Douglas Coupland and Ergodic Paratext: Overcoming Aporia in Generationx and Microserfs
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DOUGLAS COUPLAND AND ERGODIC PARATEXT: OVERCOMING APORIA IN GENERATIONX AND MICROSERFS A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario, Canada © Copyright by Christopher M. Doody 2011 English (Public Texts) M.A. Graduate Program October 2011 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-81095-8 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-81095-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduce, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciaies ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1+1 Canada ABSTRACT Douglas Coupland and Ergodic Paratext: Overcoming Aporia in Generation Xand Microserfs Christopher M. Doody This thesis examines two of Douglas Coupland's early novels, Generation X (1991) and Microserfs (1995), and argues that Coupland deliberately manipulates the paratext of these novels in an attempt to engage the reader more fully in the reading experience. In the first chapter, I develop a theory of ergodic paratext, building on Gerard Genette's theory of paratext (encompassing both epitext and peritext) and Espen Aarseth's theory of ergodic literature. In the second chapter, I develop a sociology of the text for Generation X, examining the novel's publication and social reception history, arguing that Coupland created an elaborate epitext that challenges received accounts of the novel's genesis and intention. In chapter three, I decode the peritext of Microserfs, arguing that it generates a reading that is significantly at odds with the reading available through the text alone. In the conclusion, I quickly look at Coupland's fictional work following Microserfs, arguing that he moves on from ergodic paratext to paratextual abundance. Keywords: Douglas Coupland; Generation X; Microserfs; Gerard Genette; paratext; epitext; peritext; Espen Aarseth; ergodic literature; aporia; book history 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to my thesis supervisor Zailig Pollock. I want to thank you for fully supporting my project from the beginning and offering invaluable advice and suggestions as the project developed. The long hours you have dedicated to reading, editing, and challenging this thesis is prevalent throughout, and for that, I thank you. I would also like to thank my supportive committee members, Elizabeth Popham and Sally Chivers. Beth—your comments and queries made me question my own work, and the thesis is stronger as a result; your meticulous editing has made this thesis the polished text that you see before you. Sally—thank you for agreeing to read this thesis on such short notice, and for your enthusiasm of my research. To you both, thank you for the time and energy you have devoted to my work. I would like to thank my family and friends for your support over the last two years. Some of you have read portions of this thesis and offered your advice and suggestions. Others have listened to me rambling on, ad nauseum, about paratext, bibliographical codes, and other bibliophilic topics, even if you did not share my enthusiasm. For all of this, I thank you. To Jessica, who has read this entire thesis numerous times and still continues to love and support me—thank you! I am also grateful for the institutional support I have received while writing this thesis. Specially, I would like to thank the special collections librarians at the University of British Columbia for all your help with the Douglas Coupland fonds. As well, I would like to thank the inter-library loan librarians at Bata Library, Trent University. Your ability to track down some of the more obscure sources found in this thesis never ceased to amaze me. Thank you. Finally, I would like to recognize the contributions of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program, Trent University, and the Public Texts program for the financial assistance that made this research possible. in TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv Vive Jupien: Towards a Theory of Ergodic Paratext 1 1. No "Ifs," "Ands," or "Buts" About Paratext 3 2. "This Message is Author-Approved" 4 3. Paratext and the Threshold 11 4. No Loitering on the Threshold 15 Towards a Definition of Ergodic Literature 21 Being Ergodic with Paper and Ink 23 Ergodic Literature 2.0 29 Ergodic Paratext as Roadblock 30 Douglas Coupland as Case Study 33 X-plained: The Production and Reception History of Douglas Coupland's Generation X 35 Introduction 35 McKenzie and the Sociology of the Text 37 Publishing Generation X: A History 39 Design of Generation X 48 "What's In a Name?" 55 Phenomenon of Generation X 57 Coupland as Spokesperson: The Writer Doth Protest Too Much? 62 Conclusion 64 Decoding Microserfs: An Analysis of Douglas Coupland's Use of Ergodic Peritext 66 Introduction: From Generation Xio Microserfs 66 Publishing History of Microserfs 68 Microserfs's Design: Novel or Novelty? 74 Ergodic Paratext in Microserfs 76 Whose Subconscious Is It? 77 Consonant/Vowel Pages 81 The Binary Pages 84 Man as Machine/Machine as Man 93 Analysis of Coded Pages 98 Coupland and Paratext after Microserfs: From Aporia to Abundance 103 Sources of Epigraphs 109 Works Cited and Consulted 110 iv The look and design is just as, if not more important than, the content. - Douglas Coupland 1 Vive Jupien: Towards a Theory of Ergodic Paratext After roaming through this literature [on paratext], I found myself paying far more attention to the way title pages, frontispieces, prefaces, footnotes, illustrations, and appendices work on the perceptions of the reader. Burlesque footnotes appear everywhere in eighteenth-century books. One of my favorites says simply, "Half of this article is true. " It is up to the reader to discover which half. Devices such as that invite the reader to play a game, solve a puzzle, or decode a riddle...Of the many kinds of reading that developed in early modern Europe, one that I think deserves special attention is reading as game-playing. You find it everywhere, in libels, novels, and literary reviews, which constantly invite the reader to penetrate into secrets hidden between the lines or beneath the text. - Robert Darnton In this thesis, I will be exploring the ways in which a text is made into a public text. This includes the ways in which a text has been constructed and transformed into a book; the material that accompanies the text in that book; and perhaps most importantly, the ways in which readers interact with this text. While these may seem to be three distinct areas of research—history of the book, analytical bibliography, . and reception theory—theorists such as D.F. McKenzie and Jerome McGann would argue that they are in fact all part of a social process that determines what this object we call a book actually is and does. While McKenzie's and McGann's theories on the sociology of the text are central to my approach, they do not provide a method to approach the tangible artifacts that are produced during the social process of book making. This chapter attempts to provide such a method, by drawing on the theories of Gerard Genette on paratext and Espen Aarseth on ergodic literature. Individually, the theories of Genette and Aarseth provide invaluable insights into paratext and ergodic literature. Combined, however, they provide a powerful new approach to the 2 sociology of some of the most challenging texts of our time, including the works of Douglas Coupland, whose ergodic use of paratext is the focus of this thesis. All contemporary discussions of paratext take as their starting point Genette's Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. But although Genette's theory of paratext has been widely cited, it has never really been developed by later theorists beyond its initial formulation, despite Genette's declaration that it was unfinished and needed further study.1 This is in sharp contrast to his work on narratology, Narrative Discourse, which has not only been widely cited, but has also been negotiated with, debated, and critiqued.