1
Douglas Bullard
1937 - 2005
Islay
- Became deaf due to Spinal Meningitis at age 3
- Grew up in southern Florida
- Graduate of Gallaudet College
- Former president of the Florida Association of the Deaf
- Alaskan geologist
- Also published a second novel, On Deaf Ears
"He says he had an advantage because he could once hear and his mother used to talk and sing to him as he sat on her lap. ''The circuitry was set up in my head before I became deaf - it would have been harder to write if I had been born deaf,' he said."
Overview
Various
Deaf Representations
''It's a fantasy about a deaf man who takes over a small state,'' the 50-year-old author explained, using sign language. ''He convinces enough deaf people to move to that state where they can become the majority, so they can control their own lives. It's a satire. It's a fun book.''
-Douglas Bullard (1987)
- Perceived as hostile and separatist by critics
- Unique title, Islay
- Uses both English and ASL gloss
- Three sections in the book:
- Strings:
- Pursues the possibility of creating a deaf homeland in Islay
- Drums:
- Travels cross-country to recruit Deaf citizens to take up residence in Islay
- Strings:
- Deaf community grows in Islay, but he confronts several mishaps, and wins the governorship in the end
- The paternalistic administrator
- The Deaf School superintendent
- The Interpreter
- The Baffled hearing school principal
- The CODA
- The Hearing mother
- The Helpful hearing government worker
- The Deaf peddler
- The Vulgar ladies man
- The Business man with his highly assertive wife
- The Reverend and Doctor
The Great Deaf American Novel
Carnivalesque Qualities
Carnivalesque: A term coined by the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin, which refers to a literary mode that subverts and liberates the assumptions of the dominant style or atmosphere through humor and chaos.
In what ways does the novel, Islay, function as carnivalesque?
'Because their ideas good, real!' she pounded the table. 'Your's dream--dream--'
'Your idea dreamy.'
-Mary to Sulla (6)
What does this tell us about Mary's views of Sulla's 'foolish dreams'?
Sulla - The Hero?
- 'A blend of the heroic and the ironic' (134)
- 'His recruiting expedition is all rather silly and aimless' (135)
- Effectively turns the island, Islay, around
- 'The fools were given a wide latitude to say and do unorthodox things' (137)