Chapter 5. The blind tour
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Lars Bernaerts
Abstract
On the one hand, this chapter contributes to recent efforts in narrative theory which aim at specifying the cognitive and interpretive challenge of experimental fiction. On the other hand, it focuses on the unconventional textualisation of space in narrative. Drawing on stylistics and narrative theory, it analyses spatial abstraction as an effect of stylistic features in Orchis Militaris, an experimental narrative by Ivo Michiels. The motif of blindness is prominent in the novel and will be directly linked to the reader’s processing attempts. In that respect, it echoes the analogy of blindness used by Catherine Emmott (1997) to refer to the experience of a reader who is monitoring fictional contexts. The reader of Orchis Militaris is like a blind person, but one who is not provided with sufficient clues to construct the contextual configuration of the people and settings around him or her. Particular attention will be paid to the stylistic features of spatial abstraction, the cognitive demands made on readers and the interpretive opportunities emerging from their cognitive disorientation.
Abstract
On the one hand, this chapter contributes to recent efforts in narrative theory which aim at specifying the cognitive and interpretive challenge of experimental fiction. On the other hand, it focuses on the unconventional textualisation of space in narrative. Drawing on stylistics and narrative theory, it analyses spatial abstraction as an effect of stylistic features in Orchis Militaris, an experimental narrative by Ivo Michiels. The motif of blindness is prominent in the novel and will be directly linked to the reader’s processing attempts. In that respect, it echoes the analogy of blindness used by Catherine Emmott (1997) to refer to the experience of a reader who is monitoring fictional contexts. The reader of Orchis Militaris is like a blind person, but one who is not provided with sufficient clues to construct the contextual configuration of the people and settings around him or her. Particular attention will be paid to the stylistic features of spatial abstraction, the cognitive demands made on readers and the interpretive opportunities emerging from their cognitive disorientation.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. The role of analogy in Charles Dickens’ Pictures from Italy 21
- Chapter 3. Listing and impressionism in Charles Dickens’s description of Genoa in Pictures from Italy 31
- Chapter 4. Immersed in imagined landscapes 45
- Chapter 5. The blind tour 61
- Chapter 6. “How Others See …” 81
- Chapter 7. The poems of Edward Thomas 95
- Chapter 8. Landscape as a dominant hero in “Bezhin Meadow” by I. S. Turgenev 123
- Chapter 9. A social landscape 153
- Chapter 10. The agency of The Hungry Tide 191
- Name index 233
- Subject index 235
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. The role of analogy in Charles Dickens’ Pictures from Italy 21
- Chapter 3. Listing and impressionism in Charles Dickens’s description of Genoa in Pictures from Italy 31
- Chapter 4. Immersed in imagined landscapes 45
- Chapter 5. The blind tour 61
- Chapter 6. “How Others See …” 81
- Chapter 7. The poems of Edward Thomas 95
- Chapter 8. Landscape as a dominant hero in “Bezhin Meadow” by I. S. Turgenev 123
- Chapter 9. A social landscape 153
- Chapter 10. The agency of The Hungry Tide 191
- Name index 233
- Subject index 235
