‘Fictions of the Internet’

From Intermediality to Transmedia Storytelling in 21st-Century Novels
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-3-86821-782-7
Verlag: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier

Buch, Englisch, Band 5, 300 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 225 mm, Gewicht: 545 g

Reihe: Reihe Alternativer Beiträge zur Erzählforschung (RABE)

The Internet has not only altered the way we live, communicate, and think, it has also breathed new life into the contemporary book market. More and more 21st-century writers invoke new media in their literary texts and explore the limits of the novel as a medium by using intermedial and transmedial storytelling techniques. Owing to the rapid changes in the media landscape and the book market, new literary experiments and genres in printed, electronic, and enhanced formats are cropping up nearly every day.

This interdisciplinary study on ‘fictions of the Internet’ gives a broad and extensive overview of the manifold tendencies in contemporary writing that are influenced by the Internet and new media on a thematic, structural, and transmedial level. It combines text-centered with transgeneric, transmedial, and cultural-oriented approaches, and focuses on three main concepts—namely, ‘intermediality’, ‘transmedia storytelling’, and ‘genre/generic change’. Close readings of texts by Dave Eggers, Jarett Kobek, Lucy Kellaway, Nick Hornby, Jeffery Deaver, Marisha Pessl, and Andreas Winkelmann show that contemporary writers do not simply add intermedial references to their stories, but instead use media for a variety of storytelling purposes. The study argues that contemporary novels have creatively responded to the changing media landscape with regard to their content, form, materiality, technological support, and interactive and participatory features, and proposes new generic terms for literary innovations that are related to the Internet and new media.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weigel-Heller, Anna

Inhaltsverzeichnis

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I: INTERMEDIAL AND TRANSMEDIAL RELATIONS

BETWEEN THE NOVEL AND THE INTERNET        1


1. Introduction: The Internet and Contemporary Fiction—

Manifold ‘Forms of Art’        3

1.1 ‘Fictions of the Internet’: Three Dimensions        6

1.2 Hypotheses, Key Questions, and Aims        12

1.3 Key Concepts and State of Research        15

1.4 Corpus, Methodological Issues, and Chapter Outline        19


2. Narrative Concepts and Methods for Analyzing ‘Fictions of the Internet’        23

2.1 An Intermedial Framework        24

2.1.1 Remediation of Old and New Media in the Digital Age        25

2.1.2 Intermedial Storytelling: Relations between Novels

and (New) Media        30

2.1.3 Analytical Categories for Intermedial

‘Fictions of the Internet’        35

2.2 A Transmedial Framework        40

2.2.1 Transmedia Storytelling: Narrating across Media        40

2.2.2 Analytical Categories for Transmedial

‘Fictions of the Internet’        46

2.2.3 Transmedial Table for Analyzing Transmedial

‘Fictions of the Internet’        59

2.3 A Genre-Based Framework        62

2.3.1 Hybridization, Border Crossings, and Generic Change

in ‘Fictions of the Internet’        64

2.3.2 New Media, New Forms of Narrative, New Genres        73

2.3.3 Criteria for Defining ‘Fictions of the Internet’        78


PART II: ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF ‘FICTIONS OF THE INTERNET'—

INCREASING LEVELS OF COMPLEXITY        85


3. Thematization of the Internet on the Storyworld Level:

Choosing from the ‘veritable supermarket of media options’        89

3.1 Transparency vs. Privacy: Ethical Dilemmas in the Internet Age

in Dave Eggers’
The Circle
(2013)        97

3.1.1 ‘ALL THAT HAPPENS MUST BE KNOWN’:

The Collection of Data and the Loss of Privacy        98

3.1.2 The Influence of New Media on Language and Daily Life        102

3.1.3 The Circle (AKA Google): ‘SECRETS ARE LIES,

SHARING IS CARING, PRIVACY IS THEFT’        106

3.1.4
The Circle
’s ‘Generic Hybridity’        111

3.2 A Satirical Perspective on Silicon Valley and Its Tech Companies:

Jarett Kobek’s
I Hate the Internet: A Useful Novel against Men,
Money, and the Filth of Instagram
(2016)        115

