Definitions of celebrity authorship and material textuality at the turn of the twenty-first century have predominantly emphasised the implicitly negative aspects of contemporary developments in the literary marketplace. Particularly prominent are arguments that the practice of authorship has become subject to homogenisation by the matrix of celebrity in which successful writers are now expected to function; and, further, that the changing nature of texts themselves and the ways in which they are marketed is eroding the implicitly superior position traditionally held by literature in the cultural marketplace. This thesis views such readings as pessimistic, and offers an alternative, seeking to formulate a new critical approach to literary value in the contemporary sphere which would appreciate notions of celebrity, populism, and digital mediation as integral and productive aspects of how literary value is formed today. Through in-depth focus on the cases of a number of unconventional contemporary American authors whose work demonstrates differing, innovative approaches to the process of authorship, this thesis exposes the ways in which contemporary, atypically ‘literary’ instances of writing can and do work within and develop beyond traditional conceptualisations of authorship and literary value. Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney, largely critically considered prototypical ‘celebrity’ authors, are in the first chapter reconsidered as writers whose understanding of their position within the literary marketplace affords them a self-conscious, critical perspective on the notion of celebrity in their work and public personae. The productively self-conscious author-figure is reconsidered in the second chapter, which reads the individual and joint works of author Paul Auster and visual artist Sophie Calle as foregrounding the process of creative collaboration as uniquely illuminating and transformative within the contemporary literary sphere. The notion of dual authorship is revisited and reconceptualised in the third chapter, which considers JT LeRoy and the practice of hoax authorship, outlining how this process forces the reformulation of literary value, particularly in a contemporary setting in which authors are accountable for their work in newer, more visible ways. The final chapter expands these previously-introduced themes to consider bloggers-turned-authors, particularly Tucker Max and Julie Powell, and the impact of the merging of old and new textualities on both the orientation of the figure of the writer and the way in which value is attached to his texts by readers. Ultimately, the unconventional nature of these examples is shown to belie the universality of the representations of value they enact, contributing to a full and salient account of how literary value is determined at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Le polar américain contemporain se pose en continuité et en rupture avec l'âge d'or des années 1930-1950 en reprenant les codes et représentations mythiques du hard-boiled et du modèle anglais pour les confronter au monde contemporain. A la ville des années 1930, terrain privilégié du détective progressant méthodiquement vers la clé de l'énigme, s'oppose l'univers urbain contemporain - New York et plus particulièrement Brooklyn - au coeur duquel l'énigme initiale reste sans véritable dénouement. Les méthodes traditionnelles n'ont plus cours, laissant place à l'incertitude et au doute ; il n'est plus question de héros triomphant contre le Mal au coeur de l'univers urbain, mais des efforts d'un détective perdu dans sa propre fragmentation. Ainsi, la focalisation ne porte plus sur l'aboutissement de l'enquête mais sur la quête interne du détective qui, avant même d'élucider le mystère, est d'abord en quête de lui-même. Le polar d'avant-garde sous toutes ses formes, et en particulier la bande dessinée et le roman, détrône le statut mythique du détective pour en proposer de multiples figures, prétextes à la redéfinition des codes bien connus du genre et à l'exploration métaphysique du monde contemporain.

