Reading Landscape in American Literature: The Outside in the Fic ...

place within the novel and narrative, for this landscape of estrangement exists outside this specific location, a location that nonetheless serves as a double or folded site for/of a landscape of estrangement. This means the novel is an obituary, which is itself a description of nonspecific scenes from film (s)—acting as a novel chapter—that contains the seed for a concept. In other words, this excerpt performs or enacts a landscape of estrangement while at the same time providing its name, which nonetheless must have existed before this event.

A Concept, Not a Place

Given that Rey Robles’ landscapes are defined by a place—and more than likely a geographic place—where a character has an experience and makes decisions, I must distinguish more clearly between the phrase landscapes of estrangement as found in Rey Robles’ obituary and the concept I am proposing. The phrase landscape of estrangement can be generally understood in two ways. One way foregrounds the word estrangement, as in landscapes of estrangement. With this understanding, one is dealing with various landscapes (audio, visual, textual…) that produce some form of estrangement. Later, I will address this type of landscape in greater depth by turning to Lyotard’s conception of absolute estrangement. When one talks about a landscape of estrangement in this way, one is referring primarily to this production and how the various landscapes accomplish this production. Another way is to foreground the word landscape, as in landscape of estrangement. Here, one is primarily describing the topology of the concept of estrangement: What does estrangement look like? What are its conceptual contours?

My proposal, however, makes landscape(s) of estrangement a concept, not a description of a production or topology. First and foremost, a landscape of estrangement is not to be confused with an actual landscape or any representation—textual or graphic—thereof. A landscape of estrangement is not a literary description of a scene outside the text. One must not even think that the author has anything intentional to do with the creation of these landscapes; that is, the author has not intentionally set