Abstract
In Michel Faber’s 1996 story, ‘Fish’, we are presented with a seemingly ‘surreal’ and ‘futuristic world’ (www.michelfaber.com) in which marine animals swim through the air and human civilisation has all but collapsed. As such, we might expect ‘Fish’ to be an example of what is sometimes referred to as non-mimetic fiction – i.e. a story from a genre such as fantasy and science fiction which is not intended to be a representation (or mimesis) of ‘ordinary’ reality. However, realism can be a deceptively elusive term (see, for example, Terry Eagleton’s LRB review of the 2003 reprint of Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis), and on closer inspection ‘Fish’ appears to bring into question our expectations of the ordinary or normal. Janet, the adult protagonist and narrative point of view in the story, remembers a time before, and is thus in an analogous position to that of the reader (i.e. she is trying to make sense of a world in which sense seemingly no longer applies). Janet’s daughter, Kif Kif, on the other hand, knows no other world: for her, the world of ‘Fish’ is all there has ever been. While this might indicate that ‘Fish’ is located in the genre of science fiction, two small details in the story suggest that there is something else going on as well. The first of these is the revelation at the end of the story that Kif Kif finds the fish ‘amazing’ and that her ‘nightmares [are] about other stuff’. Why doesn’t Kif Kif have nightmares about the fish? The second is Kif Kif’s name: ‘kif’ (‘the same’) is Algerian in origin, and it has passed into common usage in France via the phrase ‘c’est kif-kif’ – ‘it’s all the same’, ‘it doesn’t make any difference’. Why is she called Kif Kif? And what else is the story not telling us, and why? This paper will look into these questions to consider the extent to which ‘Fish’ appears to be both operating within but also working against (or ‘defying’) the genre of ‘science fiction’.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Michel Faber: Critical Essays |
Subtitle of host publication | Contemporary Writers: Critical Essays No. 9 |
Editors | Kristin Lindfield-Ott, Rebecca Langworthy, Jim MacPherson |
Place of Publication | Canterbury |
Publisher | Gylphi |
Chapter | 4 |
Pages | 65-75 |
Number of pages | 11 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 978-1-78024-098-5 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-1-78024-096-1 |
Publication status | Published - 8 Dec 2020 |
Publication series
Name | Gylphi Contemporary Writers: Critical Essays |
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Ian Blyth
- UHI Inverness - Lecturer in English/Literature
- Literature
- Centre for Living Sustainability
Person: Academic - Research and Teaching or Research only