Media-Specific Metalepsis in 10:01

‘In “Media-Specific Metalepsis in 10:01” Alice Bell analyses Lance Olsen and Tim Guthrie’s 10:01 to show that digital fiction facilitates new types of metalepses. More specifically, she shows that both ascending and descending metalepses occur via sound effects, external links, and, visually, via the cursor that the reader uses to select links. She shows that possible worlds theory provides a better approach to metalepsis than the Genettean model, particularly in a digital context, because it allows us to analyse the reader’s role in the metaleptic jump more accurately. Adding a hermeneutic dimension, the chapter concludes that the metaleptic ontological breaches are related to the text’s thematic concern with commerce and consumerism in contemporary Western society.’

(Source: from the book introduction)