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Part of
The Stylistics of Landscapes, the Landscapes of Stylistics
Edited by John Douthwaite, Daniela Francesca Virdis and Elisabetta Zurru
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 28] 2017
► pp. 61–80

Chapter 5
The blind tour

Spatial abstraction in experimental fiction

On the one hand, this chapter contributes to recent efforts in narrative theory which aim at specifying the cognitive and interpretive challenge of experimental fiction. On the other hand, it focuses on the unconventional textualisation of space in narrative. Drawing on stylistics and narrative theory, it analyses spatial abstraction as an effect of stylistic features in Orchis Militaris, an experimental narrative by Ivo Michiels. The motif of blindness is prominent in the novel and will be directly linked to the reader’s processing attempts. In that respect, it echoes the analogy of blindness used by Catherine Emmott (1997) to refer to the experience of a reader who is monitoring fictional contexts. The reader of Orchis Militaris is like a blind person, but one who is not provided with sufficient clues to construct the contextual configuration of the people and settings around him or her. Particular attention will be paid to the stylistic features of spatial abstraction, the cognitive demands made on readers and the interpretive opportunities emerging from their cognitive disorientation.
Article outline
  • 1.Narrative space, final frontiers
  • 2.The blind tour and the mental representation of locations
  • 3.An experiment in the textualisation of space
    • 3.1Thematisation and description
    • 3.2Monitoring contextual configurations
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.28.05ber
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