The ludic mode of Pangamonium: an exegesis on the novel: ' Pangamonium '

Abstract

This thesis has two components : a novel and an exegesis. Pangamonium is a comic novel that parodies and satirises adventure romances and travel accounts as well as global imperialisms. Francis, an American journalist who has lived in Australia, travels to a tiny Asian country, Panga, a kingdom that has been taken over by a military dictatorship. There he meets Easter, an African on a quest to find the grave and buried treasure of his pirate ancestor. The odd couple endure a comic odyssey together and ultimately liberate a group of enslaved children from a vibrator factory. The Ludic Mode of Pangamonium is an exegesis of the novel. It explores the ludic mode, which it considers an open play of signification characterised by freedom, reflexivity and subversion, and it explores the work of Nabokov, Calvino and Borges to explicate manifestations of play. Pangamonium is also examined in the light of its mythic hero quest structure and its relationship to the discourses of Orientalism and Neocolonialism.