The Contemporary British Novel and Conspiracy Theories: Hinges, Certainty, and Trust in Narrative Fiction

This thesis is an epistemic and narratological investigation of literary representations of conspiracy theories as they appear in contemporary British fiction. Proposing an epistemic spectrum of conspiracy theories from the reasonable to the extreme, and focusing upon the centre of this spectrum, this thesis seeks to bring to literary representations of conspiracy theory a rigorous literary-critical method by which to assess degrees of plausibility. In so seeking to combine epistemic assessment with the analysis of narrative style, this thesis makes use of the late philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein (*On Certainty*, 1969), and his understanding of grammar as the rules underlying the ordinary use of language. It aims to demonstrate how an attention to the grammatical nature of literary narrative can shed light upon the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate conspiracy theories as they appear in literary texts. Making use of Wittgenstein’s concept of the ‘hinge’ – a belief that must stand certain for assessments of knowledge to be made, and that is therefore beyond doubt – this thesis argues that the assessment of conspiracy theories within literary narratives entails both an underlying degree of trust, and an evaluation of the grounds and contexts of suspicion. Through this evaluation of sense-making, possible conspiratorial narrative trajectories can be judged to be nonsensical, exceeding the limits of reasonability, or legitimate. The first chapter reads Ian McEwan’s *Saturday* (2005) as a demonstration of the inadequacy of neuroscientific reductionism both for an understanding of conspiracy theories surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and for an understanding of the function of narrative focalization. The second chapter reads Zadie Smith’s *Swing Time* (2016) as illustrating that judging a conspiracy theory to possess fictionality is a learnt skill, dependent upon trust, and that the exercising of this judgement reflects certainties that are consistent across the novel’s temporal structure. The third chapter assesses the role of hinges in judgements of a narrator’s unreliability regarding conspiracy theories, through a reading of Hari Kunzru’s novel, *Red Pill* (2020). The fourth chapter explores the relationship between hinges and embodiment, through a reading of Tom McCarthy’s *The Making of Incarnation* (2021) and its negotiation of the conspiracism that can result from the attempt to represent complex systems. The fifth chapter takes David Mitchell’s oeuvre to date (1999-2020) as a ‘macronovel’, while querying critical assessments of its diegetic unity by demonstrating the manner in which various conspiracy plots disrupt hinges, functioning as a form of metalepsis that signals its illegitimacy through humour.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Jamieson, Rhona

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dillon, Sarah

• English Literature

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/4c46e910-f57b-4eca-ba9d-5fa4fa1391bd/download
• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.111933

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/373577