The Old Axolot by Jacek Dukaj: Between Multimodality and Transmediality

Abstract

Summary This article attempts to revise the categories of hypertexuality, multimodality and transmediality in the context of the idea of multi-layered narration in Jacek Dukaj’s essay Bibliomachia and his novel The Old Axolot: Hardware Dreams (e-book, 2015). The principal aim of this analysis is to map the broad spectrum of narrative techniques and experiments that augment and upgrade the traditional concept of the represented world to that of the cognitive narrative world. The latter term holds out a promise of getting a better grip on certain innovative narrative projects whose harbinger is The Old Axolot. The world-building strategy of this novel is twofold: it shapes its narrative world and the marketing campaign of its bilingual e-book edition. At the same time, the introduction of the Fictionary word game and an evolving concept of worldness makes The Old Axolot both an epitome of worldcentred narration, characteristic of both the culture of media convergence and the poetics of fantasy fiction, and a teaser, inviting us to re-examine our understanding of literature at the time of the World-building Turn.