Counter-Narratives - John Keene

In an LRB review from 2005, Slavoj Zizek bemoaned the fact that counter-factual histories were the preserve of right-wing historians. The ‘What-If’ essay is generally dedicated to demonstrating how much better life would have been if radical events had not happened (for example the prospects for Russia in the Twentieth century had the October Revolution not occurred), or how much worse life would have been if events had taken a more progressive turn (ie if Al Gore had been President at the time of 9/11).

Maybe looking back to historical upheavals to bemoan the state of the present day is an activity with a particular appeal to conservatives, although anyone with any experience of left wing politics knows that re-fighting the battles of the past is by no means the preserve of reactionaries. Ultimately, this sort of speculative history is largely harmless, a fireside exercise for academics; but can its techniques be used in a positive sense?

In his new collection Counter-Narratives, John Keene uses some of the tropes of the ‘What-If’ history to provide a literary voice to the unheard actors in our historical narratives. By revisiting historical and cultural events, such as the American Revolution, the colonisation of South America, the adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and the milieu of the French Impressionists with a fresh narrative perspective, Keene widens our understanding of our shared past, particularly the experience of victims of colonialism and slavery. Counter-Narratives is something of a post-modernist project, and Keene employs various narrative styles, including the epistolary, reportage and stream of consciousness, interpolating documents and maps into the text; this multiplicity of voices and styles effectively reflects the chaos that our official histories attempt to shape into grand narratives.

Keene is particularly aware of the danger of assuming that social changes can be accurately signposted by legislation. He repeatedly draws attention to the hostility and discrimination faced even by free blacks in the Northern states of America during the mid-Nineteenth century. As in Robert Lowell’s poem For the Union Dead, Keene undercuts the traditional narrative of the Civil War which presents a dichotomy between pro-slavery South and emancipatory North. Keene is aware that of history's tendency to simplify complex situations into an easily-understandable binary; in his account of the counter-Reformation, for example, he introduces layers of complexity, showing the intersections of race, nationality and class which underlie the conflict between religious factions.

Aeronauts, one of the collection’s highlights, contrasts the scientific developments of the mid Nineteenth century with the ingrained racial discrimination which permeated society even where slavery was officially abolished. Just as striking is Rivers, which imagines Jim Watson meeting Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in their mid-Twenties. Sawyer, he finds, is studying law, while Huck has become an assistant foreman at a salvage company. The underlying prejudice of both is made explicit, especially in the portrayal of the self-centred and entitled Sawyer. For all the camaraderie of their past, Sawyer retains a level of prejudice against Watson, feeling entitled to presume upon his attention ('he ain't got no business that's more important than what we're doing, does he? Can't be likely, can it?'). In extremis, the story shows, friendship and shared history will take a back seat to defending privilege: Sawyer warns Watson against 'walking these streets like they belong to you...the time'll come when even the good people like me and Huck here have had enough'.

Keene also investigates the methods by which oppressed people navigate safely through society, through the use of shibboleths, or else through patronage: calling cards are used throughout the latter half of Counter-Narratives as tickets which allows blacks entry into white society, in certain circumstances, if they are vouched for by whites.

Counter-Narratives uses diverse narrative styles to explore a consistent theme, and some sections will connect more effectively with readers than others; as the historical distance separating us from the events described shrinks, the style becomes more explicitly literary than in earlier sections which appear more documentary. This is a deliberate decision on the author’s part, and is well-executed, but the real highlights come when the collection enters the Nineteenth Century. If I admired the first half, I was captivated by the second, and by the post-colonial stream of consciousness narrative The Prophet which closes Counter-Narratives. This is a highly intelligent, thoughtful and cohesive piece of work, which achieves its goal of disrupting the mainstream narratives which dominate American history, and opening a space for alternative voices.