Folding-in the Sonic Spaces

Here I am again, making another belated blog-post. (How long will I delay my next??) Anyway, I want to briefly discuss Burroughs' fold-in technique (addressed in "The Future of the Novel") and how it applies to Stranger Than Fiction, as it was noted in class that the technique might be able to suss out ways in which the film is working.

WIth Burroughs' fold-in technique, two texts coalesce to function as a new, single one on the page. These texts can come from any number of sources (on page 306, Burroughs cites "newspapers, magazines, conversations and letters" among his), but "best results are usually obtained by placing pages dealing with similar subjects in juxtaposition" (305).

Stranger Than Fiction does something I find equatable: during the scenes in which Karen, the author, narrates Harold's life, especially while dialogue ensues, the two come to occupy the same sonic space--much in the way that Burroughs' fold-in technique functions with two texts inhabit the same piece. While the film may differ in that this very concept is the predominant element of the plot (so, it is essential), it offers the same arrangement (or rearrangement) that Burroughs offers, and, in doing so, the piece becomes "more comprehensible than the original."