Thirdspace Accommodating Logically Paradoxical Timelines

Soja (1996) conceptualises the thirdspace as “a space of extraordinary openness, a place of critical exchange . . . [that] can be expanded to encompass a multiplicity of perspectives that have heretofore been considered . . . to be incompatible, uncombinable” (5). According to him, the thirdspace, as a product of a “thirding”/Othering of the traditional dualistic (material/mental; real/imagined) thinking about space, responds to all simplistic binarisms by interjecting an-Other set of possibilities. It is thereby engaged in disordering, or to be more exact deconstructing, the either/or logic, together with the categorical closures implicit in it. By using the word “deconstruct,” Soja emphasises that “Thirding as Othering” is by no means reductionist, in that “the original binary choice is not dismissed entirely but is subjected to a creative process of restructuring that draws selectively and strategically from the two opposing categories to open new alternatives” (5). Given this, Soja’s concept of the thirdspace is rooted in an open, inclusive and creative “both/and also . . . ” logic. It radically rejects the misguided purification and simplistic dichotomisation that, as he observes, have long restrained spatial thinking (20). It has also contributed to open up more alternative possibilities for our spatial imagination.

143 The midnight garden constructed by Pearce, as my following discussion will reveal, is a concrete exemplification of such open, inclusive thirdspace that combines several groups of polarised opposites. To begin with, different from Nikolajeva’s (2000) and Wilkie-Stibbs’ (2003) interpretations, I observe that time in the midnight garden moves both unsequentially as Tom perceives it and in a linear, chronological order as Hatty experiences it. Nikolajeva (2000), in her reading of the text, suggests that the time in the Kitsons’ flat and in the midnight garden exemplify the binary opposition of the “chronos,” the chronological time, and “kairos,” the mythical time (105). Wilkie- Stibbs (2003) conceives the dreamtime of “liberation and caprice” activated by Mrs Bartholonew as existing in the fissure of the “ordinary” time dominated by a linear teleology. It is, she argues, manifestly unsequential and “out of joint,” which recalls Kristeva’s idea of “woman’s time” that embrace repetitive cycles and eternal recurrence of the nature (93). These readings also seem to be supported by the narrator’s (and also Tom’s) comments on the difference between time in the Kitsons’ flat and in the garden, as shown in the extract below:

In the Kitsons’ flat Time was not allowed to dodge about in the unreliable, confusing way it did in the garden – forward to a tree’s falling, and then back to before the fall; and then still farther back again, to a little girl’s first arrival; and then forward again. No, in the flat, Time was marching steadily onwards in the way it is supposed to go: from minute to minute, from hour to hour, from day to day. (Pearce 98)

On the one hand, it is convincing that life in the Kitson’s flat incarnates the linear, regulated movement of time that demands strict causality and rationality. However, on the other hand, I think the general view of the time in the midnight garden as being direct opposite to the chronological, ordinary time is problematic and needs further interrogation. By saying this, I am not trying to challenge or reject the arguments that the midnight garden embodies the mythical time and women’s time. What I mean is that both Nikolajeva’s and Wilkie-Stibbs’ claims tell part of the story. Time in the midnight garden is, as I am going to discuss, more ambiguously configurated.

It is through Tom’s point of view that the unsequential movement of time in the midnight garden is given most attention and emphasis. However, apart from the overt

144 violation of the chronological order experienced by Tom, we also should not ignore the fact that among all the trips taken by Tom to the garden, only two incidents are obviously out of sequence in Hatty’s time. One is the appearance of Hatty as a very young recently orphaned child and the other is the storm which fells the fir tree on the night before Hatty’s wedding. Apart from these, all the other visits, especially the later ones, actually unfold in a linear and chronological order. This is also reflected in Hatty’s gradual growth out of childhood innocence into adulthood maturity, an obvious fact that only Tom is reluctant to face. Another detail which also indicates such developmental movement is Hatty Bartholomew’s own narration of her last few meetings with Tom in the garden in the final chapter “A Tale for Tom Long.” Through her retelling, the incidents that are experienced by Tom as chronologically out of joint are resequenced back into a reasonable linear order. To be specific, in Mrs Bartholomew’s retelling, the fir tree is not, “against all the known laws of Nature,” lying fallen at one time, and then be standing up again as it was before it fell (Pearce 56-57). It was struck by the lightning and fell down on the stormy night before her wedding when, as Mrs Bartholomew claims, she sees Tom in the garden for the last time. However, in Tom’s timeline, this was the first night he sneaked into the midnight garden. Therefore, combining Harry’s and Tom’s experiences, the movement of time in the midnight garden is paradoxically both linear and out of sequence.