Questions that are left unanswered, or open to debate, but demonstrate the potential to take up this scholarly research baton and continue studies in fictocriticism and other hybridised forms of writing, also relate to the potential of academic writing/research to be developed in a different (more engaging) manner (Barrett 2004; Kroll 2004; Nelson 2004; Brewster 2005; Arnold 2005). They are possible avenues for future research and innovation. Autoethnography, for instance, has been taking up an innovative methodological-pedagogical approach for itself for years (Ellis and Bochner 2000; Holt 2003; Canagarajah 2012; Méndez 2013; Anae 2014); Theses One and Two of this text contend that autoethnography and fictocriticism are cut from a similar methodological cloth.
Fortunately, some of these broader questions and theoretical concerns have begun to be addressed. In 2017, a thorough theoretical exploration into fictocriticism entitled Fictocritical Strategies: Subverting Textual Practices of Meaning, Other, and Self-Formation was published by Gerrit Haas. This occurred more or less during the final stages of my doctoral work. Hence, it has been both gratifying and validating to find a relatively recent work with a similar theoretical focus, despite fictocriticism often seeming dormant or veiled in the literary fringes of academia.
It is, therefore, at least necessary to summarise some of Haas’ goals and intentions and how they may or may not relate to this study. Haas calls for “a systemic conceptualisation of fictocriticism that can hope to capture its various historical strands as well as possible forms to come without stifling its subversive potential … a defining general pattern at work” (12).
What this book calls for is the (re)discovery and categorisation of distinct fictocritical innovations and/or traits. Put excruciatingly simply, Haas seeks to locate an overall theoretical pattern in fictocriticism, whilst my book aims to find some of its ‘new’ distinct patterns. Both Haas and myself observe, dissect and scrutinise the same literary form from two different angles: Haas from the macro, and myself from the micro.
Haas and I are in total agreement about fictocriticism being capable of more than “marginal relevance” (16), feminism’s antecedence in fictocriticism, and we are carefully considerate and respectful of our reliance on Flavell and Muecke’s research and writing in this area (12). Haas merely grinds at the ‘genre’ in a different way:
In many ways the precise connection between these two aspects of fictocriticism—between genre-subversion and marginal/ised speaking positions, between the text-discursive and the wider discursive, between the fictional and the ethical, theory and criticism—is the main subject of this thesis. (Haas 9)
It is necessary to reference Haas’ work, and where my own experiences and experiment(s) enter into the discussion or forefront of the debate surrounding fictocriticism. It is clear we must both be on the right track. Haas’ book is purely theoretical, whereas mine is about innovations, primarily based in response to my own creative works. Haas’ primary text sources for his study are vastly different (Haas 49-51). Also, due to the predominantly creative focus and field of this book, and the reliance of the theoretical work/theses to reflect back on the creative work/folios in a symbiotic way, I have experienced certain spatial limitations, or to put it more positively, my theoretical focus, methodology and process has had to be fine-tuned, tempered. Hence, this book’s predominant focus and/or expectant anticipation of innovative ‘technologies’ or “electric fictocriticism”, as coined by Simon Robb (100), entering the changing medium of reading, writing, communion and the reader-writer relationship in this field. Haas only alludes to this in passing in order to focus more greatly on the “wider discursive and cultural applications” (22) at hand.
Haas does actually propose a list of “textual markers” (30) for fictocriticism, and a reasonable, though pattered and mechanical “working definition” (59) of fictocriticism in his book, though he does not believe these “characteristics” are especially relevant or absolute due to their inconsistency “across the spectrum of fictocritical texts, which take a diverse range of experimental forms” (30). Thus, he does not offer distinct innovative markers either, which this book does. Hence, his working definition and “textual markers” fall short of actually defining the genre as it exists today. These markers can be considered relevant, particularly in relation to identifying and classifying my work.
The four main folios in this text are made up of fragments, stories, experiences and snapshots from my life, and placed or positioned into these four folios of specific interest as a working schema from the perspective of a Polish-Australian millennial between the ages of 25-30. The year each piece was constructed appear in parentheses beside their corresponding title to reflect the narrator/protagonist’s age at the time of construction, and generally all occur during the second decade of the twenty-first century. The significance of these four areas are that they are the factors that have most vividly made up my sense of an identity. These four areas relate to me, but also largely to the contemporary landscape of today’s zeitgeist, and are themes that appear in fictocriticism often (Muecke 2008; Raine 2009; Hancox and Muller 2011; Morgan 2012; Robb 2013).
Thesis One, “Examining the Fictocritical Value of Journeys: The Author Meanders”, is about journeys. This thesis, and the corresponding folio, questions if it is possible to innovate upon fictocriticism or if it is the ‘ultimate’ innovative genre, suggesting that there is a paradox between the theory surrounding fictocriticism, suggesting how ‘freeform’ it is, and how non-freeform it still seems to be due to its lack of theoretical boundaries. The theme of journeys is used as a strategy to convey the methodology of fictocriticism overall, as an untapped way of writing both personally and theoretically, with a unified and engaging double-voice. Attempts at pushing the threshold and parameters in differing experimental creative works advocate for what fictocriticism could be, and ask if it can be reinvented into something more stable, yet still evolve into a mode of writing that is engaging, identifiable and prominent within the academy.
In this section’s folio, the tropes of travel provide a critical vehicle, focusing on the restlessness of the creative self’s need to travel both physically and metaphysically, and look at the creative self’s experiences within different zones (locations, contexts, environments) with differing comfort levels. Most of these journeys occur within Australia, though some take place in Europe, South America and North America, but these locations are rarely made explicit within the narrative. The motif of the horizon is often used as a symbol for restlessness and the creative self’s constant need for motion and momentum. The fictocritical theory used in this thesis prominently features Stephen Muecke and Noel King (1991), Donna Maree Hancox and Vivienne Muller (2011) and Hamish Morgan’s paper “What Can Fictocriticism Do?” (2012). Philosophies and approaches from Roland Barthes’ Mythologies (1957), Roland Barthes (1975) and A Lover’s Discourse (1977) are considered too. Multiple-authored fictocritical works in The Space Between: Australian Women Writing Fictocriticism (1998) are explored, as well as unique proto-fictocritical texts like Mark Z. Danielewski’s postmodern and metafictive writing in House of Leaves (2000), Stephen Muecke’s Joe in the Andamans: And other Fictocritical Stories (2008) and Josephine Rowe’s semi-autobiographical Tarcutta Wake (2012).
Folio Two is about family. This folio provides a (manufactured) context for my ‘self’ from the perspective of a first-generation Polish-Australian male, against the backdrop of a rather nationalistic and/or ‘authentic’ Polish (and migrant) heritage, background and legacy. The creative sequences in this folio aim to delve more deeply and metaphorically/symbolically into these issues and concept(ion)s, in a much more detailed and vivid way than could be established through a purely rational critical narrative. It articulates ‘skewed’ traditional Polish (and migrant) views, beliefs and attitudes and the conflict(s) created in a multi-generational family, via a constructed ‘persona’ called Lou. This thesis aims to find innovation in the contextualisation of fictocriticism. Most notably, in its antecedence in postmodernism and “metafictional strategies” (Waugh 22), its autobiographical characteristics in memoirs (Gaita 1999), anecdotes or use of the first-person (Smith 1001-02) and storytelling narratives