The Analogue Technology of S: Exploring Narrative Form and the Encoded Mystery of the Margin

  • Brendon John Wocke University of Perpignan Via-Domitia
Keywords: S, Abrams, Ship of Theseus, Derrida, McLuhan, Eco, Margins, Narrative form

Abstract

The 2013 publication of S, J.J. Abrams’ and Doug Dorst’s “love letter to the written word,” represents a particular intervention in the debates surrounding the future of the book and the relationship between analogue and digital publication. In S we see how the analogue nature of this particular book drives much of the narrative structure of the text, indeed the physical presentation of the book informs much of the imaginative contents of the narrative. In this article I would like to consider the theoretic bounds of this novel and its form, from the question of marginal (and fragmented) writing that is evoked in the work of Jacques Derrida, to the importance of the medium and the message that it carries as described by Marshall McLuhan. One could furthermore consider the manner in which S integrates itself into the imagination of the reader both in textual and in literal terms in light of Umberto Eco’s notion of the “open work.”

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Author Biography

Brendon John Wocke, University of Perpignan Via-Domitia

Brendon Wocke received his doctorate in Comparative Literature summa cum laude from the University of Perpignan (France) and the University of Tuebingen (Germany) as an Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate Cultural Studies in Literary Interzones fellow. His thesis was entitled De la jouissance au jouis-sens: le jeu de mots dans l’oeuvre de Jacques Derrida. He is currently a visiting assistant professor at the University of Perpignan attached to the Voyages, Échanges, Confrontations, Transformations (VECT) research group. 

References

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Published
2014-12-17
How to Cite
Wocke, B. (2014). The Analogue Technology of <i>S</i&gt;: Exploring Narrative Form and the Encoded Mystery of the Margin. Between, 4(8). https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/1313
Section
Metamorphoses of Narration