Dialogism is a very strong element in metafictional novels. It distinguishes such novels from conventional novels by the use of language which cuts across fictional reality. Going beyond the boundaries of fiction, dialogism tries to establish a reality of facts in fiction. If these facts directly come from history, such novels are called historiographic metafictional novels. After the Bhaktin novel’s dialogic properties have undergone great changes. This paper takes a look at Wayne Johnston’s The Colony of Unrequited Dreams in order to examine the use of dialogism in it. Before that a brief reference to dialogism is imperative.
Metafictional novels try to cross the fictional boundaries and embrace every other possible area if the facts derived from such sources can enrich them. Therefore, they take events and ideas from memoirs, journals, histories, legal records, diaries, journalism, etc. The result is that the novel gets a variety of speakers representing different areas of human activities. The conflicting languages and voices thus meeting in the novel add an element of truth to fiction. In metafictional novels, whatever is created is also criticized. Breaking all boundaries, narration tends to move from interpretation to deconstruction. The world has become more complicated and insecure. The novel, therefore, needs a matching way of representing it.
If Wayne Johnston’s novel is viewed in this light, it can be seen that it has all the qualities of historiographic metafiction. The central character in The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is Joe Smallwood, the first Prime Minister of Newfoundland. His fictional friend, Sheilagh Fielding, is a newspaper columnist with a keen taste for satire. They meet as small school children and become lifelong friends. Her columns and personal diaries are filled with the account of Smallwood. There cannot be a better person, Johnston knows, who can represent the aspirations of Newfoundland than Smallwood. He is the champion of the poor and the working class. Sir Richard Squire tells Smallwood that he is “not an artist, you’re not a scientist, you’re not an intellectual. All that’s left to you is politics” [p. 270].
Through Smallwood, the greatest historical figure of Newfoundland, Johnston is able to achieve the essential requirement for writing his metafiction. The novel informs the reader about Smallwood and the novel gets information continually from historical sources. It also gets a chance to challenge some of the facts given by the historians. In the process of it, some events are even recast. Pained with a sense of his own insignificance, Joe says, “It seemed to me that unless I did something that historians thought was worth recording, it would be as if I had never lived, that all the histories in the world together formed one book, not to warrant inclusion in which was to have wasted one’s life” [p. 454]. Thus, a dreamlike situation is created in the novel between fact and fiction. The net result is that a believable and vibrant Newfoundland emerges from the novel. This is precisely what can be achieved with dialogism.
Wayne Johnston, like John Fowls in his French Lieutenant’s Woman, has succeeded in using metafictional narrative techniques. Each chapter in Johnston’s novel carries something from real historical works like A History of Newfoundland by D. W. Browse. He varies his style as he moves from Smallwood to Fielding, making the narration highly realistic. The history part of the novel looks more fictional than the fictional part of the novel.
Reference
Johnston, Wayne. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Canada: Anchor books, 1999.