Thinking Outside the Traditional Confinements of Writing: Exploring Experimentalism
Experimentalism can get a bad rap in the field of literature, both in the perspective of authors and readers alike. It’s not always easily understandable, doesn’t necessarily appeal to a wide general audience, can be tricky to write, and even trickier to market. And yet, experimental books are amongst some of the most well-known and highly influential pieces of work that have been published. Marcel Proust, Kurt Vonnegut, and James Joyce, are just some of the writers that, through their avant-garde works, transformed literature as a whole. Experimental writing has been dubbed the marrying of literature and theatre, and despite its difficulties, it is a style that continues to be prominent.
But what exactly makes a book experimental? It may be easiest to understand this by first considering what traditional literature consists of. Traditionalist literature, in the context of novels, especially, is a style that is heavily dependent on the concept of realism. Much like its artistic counterpart, this form is regarded as at its best when it is imitative, mirroring a single, shared reality. Continuing with this, the structure, flow of time, and narrating, aim to also follow a logical, realistic outline. Time moves forward in an orderly fashion, so the structure is set out as a beginning, middle, and end. Additionally, the narrator(s) are relied upon to provide clear, true descriptions. When we think of classics, this is often how they work, and they are in a form which is the most simple for us to process without having to doubt the information we are given or question time. In the mind of the reader, that which is provided to them through the narrator, through the events that occur, is regarded as truth; it is a single, verifiable reality.
Now where traditional literature sees one, unwavering form of reality, experimentalism challenges this through an alternate or many alternate perceptions of reality. This stems from the belief in a subjective reality, which consequently impacts the story told depending on the storyteller, and the context in which they exist in. One of the best examples of such is French writer Raymond Queneau, who demonstrated it through his Exercises in Style. The book repeats a single interaction between two characters ninety-nine times, each time changing the style or dialect, resulting in ninety-nine completely different interactions. This was used to represent not necessarily a lack of reality, but the pitfalls in accurately reflecting a single reality due to its dependency on language and perspective.
Of course, not all experimental pieces are this out rightly defiant of traditional writing conventions. In many cases, those same conventional elements may be present, but adjusted to fit a new set of rules. Where time previously flowed in a logical manner, it may now jump forwards or back, or exist in a loop. The narrator, once the conveyor of truth and the reader’s only insight into this constructed world, may be completely unreliable or unsure of their own understanding. These are elements that can commonly be seen in stream of consciousness novels. Time exists on an internal plane, moving only with the narrator’s thoughts, and can go back with each memory, endlessly, if chosen. If you’ve been brave enough to tackle Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport, a thousand-page inner-monologue that consists of mostly one sentence, you will have experienced how this stream of consciousness writing allows greater control over the progression of time. Not only does she create rhythm through repetition of the phrase “the fact that”, allowing time to feel suspended, but she makes a pattern of returning to certain memories or styles of expressing an idea that the reader begins to anticipate and accept her new, non-reality time system. Just as time beings to progress, and the reader moves forward, they are drawn back again to “the fact that”, and the cycle continues again.
This type of writing also in some ways dilutes the traditional usage of the narrator as the mouthpiece of the “true” story. They no longer hold the responsibility of being omniscient, providing all the facts to the reader, but instead now are centred on their own thoughts. By distancing the narrator from its traditional form and expectations, experimental authors allow the book to become meta. In this case, the reader is made known that the book is a written article, and that the “reality” is one that is constructed within the piece. This can include reminders that the reader is in fact “reading”, reflections on the writing or what is being said, and an overall challenging of the separating of realities between reader and book. In Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller employs this technique by directly addressing the reader as “you”, while the narrator is also referred to as such. In this sense, it’s seen how through experimental writing the lines of fiction and nonfiction are blurred, and true reality is able to be brought into question.
Despite being a complete blank canvas that authors can arrange and rearrange their own style however chosen, there are some key traits of well-formed experimental pieces that can be identified: a consideration of what the individual constructed rules are, and an abidance by it; tying threads in with the actual content: the odd ends add to what is trying to be said, and carry purpose other than just making the work “different”; a challenging of the norms to construct a new form of meaning using text, imagery, space, etc.; and attention given to how much is revealed to the reader. Considering that experimental literature can often times be very much about readers stepping into the mind of the author, this last point can be highly important in deciding how generous the author is going to be with the information they give. And as said by Amy Krouse Rosenthal , for stories to work, both readers and writers must be generous.
Beyond tell-tale signs of experimental fiction, it really is just that: experimental. To attach to it certain, concrete elements that can be pinpointed would defeat the purpose of them being new, original presentations of a story. Each attempt, in its own right, is about thinking outside the traditional confinements of writing, and continually asking the question: what’s next for storytelling?
About Roumina Parsamand
Roumina is a journalism and finance student from Melbourne, Australia. She is a filler of journals with words and drawings, and an obsessive reader. Always happy to chat books, pet dogs, and drink tea. You can find her on Instagram at @nami.reads
