BUILDING STYLES AND HESSIAN BAGS IN PETER CAREY’S ILLYWHACKER
BUILDING STYLES AND HESSIAN BAGS IN PETER CAREY’S ILLYWHACKER

Summary/Abstract: Building Styles and Hessian Bags in Peter Carey’s Illywhacker. Peter Carey’s novel Illywhacker came out in 1985 and was short listed for the Booker Prize of the same year. Seen as metafiction or pertaining to magical realism, the role of history or of coexisting histories was one of the widely discussed topics. Another was the comparison between writing and building, since the metaphor of building texts – be them ‘true’ or ‘fictional/deceptive’ is obvious in the novel. This article suggests a new parallel between modern and postmodern approaches to history and architecture as they weave in and between the lines of the novel, like the threads of a hessian bag.

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