'Geen hart kan kloppen in twee oorden tegelijk'. Hybriditeit in Paravion: 'othering' in een postmodern perspectief.

Paravion, a novel by the Dutch Moroccan writer Hafid Bouazza, was often linked to the Dutch public debate about the multicultural society in which Bouazza himself warned people for the dangers of Islam. With that in mind, people read Paravion as a novel about the ‘is-sues’ concerning the Moroccan and the Dutch people. However, this reducing reading dis-regards ambivalent elements in the novel itself and comes to a simplistic conclusion. In Paravion realistic elements are combined with obvious fantastic elements and ‘reality’ is presented in a specific way. More so, the artificial line between reality and fiction becomes blurred and often evaporates, which means that it is very complex to link the ‘novel-reality’ to our own reality, something that previous reading tended to do. In my research I analyzed ‘othering’ between the ‘Moreanen’ and ‘Paravionners’ with regard to perspective and focalization. I found that ‘othering’ becomes a hybrid process in which both the Moreaan and the...Show moreParavion, a novel by the Dutch Moroccan writer Hafid Bouazza, was often linked to the Dutch public debate about the multicultural society in which Bouazza himself warned people for the dangers of Islam. With that in mind, people read Paravion as a novel about the ‘is-sues’ concerning the Moroccan and the Dutch people. However, this reducing reading dis-regards ambivalent elements in the novel itself and comes to a simplistic conclusion. In Paravion realistic elements are combined with obvious fantastic elements and ‘reality’ is presented in a specific way. More so, the artificial line between reality and fiction becomes blurred and often evaporates, which means that it is very complex to link the ‘novel-reality’ to our own reality, something that previous reading tended to do. In my research I analyzed ‘othering’ between the ‘Moreanen’ and ‘Paravionners’ with regard to perspective and focalization. I found that ‘othering’ becomes a hybrid process in which both the Moreaan and the Paravionner are Self and Other, depending on who focalizes or who narrates. I linked this ‘hybrid othering’ to the specific novel-reality in which reality and fiction are closely related. I argue that this hybrid ‘othering’ in which the difference between Self and Other becomes vague and ubearable has everything to do with a very important theme of the novel: the hybridization of the antithesis Self-Other. Another important question has to do with the value of representation in a postmodern novel where reality and fiction are intertwined and often impossible to separate. What is the value of certain representations when they are explicitly presented as fake? And what ‘good’ are ambivalent and contradicting representations that are not easy to link to our own (concept of) reality? Those questions come from the idea that representations, or even a whole novel, are only relevant when they can be related to the ‘real world’ and are in general mimetic. But even if representations are ambiguous and proposed as fake they are still inevitably tied to our reality. Not because they mimic that reality or attempt to recreate it, but because they ask us questions about our own concepts of reality and fiction.Show less

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'Geen hart kan kloppen in twee oorden tegelijk'. Hybriditeit in Paravion: 'othering' in een postmodern perspectief.