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

is that unlike events, landscapes of estrangement emerge primarily in a scene of fabulation; or, in other words, landscapes of estrangement are composed of narrated events. (Although I would like to suggest that landscapes of estrangement are, in this case, literary phenomena, this qualification must not be understood to mean a thing in itself apperceived by a particularly perspicacious reader.) Recalling the Introduction, I have chosen The Body Artist for the (oxymoronic) density of this landscape throughout its pages (where it is and is not). In order to fully explore landscapes of estrangement, then, I read the novella—and the accompanying texts as well—on the diegetic, extradiegetic, and what I call superdiegetic level.

Landscape and the Outside

Above and before all else, a landscape of estrangement emerges through a relation to the Outside. That is to say, a force of the Outside animates the landscape of estrangement. I must, however, distinguish between two kinds of outside. In commonsense terms, one might think of the outside as the outside of the inside; that is to say, the outside exists in a relational (geometric) position vis-à-vis the inside. With this conception, one could imagine the inside of a house and its outside, which of course inevitably includes other insides/outsides. The outside of the house is conversely the inside of, say, the yard or the sidewalk. Even more grossly, one might think of the outside as that which is not within an enclosed space, a space demarcated by walls, windows, doors—in other words, the out-of-doors or the great outdoors. Movement from inside to outside and vice versa contains its own logic. For example, in using the common phrase “Go outside and play,” one invokes a space released from both the confines of architectural space and regulated conduct (of course, architects constantly play with one’s fixed ideas of inside/outside). “Do whatever you want; just do it outside.” Or, conversely, “Don’t you be bringing that in here!” Congruent with this conception of the outside is the idea that one conducts one’s modern life on the inside. Animals live outside; the cavemen lived outside