This article re-interprets George Lamming’s theorization and presentation of
language as a strategy of resistance in light of investigating the notion of the commodified
self. In particular, Lamming’s Season of Adventure can be addressed as a narra
tive of
rebellious self-purchase that construes language as a medium of historical dissent to the
imposed debt of colonial history. Language in Season of Adventure is shaped by revision as
it retraces both the genealogy of the individual and the past of a nation. Arguably, such a
revisionary conception of language ultimately projects an alternative genealogy of
opposition. In this respect, both the thematic and narrative structure of Season of Adventure
transcends the European debt of history and presents a textual counter-discourse that
articulates a historiography of resistance. Recent theories on the logic of debt and
Lamming’s strategies of linguistic resistance featured in his non-fiction writings are central
to the premise of this reading of Season of Adventure.
