Co-creating with Federman

摘要

This project delves into author, critic and theorist Raymond Federman’s notions about what postmodern literature is, and what the most refined form of it, Surfiction, should entail. The project seeks to investigate the author-reader relationship as seen through Critifiction’s Surfiction propositions, as well as how we, ourselves as readers, make sense of, and interpret the text of Double or Nothing. This is done through the research philosophical assumptions of the postmodern ontology and epistemology, as well as the interpretivist axiology, in combination with the close-reading, deconstruction, and interpretation methods that allow us to use our interpretations of our findings as empirical data. Through our analysis we present examples of the reader’s responsibilities when understanding the textual structure of Double or Nothing in regards to the visual storytelling, and also how the author, Raymond Federman, is present within the metafictional levels of the book. The project also goes in depth about the four persons presented in the novel. Additionally, we interpret that there are in fact an additional two persons at play within the discourse of Double or Nothing, namely the physical author, that produced the book, and the co-creating reader that completes the text as it is read. As made evident by the analysis, the roles of author and reader are interlinked, in parts even equal, in the creation of a Surfictional piece of literature.