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Revisionist nostalgia: John Banville, Angela Carter, and the circus

ABSTRACT Points of connection between John Banville and Angela Carter are rarely noted. This article argues for a fuller appreciation of their interinfluence upon one another as it uses their circus novels Birchwood (1973) and Nights at the Circus (1984) to explore the relationship between revisionism and nostalgia in both historiography and literature. It asks why Banville and Carter both imagine the circus as a vehicle for their revisionary work and examines how these authors manage what Carter terms ‘the pseudo-memory of nostalgia’. In doing so, this article tests the extent to which nostalgia and revision might be understood as opposing or even antithetical concepts and explores the high stakes of keeping lived experience at arm's length. Birchwood and Nights at the Circus are read here in context. Instructive comparisons are drawn with journalism and letters written by Banville and Carter in the 1970s and 1980s, and relevant works of historiography from a similar period. This article also incorporates material from an interview with John Banville which reveals his self-consciously fraught relationship with Birchwood's themes and content. More broadly, it is a notable attempt to indicate and assess the significance of Irish literature and culture in Carter's writing.