The Archive of Myth: Lawrence Norfolk's In the Shape of a Boar
The Archive of Myth: Lawrence Norfolk's In the Shape of a Boar

Summary/Abstract: This paper sketches a genealogical descent into the archival traces of the teratological imaginary, which permeate Lawrence Norfolk’s fictional rendition of catastrophe and historical trauma in his 2000 novel, In the Shape of a Boar. I emphasise the dislocation or diffraction of the monstrous figure outlined by this narrative from strict, fixed origins, for discursive renditions of myth are perpetually bound to fail in capturing an essential identity for the monster. Ultimately, by collapsing historical time layers (the dawn of human civilization, the pre-WWII Balkans and 1970s Western Europe) into textualised traces of the archival past, Norfolk shows the process of interiorisation monstrosity has registered, from mythical beasts (the Boar of Kalydon) to post-Enlightenment spectral internalisations of abjectionable evil.

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