unConventional narration | randomised | Fryer Library Online Exhibition

randomised

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Randomised narratives are not mere ‘shuffled’ stories. Rather, they are stories with no fixed sequence, where randomness is integral to the narrative’s meaning. As such, themes of disorientation or disjoint are common to the genre. Generally, ‘random’ stories are divided into smaller parts (pages or chapters) that can be read in any order.

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<b><em>Composition no.1</em>, Marc Saporta, 1961</b><br /><em>Composition no.1</em> is popularly dubbed ‘the book in a box’, and a box is certainly necessary to contain the book’s 150 unbound pages. Saporta intended that the book’s pages be shuffled by the reader and read in random order, with each new reading altering the protagonist’s life story.<br /><br />Saporta’s technique sacrifices, or perhaps eschews, narrative flow, in order to explore the role of sequence and timing in both fiction and life. In fact, the whole reading experience, including the fear of misplacing a page, of losing the story’s ‘original’ sequence, or of drawing an erroneous link between randomly arranged pages and events, furthers the book’s themes.

<b><em>The unfortunates</em>, BS Johnson, 1969</b><br />Here, Johnson reimagines the novel as a collection of parts. The loose chapters of this story may be shuffled and read in any order, restricted only by the sections marked ‘first’ and ‘last’. Fittingly, the story explores the confusion and unreliability of memory as the protagonist is overwhelmed by recollections of a deceased friend.<br /><br />Unlike Marc Saporta’s similarly ‘shuffleable’ <em>Composition no.1</em>, Johnson seemingly does not seek to disorient the reader; despite the narrative’s random sequencing, each section can be understood within the larger story. It seems as if Johnson merely wishes to remind the reader, through their shuffling and reading of the flimsy booklets, of the spontaneity & tenuousness of memory. <br /><a href='series8.html'>>> series 8 >></a>

items in this series

Composition no.1, Marc Saporta, 1961

The unfortunates, BS Johnson, 1969

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