Interpreting Fictionality and Ontological Blurrings in and between Lance Olsen's <em>Theories of Forgetting</em> and <em>there's no place like time</em>

Abstract

In this article, I explore the experiential texture of literary f ictionality and ontological blurrings, using Lance Olsen's multimodal works Theories of Forgetting and there's no place like time as case study texts. In doing so, I argue that while tropes such as recursive narrative structure and the intrusion of the author into fiction are typically postmodernist, Olsen repurposes them as part of a contemporary pursuit of the real. Contra to postmodernist sensibilities, the ontological distortions and metaleptic transgressions of Olsen's texts are primarily deployed as a means of reinvigorating our human sense of lived experience and the place of narratives within it. My analysis adopts a cognitive approach to fictionality, that is new in its combined use of Text World Theory and the metalanguage of the narrative interrelation framework. Such an approach is ideal for tracking ontological slippages and readers' resultant experiences, particularly in relation to the kind of blurred fictionality found in autofiction.