The landscape of desire: self and the other in James Salter’s a sport and a pastime

The first part of this thesis, my creative project, is a novel titled The Landscape of Desire. The novel is loosely based on the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition, led by Robert O’Hara Burke. The second part of is a thesis that examines the French theorist René Girard’s theory of triangular desire and the three figures—subject, mediator and object. Girard traces these three figures throughout the history of the development of the Western Novel. Through a close examination of one contemporary novel, James Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime, the exegesis establishes how we can observe triangular desire in Salter’s novel specifically and the art of the novel in general. <br><br>It also establishes that reading my creative project (The Landscape of Desire) and the accompanying case study (A Sport and a Pastime) through the lens of Girard’s theory shows us that the capacities and scope of Girard’s theory have not been exhausted in literary studies. While the relationship among the three figures (subject, mediator and object) in both my creative project and Salter’s novel coincides with the majority of Girard’s theory, the forms of triangular desire that unfold in The Landscape of Desire and A Sport and a Pastime present new aspects that add new aspects to Girard’s theory. These new aspects, explored in depth in the candidate’s creative project and exegesis, allow room for further implications in the study of Girard’s theory and in the art of the novel.