, Number 1, Spring 2006
- pp. 121-142
- 10.1353/mfs.2006.0029
- Article
- Additional Information
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Does fiction function as archive or as repertoire? Diana Taylor's distinction between these two modes of memory fails to fully explore fictional attempts to capture a repertoire of performance within the archival page, while Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Janet Frame's The Carpathians, and Jose Saramago's All the Names posit the novel as a site where repertoires of embodied knowledge can be captured within the literary archive, producing memory as a powerful presence by interring its mediated images within the silent page. A comparison of these novels suggests the richly paradoxical relationships among fiction, cultural performance, and memory.