Reading for Distance

Form, Memory, and Space in Contemporary Novels of Migration

Abstract

This essay proposes a reading ‘posture’ for fictions of migration that focuses on the concept of distance. By ‘posture,’ I mean an awareness of representations and uses of distance, in both form and content, through which the reader will gain a different perspective on socio-political and ethical questions emerging in fictions of migration. After an overview of approaches to the meanings of distance through philosophical, narratological, and mobility studies, I examine distance in contemporary novels of migration. This analysis considers representations of digital and surveillance technologies and reflects on their ability to “compress” distances. It also deals with distance as a temporal concept affecting memories. Two case studies are examined by paying attention to the role of distance in their formal and thematic characteristics. Exit West compresses the distance between countries and problematizes our understanding of borders and states through the literary device of the portals. The autodiegetic narrator in Open City explicitly and often lingers on distance and his understanding of it. As a character he chooses to put distance between himself and his home country, between his past and his present life. As a consequence, distance between the character-narrator and the reader is created and remains unresolved.