Minor literature and cultural otherness in The Lonely Londoners

Perhaps the most interesting assertion present in Gilles Deleuze’s article on so-called minor literature is his initial definition thereof: “A minor literature doesn’t come from a minor language; it is rather that which a minority constructs within a major language.” The notion that “minor literature” is created by those marginal few for whom the normalcy is foreign is incredibly pertinent to our immigrant characters and dialect-laden narrator in Selvon’s novel. Here we see repressed and alienated immigrants from a nation’s colonies making their way in its home island among its natives, and there is no divide more noticeable than their differences in dialect. Throughout the novel, not only the characters but also the third-person omniscient narrator make use of the Caribbean English dialect, a seeming mismatch of tenses and numbers that would have been abhorrent to contemporary proponents of what constitutes “proper” English. But Deleuze shows us that this dialectal choice was indicative of what was indeed a political statement on the part of Selvon: by writing not only his dialogue but also his exposition in this alternative dialect, Selvon’s novel lends legitimacy to these immigrants and aids in their carving out a unique cultural niche within the constructed world of language.

“The second characteristic of minor literatures,” Deleuze tells us in a subsequent paragraph, “is that everything in them is political.” From this understanding we might make the assumption that the presence of Selvon’s Caribbean dialect in The Lonely Londoners was a component of his underlying political message. “How many people today live in a language that is not their own?” Deleuze asks towards the end of his rather brief article. Those immigrant characters portrayed in Selvon’s novel were people born and raised in a colonial environment, speaking a foreign language imposed upon them by enterprising explorers from the Western world. However, in crafting their own variational dialect of the English language, those in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, et cetera were able to reincorporate their daily language into an indicator of their unique culture. Despite standardization and colonial power, these English-speakers were able to mould the tongue into an alternative dialect that better suited their cultural identity. Furthermore, their bringing this dialect to the Mother Country of the British Isles and maintaining its use among themselves perpetuated their unique Caribbean culture even in the face of the tradition of a “proper,” “standard” English.

By penning his novel in this alternative dialect, Selvon not only suggests rather forcefully the subjectivity of “proper” language but also places his work squarely within the minor literature tradition. What is a dialect but a culturally-informed language constructed within a major language, much like Deleuze’s aforementioned definition of minor literature? According to Deleuze, the obstacle faced by authors of this sort is “how to tear a minor literature away from its own language, allowing it to challenge the language and making it follow a sober revolutionary path?” Selvon addresses this problem handily by writing his novel in what some would term a bastardized version of the English language, using it even as his objective narrator reports truthfully the goings-on. In so doing, he undermines connotations surrounding dialectal English and solidifies his immigrant people’s cultural identity within the broader context of midcentury England.