When Deviance Becomes the Norm: Neo-Sensational Excess, Pastiche and Textual Manipulation in Charles Palliser’s "Rustication”

Neo-Victorian literature is characterized by different kinds of deviance which manifest themselves both thematically and structurally. The idea of transgression becomes even stronger in the so-called “neo-sensation novels”, which revive a nineteenth-century genre specifically aiming to uncover the scandalous secrets and illicit passions of respectable Victorians. The irony permeating this form proves, indeed, a vehicle for questioning orthodox views of Victorian normativity which have been gradually deconstructed in the last fifty years. But it also, and notably so, interrogates the very notion of “deviance” which, tautologically evoked in the text, loses part of its iconoclastic valence.
A neo-sensation novel which well exemplifies this impression of ‘redundancy’ is Charles Palliser’s "Rustication" (2013). Constructed as a narrative of mystery into which Gothic and detective motifs are deftly embedded, Rustication imitates outstanding models of Victorian sensationalism with its ruthless exposure of middle-class perversions and hypocrisy. What makes it most thought-provoking, however, is the amazing variety of transgressive actions committed by all the characters, who challenge a wide range of sexual norms (pre-marital sex, adultery, prostitution, abortion, homosexuality, pedophilia, incest) and infringe the law in many ways (slander, forgery, blackmail, drug consumption, animal torture, murder). The sense of deviance is strengthened by the repeated violation of gender and familial roles – a violation which, by unveiling the artificiality of relational bonds that are still felt as ‘sacred’ today (i.e. the bond child-parent), is perceived as disquieting by Palliser’s readers themselves.
The first part of this article investigates the novel’s obsessive thematization of transgression which, considered in its multiple forms, conveys the sense of a hypercodified notion of deviance that somehow curbs the ‘political’ effects of denunciation. After examining the cultural implications of this thematic excess, I will focus on the many examples of stylistic deviation present in the text. With typical postmodern irony, Palliser juxtaposes heterogeneous genres with one other and spoils all of them of their traditional specificity. If sensationalism is made less shocking by its redundancy, both the Gothic and the detective form are deprived of their conventional effects by the numerous ellipses of the text, which fails to evoke truly uncanny presences on stage or to achieve closure.
The sense of textual reticence which is thereby suggested is increased by Palliser’s use of a strategy of emplotment which should reinforce verisimilitude: the discovery and editing of an old journal written by the main suspect. Interspersed as it is with gaps that are tentatively (and unsatisfactorily) filled-in by the editor, this embedded document that should bear historical evidence of, and explain, the crimes narrated in the novel is ultimately configured as an unreliable text which contains too many ellipses and potential versions. In ways similar to other neo-Victorian novelists, Palliser creates a pastiche of genres which are deprived of their traditional functionality. Quite significant, in this regard, is his reworking of the most confessional of forms (journal writing) which, turned into an untrustable medium, challenges the readers’ expectations for meaning and closure.