Scholars interested in the relationship between materiality and narrativity are looking at books that use paratext to the fullest possible extent in order to tell their story. The publication of the novel "S" in 2013 by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams sparked a flurry of studies and commentaries about ways in which fiction could benefit from playing with possibilities of the book as an object. "S" was as much written as art directed, with marginalia, props inserted between its pages, and (some argue) even the simulated "musty" smell of an old library book. In publishing his deconstructed graphic novel "Building Stories" (2012) Chris Ware invited the reader to develop her or his own reading strategy in order to make sense of the multiple leaflets, strips, and scattered pages that make up the work. Do you know of other works of fiction (or non-fiction) that also make a creative use of props? Do you think this play with materiality really adds to the potential of the work, or distracts from it?
Thank you Martin, we re going Avant garde again I guess but it was surely coming with the philosophical background laid for this time and period by postmodernity. However, I feel this is a passing fad but I am also cautious because that might appear too judgmental and dismissive. I also envisage the future loaded with book experience products where a whole cultural experience is set up and constructed as a book but it would be in a physical location. I see that coming, a sort of Disney book.
Check out Gordon Sheppard's Hubert Aquin biography _HA!_ (McGill-Queen's 2003).
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