Bodying forth linguistic excess in The Book of Dave by Will Self

  • Anne-Laure Fortin-Tournes Lille 2

Résumé

As it introduces the body into the text through reciprocal semiotisation and somatisation of text and body, Self’s novel entitled The Book of Dave makes the reader experience language as excess: indeed, the very physical experience of reading Self’s visually and orally modified language enables the reader to perceive the importance of the work of the remainder as that of the excess in and of language. The remainder, which is to be identified with the capacity of language to play with its own rules, is indeed foregrounded in Self’s experimentations with language, which flesh out the texture and the physicality of language itself, turning the reader’s experience of the text into an encounter with an opaque, elusive, unstable Other.

Biographie de l'auteur

Anne-Laure Fortin-Tournes, Lille 2
Anne-Laure Fortin-Tournès is a maître de conférences at the University of Lille II. She is a doctor in English literature and a specialist in XXth century British fiction. Her doctorate thesis addressed the issue of the representation of violence in novels by Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Graham swift. She has written a book on Martin Amis and postmodernism, and a number of articles on postmodern British fiction.
Publiée
2014-02-26
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ARTICLES