The unconventional form of the novel as a place of encounter: the reader’s self-awareness

Abstract

Conventional narrative fiction has been defined over the centuries with a linear structure and lack of visual intrusions. In a standard novel, each page looks more or less the same as the others, connected by the uniformity of page design to avoid distractions on the reader’s side. This article analyses the way in which Laurence Sterne made the reader self-aware through the use of unconventional visual devices in his novel Tristram Shandy (1759–1767) and transformed the act of reading into a physical dialogue between author and reader. In addition, it examines its influence on the graphic dimension of contemporary works concerned with the unconventional form of the novel, such as B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates (1969), Mark Z. Danieleweski’s House of Leaves (2000) and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes (2010).