AustLit

'Peter Carey's ludic and logophilic novels frequently address linked issues of linguistic appropriation and cultural forgery. Certain works explore the situation of individuals or cultures in general that are in a situation in which they "inherit" languages or identities that are powerful, often arrogant, and usually colonial in either a literal or metaphorical sense. Against this inheritance, characters and cultures develop their own appropriations of the inherited culture.... It is arguable, however, that postcolonial cultures are particularly attuned to the question of inheritance: in exploring this inheritance, Carey's fictions can be compared to postcolonial writing from different parts of the world. At the same time, Carey's work resists the production of new forms of authenticity, lest they end up reproducing the arrogant power that they inherited. Again and again, his work focuses on the creative power of supposedly dependent forms of literature and language: fakes that seem dependent on original works of genius, or postcolonial languages that seem dependent on original colonial languages. In fictionalizing different examples of the same deep structure of inheritance, Carey makes reference to the idea of cultural cringe: this article advances the claim that in his work, the opposite of this cringe is a kind of ongoing openness to future forms of authenticity' (p. 288)