保羅•奧斯特的〈紐約三部曲〉被歸類為「反偵探小說」（anti-detective novel）。在這三個故事裡，因緣際會背負了偵探角色的主角們，試圖還原事件的真相，卻個個受挫，甚至迷失在糾纏的線索與沈重的身份認同的遊戲中。他們像是一腳踏進了令人暈眩的泥沼，非但沒法用理智脫困，還愈陷愈深，隨著迷宮裡的音樂瘋狂起舞。 鈴鈴鈴不時搖著鈴鼓迷惑他們的聲響來自一串一串的文字：當他們想藉語言探求「真實」時，才發現無論語言或是理智都從來不是靜止與透明的。此外，與偵探行為息息相關的「命名」（naming）問題，也是〈紐約三部曲〉中的一個焦點。主角們的名字彷彿細軟的藤蔓般糾結在一塊，命名的議題以有趣的方式被呈現在這部小說中。本篇論文還要探討這部小說如何處理讀者與作者的辯證關係，因為讀者一走進這本小說便參與了作者精心設計的巨大遊戲。 本篇論文將研討〈紐約三部曲〉反映的三個問題：再現的問題、命名的侷限性，以及讀者與作者耐人尋味的關係。再現的問題會放到德希達(Jacques Derrida)提出的「延異」（differance）觀念下解釋—事物的意義不可能立即被揭露，而是永遠處在一種「延異」的狀況下。小說中主角們對唯一真實的追尋因而不可能被應許，而是遭遇一而再、再而三的延遲。另一方面，〈紐約三部曲〉對命名的功能性有所保留。本論文將疊合本小說中對命名的質疑與波赫士短篇小說裡對命名的不信任，說明奧斯特對命名的解構。〈紐約三部曲〉對命名抱持矛盾的態度：命名既幫助人們架構他們的世界，卻又滑溜溜的歪曲了人們的自我認識，讓他們被自身的自主性的假象蒙蔽。此外，讀者和作者究竟是不是維繫著一種同盟關係呢？本論文試圖闡釋存在〈紐約三部曲〉中，他們之間相互依存、卻又競逐對文意的解釋權的關係。只不過，躲在文字的簾幕後偷看著的黑影，始終是作者的吧？！ 〈紐約三部曲〉訴說的是一個追尋的故事。這個歷程沒有終結、沒有絕對的答案，只有故事拖長了腳步的身影。這個反偵探故事否定了許多關於理智的邏輯，但是它為書寫開闢了另一種可能：書寫與閱讀可以是無限延長的生命肌理。文字從不直接給予人們他們孜孜尋找的解答，他們只告訴你你將在文字中漂流的命運。 / Labelled as an anti-detective novel, The New York Trilogy defies the traditional detective process and instead renders the experience for man to distill and to locate meaning as an agonizing one. The protagonists in The Trilogy undertake the roles of the detective, hoping to reveal a sole truth behind the entangled situation. Yet they are not only frustrated in disclosing meaning, but thrown into extreme bafflement. Their identities fall apart, wriggling in the maze built by spiral words, crossed names and the ongoing efforts to define the relations. The protagonists find everything they used to hold as truth shudder. Language no longer stands for a limpid means to represent the real but rather shakes their beliefs. When they try to name and to draw their realm of autonomy over the flowing phenomena, they find naming a problematic strategy to define the world. Furthermore, as detective-readers who attempt to decode the text, the protagonists are desperate to comprehend their relations with the “writer” of their books, as the reader does in reading The Trilogy. This thesis attempts to probe into three prominent issues raised in The New York Trilogy: dubious representation, problematic naming strategy, and the peculiar bond between the reader and the writer. The doubtful representation in the novel will be examined under what Derrida suggests in “Differance”: Meaning can never be fully present, but remains in a state of differance. The protagonists in the three stories cannot disclose an overriding truth, but float in such a wave of doubts, uncertainties, and changing phenomena of the world. Also, the problematic strategy of naming will be compared with Borges’suspicion towards naming. Under both cases, naming serves as an extreme yet slippery means for man to draw his territory. In addition, the relation between the reader and the writer in the novel is investigated. The detecting process in the novel embodies the pursuit of the reader out of the text. Thus reading and writing are delineated as an everlasting journey. When the detective and the criminal as well as the reader and the writer seem to be in contest for the power of explanation, the pairing relation actually forms a close tie: The detective cannot live without the criminal; the reader and the writer need the eyesight of each other to survive. The New York Trilogy is not a journey providing answers but a whirl to disrupt the truth. Declining any definite inspiration, it nevertheless obliquely affirms the value of reading and writing. After exhausting complexities of the cases, only the reader remains. And what is heard even after one closes the pages is the voice of the reader encircling within the space. And the voice keeps telling and telling until the story belongs to him. We as readers will keep narrating the story with our little voice.

