چکیده:
The terrorism of obscurantism is one of the hallmarks of Don DeLillo’s The Names (1982)، distinguishing it as one of the «difficult writings» in his canon. Terrorism، however، is not confined to the novel’s poetics of writing، it constitutes، as the arch-motif of the novel، its politics as well. Relying on the Orientalist bulk of knowledge about the Orient، DeLillo، in this novel، inaugurates a Neo-orientalist trend in American postmodern fiction: generalizing the images of «Arab» terrorists to Iranians، paving the way for further Orientalist (mis)representations in future American fictions. DeLillo’s narrative، however، is by no means all-inclusive; rather، it is marked with some discursive gaps which destabilize the novel’s political claims on the «truth» of the terrorism under discussion. In this paper، first، through an intertextual reading، the novel’s ambiguous re-enactment of and departure from Orientalist discourse is explored، and then، it is argued that by making Iranians the objects of Orientalist representation، the writer expands the horizons of the discourse of terrorism. Besides، DeLillo’s anti-totalizing totalizational gesture in both undermining the Orientalist discourse and at the same time legitimizing it —what makes the novel thematically، or precisely saying politically، postmodern— is brought to light.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Relying on the Orientalist bulk of knowledge about the Orient, DeLillo, in this novel, inaugurates a Neo-orientalist trend in American postmodern fiction: generalizing the images of "Arab" terrorists to Iranians, paving the way for further Orientalist (mis)representations in future American fictions.
With The Names (1982) marking a new phase in his career, his exploration of the discourse of terrorism gains a broader scale to include international events taking place outside American borders (though in one way or another in direct connection with American foreign policies).
Inflected by the dominating discourses of the time, The Names ostensibly has recourse to Orientalist discourse in its (indirect) investigation of non-discursive events such as Iran’s Islamic Revolution and its aftermath Hostage Crisis, predominantly filtered through power-willed mediatized narratives.
In what follows, this ambiguous position vis-à-vis the discourse of Orientalism is studied in an attempt to see how The Names, as one of the early examples of "American terrorist novel"1 in Benjamin Kunkel’s (2005) words, ultimately complies with the dominant discourses of the society in which it is produced.
Rosenberg’s (2005) The Ezekiel Option, Christopher Bram’s (2006) Exiles in America, Tom Gabbay’s (2009) The Tehran Conviction, Stephen Coonts’ (2009) The Disciple, David Ignatius’ (2009) The Increment, and Dale Brown’s majority of post-9/11 novels such as Satan’s Tail (2005), Retribution (2007), Shadows of Steel (2008), and Shadow Command (2009), all adopt a similar position toward Iranians representing them through the lenses of Orientalist discourse.
The Names, as a pre-9/11 terrorist novel, both relies on and parts with the Orientalist discourse in its representation of the Orientals including Iranians.