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Reading at the Thresholds of Book Covers and Opening Screens
In this article I relate Gérard Genette’s paratext theory Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (1997) that was originally published in French as Seuils in 1987 to theories that relate to what presumably constitutes narrative beginnings (Kellman; Richardson; Rabinowitz). Genette’s theory considers different liminal devices as that which “guide a reader’s reading” such as for example a book cover. Among other’s, I explore reader comments that reflect on their reading experience of book covers expressed in social media environments such as goodreads.com and the blogosphere. I propose that the book cover potentially foreshadows it’s content proleptically (Genette) and in a centripetal (McCracken) notion draws to a book’s content. Two examplary “openings” as thresholds to a narrative are considered: the book cover of the paper-based publication Borgerligt tusmørke by Simon Fruelund and Voyage into the Unkown (Roderick Coover), a work of literature published in programmable media.
Patricia Tomaszek - 02.07.2013 - 11:09