In:
Anglophonia, PERSEE Program, Vol. 5, No. 1 ( 1999), p. 135-147
Abstract:
Based on a distinctly Oulipian principle of constraint, Alphabetical Africa, by Walter Abish, features a colony of ants intent on shredding the African continent to pieces . Using these microscopic insects as a semantic guideline, this essay aims at showing how the novel generates a form of complexity which does not arise from any self-imposed set of rules. Largely through linguistic dissemination, ants happen to pervade the whole textual construct. Biting their way into words, set discourses and the very texture of fiction, they also cause unexpected patterns of meaning to emerge. Ants particularly excel at splitting, thus displacing common linguistic boundaries and subverting the traditional hierarchy between the whole and its parts. Such operations eventually reveal that self-similarity is at work on both local and global levels. My hunch is that ants might even teach us how to read...
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1278-3331
DOI:
10.3406/calib.1999.1378
Language:
French
Publisher:
PERSEE Program
Publication Date:
1999
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2821007-4
SSG:
7,25
Bookmarklink