Prose is the most common form of art, one might argue. It is the common thread of everyday communication. We as humans are programed to tell stories, whether we are sitting around the dinner table and talking about our day or telling a joke or writing full length novels filled with high brow symbolism and Menippean Satire, we love to tell a good yarn. Inside each of us is a storyteller and we utilize this ability in different ways. One only has to look to the advent of text communication via mobile device to see the evolution of language.
Prominently, the use of Experimental Text can has prevented the stagnation of culture and reevaluated the way we use language, as well as our approach to structural elements such as grammar and spelling. For instance, the use of slang and stream of consciousness writing has allowed for engaging story telling with an authentic feel. This tradition, while always existent on some level throughout the ages, came to the forefront of the literary world in the form of Ulysses, by James Joyce. Joyce utilized a episodic approach, releasing the novel as eighteen chapters which could exist independent of one another, yet still contain a central story line.
This episodic structure has greatly influenced not only literary fiction, a solid example of this approach is Brett Easton Ellis’s Less than Zero, but cinema as well, evidenced by Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. The nonlinear narratives present in the aforementioned works of fiction keeps the reader (or viewer in the case of Pulp Fiction) engaged by stimulating the mind with fresh new perspectives and storylines. Joyce had received some criticism from the public, stating that his work was unorganized and chaotic, yet overall he continues to endure as a literary legend requiring careful study and reflection.
Ulysses is a work of enigmatic fiction, one from which layers of semiotic meaning may be expounded. Joyce utilizes color, the convergence of science and art, time and the narrative of the Odyssey itself to create a living-breathing manuscript of incredible complexity which will be studied by lovers of the written word for centuries to come and Joyce knew it. Joyce has incredible sense of self awareness, bordering on the tongue in cheek, he’s quoted saying: “”I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring one’s immortality.”
Department of Fabrication 