Informada pelos pressupostos da área interdisciplinar conhecida como estudos animais, esta tese propõe uma leitura a contrapelo das figuras animais na literatura, na qual elas não são entendidas apenas como metáforas de certos aspectos da vida humana, mas como presenças textuais com um estatuto de personagens e, nessa condição, são interrogadas em sua alteridade. A questão central em pauta é: o que a metáfora diz sobre os animais e sobre a relação entre os animais e os seres humanos e o que significa des-figurar a metáfora e explorar a possibilidade de re-significar, a partir da textualidade ficcional, a relação humano-animal. Para tanto, desenho um panorama dos estudos animais, abordando o estado da arte no Brasil, inserindo tais estudos nas possibilidades de inovação no campo da literatura comparada. A seguir, elaboro um aporte teórico a partir da filosofia animal de Jacques Derrida, ao qual incorporo e coloco em discussão posicionamentos teóricos de Calarco (2008), Krell (2013), Lawlor (2007) e Naas (2010) sobre a questão em pauta. Por fim, realizo leituras comparadas entre A metamorfose (1915), de Franz Kafka, e Porcarias (1996), de Marie Darrieussecq, ambos sobre o tornar-se animal, e entre Flush (1933), de Virginia Woolf, e Timbuktu (1999), de Paul Auster, ambos sobre a domesticação de animais. / Following the tenets of the interdisciplinary area of animal studies, this dissertation presents a reading of animal figures in literature against the grain, which means that they are not taken only as metaphors of certain aspects of human life but as textual presences with a status assigned to characters and, in this condition, are interrogated in their alterity. The central question to be explored is: what the animal metaphor says about animals and the relation of animal and human beings and what it means to de-figure the metaphor in order to explore the possibility of re-signifying, in ficcional textualities, the human/animal relation. In order to address these issues, I draw a panorama of animal studies, including the state of the art in Brazil, to contend that this area adds to the possibilities of innovation in the field of comparative literature. Then, I consider a theoretical framework of Jacques Derrida’s animal philosophy, also discussing theoretical positions of Calarco (2008), Krell (2013), Lawlor (2007) and Naas (2010) on this topic. Finally, I propose comparative readings of Franz Kafka’s The metamorphosis (1915) and Marie Darrieussecq’s Pig tales (1996), from the perspective of becoming animal, and of Virginia Woolf’s Flush (1933) and Paul Auster’s Timbuktu (1999), both on domesticating animals.

Informada pelos pressupostos da área interdisciplinar conhecida como estudos animais, esta tese propõe uma leitura a contrapelo das figuras animais na literatura, na qual elas não são entendidas apenas como metáforas de certos aspectos da vida humana, mas como presenças textuais com um estatuto de personagens e, nessa condição, são interrogadas em sua alteridade. A questão central em pauta é: o que a metáfora diz sobre os animais e sobre a relação entre os animais e os seres humanos e o que significa des-figurar a metáfora e explorar a possibilidade de re-significar, a partir da textualidade ficcional, a relação humano-animal. Para tanto, desenho um panorama dos estudos animais, abordando o estado da arte no Brasil, inserindo tais estudos nas possibilidades de inovação no campo da literatura comparada. A seguir, elaboro um aporte teórico a partir da filosofia animal de Jacques Derrida, ao qual incorporo e coloco em discussão posicionamentos teóricos de Calarco (2008), Krell (2013), Lawlor (2007) e Naas (2010) sobre a questão em pauta. Por fim, realizo leituras comparadas entre A metamorfose (1915), de Franz Kafka, e Porcarias (1996), de Marie Darrieussecq, ambos sobre o tornar-se animal, e entre Flush (1933), de Virginia Woolf, e Timbuktu (1999), de Paul Auster, ambos sobre a domesticação de animais. / Following the tenets of the interdisciplinary area of animal studies, this dissertation presents a reading of animal figures in literature against the grain, which means that they are not taken only as metaphors of certain aspects of human life but as textual presences with a status assigned to characters and, in this condition, are interrogated in their alterity. The central question to be explored is: what the animal metaphor says about animals and the relation of animal and human beings and what it means to de-figure the metaphor in order to explore the possibility of re-signifying, in ficcional textualities, the human/animal relation. In order to address these issues, I draw a panorama of animal studies, including the state of the art in Brazil, to contend that this area adds to the possibilities of innovation in the field of comparative literature. Then, I consider a theoretical framework of Jacques Derrida’s animal philosophy, also discussing theoretical positions of Calarco (2008), Krell (2013), Lawlor (2007) and Naas (2010) on this topic. Finally, I propose comparative readings of Franz Kafka’s The metamorphosis (1915) and Marie Darrieussecq’s Pig tales (1996), from the perspective of becoming animal, and of Virginia Woolf’s Flush (1933) and Paul Auster’s Timbuktu (1999), both on domesticating animals.