3.2.1 ‘TWITTER was only the symptom. The Internet was the

disease’: The Protagonists’ Hatred on, and of, the Internet        117

3.2.2 ‘The Net Delusion’: Discussing Fictions Surrounding

the Internet        122

3.2.3 ‘Silicon Valley is guilty of many sins’:

The Literary Depiction of San Francisco’s Ethnic Cleansing
and Its Ongoing Gentrification        125

3.2.4 Kobek’s Response to the Speed of Technological Innovation:

Reading
I Hate the Internet
as an ‘Internet Satire’        127


4. Imitation of the Internet on the Discourse Level: A Renewed Interest

in the Epistolary Mode and the Emergence of New Narrative Forms        133

4.1 Satirizing Office Life in the ‘E-mail Novel’:

Digitally Mediated Relationships in Lucy Kellaway’s

Martin Lukes:

Who Moved My BlackBerry™?

(2005)        141

4.1.1 The Novel’s Cover as an Overt Form of Intermediality

and E-mails as Narrative Exposition        143

4.1.2 ‘Who Writes?’, ‘Who Reads?’: Communication Structure

in the ‘E-mail Novel’        145

4.1.3 E-mails as Plot Device and Means of Characterization        148

4.1.4 Specific Language Use and Typographic Differences

in the Novel’s E-mail Communication        152

4.2 The Emergence of the ‘Multimedia Novel’: Imitated E-mails, Blogs,

and Wikipedia Entries in Nick Hornby’s
Juliet, Naked
(2009)        156

4.2.1 The Novel as a Pop Culture and Media Archive        157

4.2.2 ‘And then the internet came along and changed everything’:

Changing Lifestyles and Critique of the Internet        159

4.2.3 E-mails at Turning Points: A Trigger for a Love Affair        162

4.2.4 Medial Multiperspectivity through Imitated Blogs

and Wikipedia Entries        166


5. Narrating with the Internet: Transmedia Storytelling in ‘Internet-Enhanced

Detective, Thriller, and Mystery Novels’        170

5.1 The Blending of Novel and Website: ‘The Dark Side of the Online

World’ in Jeffery Deaver’s
Roadside Crosses
(2009)        176

5.1.1 Revealing Fictions Surrounding the Internet        178

5.1.2 Internet Language and Space(s): Blurring the Line between

the Textual Actual and Textual Virtual World(s)        180

5.1.3 Transmedia Storytelling in Roadside Crosses:

A Combination of Book and Blog        183

5.1.4 Transmedial Table for Jeffery Deaver’s
Roadside Crosses
       187

5.2 The Fusion of Novel and App: Complex Intermedial and Transmedial

Practices in Marisha Pessl’s
Night Film
(2013)        191

5.2.1 Reading/Experiencing
Night Film
: Choosing between

Different Strategies, Translations, and Materialities        192

5.2.2 Creating Meaning and Tension through Juxtaposition

of Old and New Media on the Levels of Story and Discourse        195

5.2.3 Transmedia Storytelling via App, YouTube Videos,

and Social Networking Sites        199

5.2.4 Transmedial Table for
Night Film
and Alternative Suggestions        204

5.3 The Combination of Novel and New Media: Blurring Fact and Fiction

in Andreas Winkelmann’s
Deathbook
(2013)        207

5.3.1 ‘I AM DEATH 3.0’: Creating Suspense

within the Printed Edition        208

5.3.2 Becoming Part of the Novel’s Plot: Transmedial and Interactive

Storytelling in the Enhanced E-Book        212

5.3.3 Challenges and Pitfalls of the Book Project        217

5.3.4 Transmedial Table for Andreas Winkelmann’s
Deathbook
and

a Personal Observation Concerning the ‘Death’ of
Deathbook
       218


6. Conclusion: ‘Fictions of the Internet’ as a Test Case

for the Cultural Dynamics of Generic and Medial Change        222

6.1 Intra- and Extra-Textual Functions of Intermedial and Transmedial

Storytelling in ‘Fictions of the Internet’        224

6.2 Suggestions for Further Research and Concluding Remarks        236


7. Bibliography        242

7.1 Primary Works        242

7.2 Transmedial Expansions of Primary Works        248

7.3 Secondary Works        251

7.3.1 Print Sources        251

7.3.2 Online Sources        272

7.4 Copyright and Permissions        281