Unreadable Texts and Digital Literature: Searching for Meaning in House of Leaves
Submission Type
Event
Faculty Advisor
Molly Robey
Expected Graduation Date
2019
Location
Room E102, Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University
Start Date
4-13-2019 11:00 AM
End Date
4-13-2019 12:00 PM
Disciplines
Education
Abstract
Mark Z. Danielewski’s avant-garde novel House of Leaves occupies a liminal space in the world of the book, emphasizing the materiality of texts while also engaging in components of hypertext, or literature that exists online and uses features of the internet to work with the plot. This essay analyzes the ways in which Danielewski challenges the boundaries of the realist novel as well as how physical texts can interact with and continue through digital spaces. Using critic Natalya Bekhta’s five attributes of the readability of realist novels, this essay creates a metric by which to analyze House of Leaves stylistic divergences. This essay, like many before it, accepts that House of Leaves is unique from other texts; however, it questions what, specifically, Danielewski’s text is different from and how using the realist novel as a foil can allow for greater elucidation of stylistic and thematic significance within the avant-garde text.
Unreadable Texts and Digital Literature: Searching for Meaning in House of Leaves
Room E102, Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University
Mark Z. Danielewski’s avant-garde novel House of Leaves occupies a liminal space in the world of the book, emphasizing the materiality of texts while also engaging in components of hypertext, or literature that exists online and uses features of the internet to work with the plot. This essay analyzes the ways in which Danielewski challenges the boundaries of the realist novel as well as how physical texts can interact with and continue through digital spaces. Using critic Natalya Bekhta’s five attributes of the readability of realist novels, this essay creates a metric by which to analyze House of Leaves stylistic divergences. This essay, like many before it, accepts that House of Leaves is unique from other texts; however, it questions what, specifically, Danielewski’s text is different from and how using the realist novel as a foil can allow for greater elucidation of stylistic and thematic significance within the avant-garde text.