Koringa and the professor: beating some ‘fictive’ bounds in finuala dowling’s the man who loved crocodile tamers

Abstract

Before parish boundaries in England were definitively mapped it was usual for parishioners, just prior to the feast of the Ascension, to walk the limits of their common lands on foot, a practice known as "beating the bounds"(Soth). The aim was to establish experientially a shared mental picture of the geography of the parish. I invoke this tradition as a metaphor to address critical challenges raised by Finuala Dowling's latest novel, The Man Who Loved Crocodile Tamers (2022). The chief issue appears forthrightly in an early review headline:"Is it or isn't it a novel?"(Verduyn). Another online reviewer calls it "historical fiction... nigh-on magical realism"(SABC Book Review). More tellingly, Kate Sidley, who interviewed the author at the book's digital launch, said she finished the novel without realizing that the character "Koringa" was real, an historical personage (Sidley). Such responses raise a significant issue. Can cogent bounds defining a liminal zone between history and fiction be accurately established, or gauged even roughly, in this kind of text? 1.