Informada pelos pressupostos da área interdisciplinar conhecida como estudos animais, esta tese propõe uma leitura a contrapelo das figuras animais na literatura, na qual elas não são entendidas apenas como metáforas de certos aspectos da vida humana, mas como presenças textuais com um estatuto de personagens e, nessa condição, são interrogadas em sua alteridade. A questão central em pauta é: o que a metáfora diz sobre os animais e sobre a relação entre os animais e os seres humanos e o que significa des-figurar a metáfora e explorar a possibilidade de re-significar, a partir da textualidade ficcional, a relação humano-animal. Para tanto, desenho um panorama dos estudos animais, abordando o estado da arte no Brasil, inserindo tais estudos nas possibilidades de inovação no campo da literatura comparada. A seguir, elaboro um aporte teórico a partir da filosofia animal de Jacques Derrida, ao qual incorporo e coloco em discussão posicionamentos teóricos de Calarco (2008), Krell (2013), Lawlor (2007) e Naas (2010) sobre a questão em pauta. Por fim, realizo leituras comparadas entre A metamorfose (1915), de Franz Kafka, e Porcarias (1996), de Marie Darrieussecq, ambos sobre o tornar-se animal, e entre Flush (1933), de Virginia Woolf, e Timbuktu (1999), de Paul Auster, ambos sobre a domesticação de animais. / Following the tenets of the interdisciplinary area of animal studies, this dissertation presents a reading of animal figures in literature against the grain, which means that they are not taken only as metaphors of certain aspects of human life but as textual presences with a status assigned to characters and, in this condition, are interrogated in their alterity. The central question to be explored is: what the animal metaphor says about animals and the relation of animal and human beings and what it means to de-figure the metaphor in order to explore the possibility of re-signifying, in ficcional textualities, the human/animal relation. In order to address these issues, I draw a panorama of animal studies, including the state of the art in Brazil, to contend that this area adds to the possibilities of innovation in the field of comparative literature. Then, I consider a theoretical framework of Jacques Derrida’s animal philosophy, also discussing theoretical positions of Calarco (2008), Krell (2013), Lawlor (2007) and Naas (2010) on this topic. Finally, I propose comparative readings of Franz Kafka’s The metamorphosis (1915) and Marie Darrieussecq’s Pig tales (1996), from the perspective of becoming animal, and of Virginia Woolf’s Flush (1933) and Paul Auster’s Timbuktu (1999), both on domesticating animals.

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In this dissertation I argue that invisible characters, as they appear in Paul Auster’s novels, serve a very specific function within the interpretative framework of a text and that they should be considered to play a functional role, in order to arrive at a more holistic interpretation of the text and a more accurate analysis of said texts. I argue that Auster knowingly includes these characters in his novels as part of his narrative technique, in order for them to serve specific functions and to contribute to the structure of postmodern fiction. I make use of a contextualized close reading of five of Auster’s novels and attempt a hermeneutic interpretation of these novels to arrive at a hermeneutic circle when combining these novels into an integrated whole, individual, work of fiction. Certain parallels can be drawn between Auster’s various novels and these parallels contribute to the various motifs and themes found throughout his work. The importance of space in Auster’s novels is also highlighted with emphasis on liminality which serves as an instigator for transgression to occur between different fictive worlds. / Thesis (MA (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

In this dissertation I argue that invisible characters, as they appear in Paul Auster’s novels, serve a very specific function within the interpretative framework of a text and that they should be considered to play a functional role, in order to arrive at a more holistic interpretation of the text and a more accurate analysis of said texts. I argue that Auster knowingly includes these characters in his novels as part of his narrative technique, in order for them to serve specific functions and to contribute to the structure of postmodern fiction. I make use of a contextualized close reading of five of Auster’s novels and attempt a hermeneutic interpretation of these novels to arrive at a hermeneutic circle when combining these novels into an integrated whole, individual, work of fiction. Certain parallels can be drawn between Auster’s various novels and these parallels contribute to the various motifs and themes found throughout his work. The importance of space in Auster’s novels is also highlighted with emphasis on liminality which serves as an instigator for transgression to occur between different fictive worlds. / Thesis (MA (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.