"The Reader’s Cooperation with the Book-as-Object: the case of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Sabuda’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (2003)" (original) (raw)

In my book L’esthétique du jeu dans les Alice de Lewis Carroll (The Aesthetics of Play in Lewis Carroll’s Alice books), I have argued that Carroll’s own adaptation of Wonderland for children “aged from nought to five,” that is to say The Nursery Alice, so strictly constrains the implied reader’s participation that she cannot playfully counter-interpellate the text (thus referring to Judith Butler’s theory of subjection, subjectification and counter-interpellation). In other words, I have shown that the reader of The Nursery Alice cannot indulge in what Roger Caillois calls “paidia,” the impulsive manifestation of a play instinct, but can only adhere to “ludus,” the need to conform to rules. Contrariwise, as the Tweedle brothers would say, even if the 1865 Alice tries to limit the implied reader’s role, she can actively counter-interpellate the text, and play with and against its rules. For this presentation, I’d like to focus on the reader’s cooperation with the book-as-object, and reveal how the tension between subjection and agency characterizes both Carroll and Tenniel’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and paper engineering artist Robert Sabuda’s adaptation of this classic (2003). As Mou-Lan Wong has convincingly suggested, the reader is actively involved when reading the original Alice books, thereby, I would add, becoming a playful reader. The page-turning mechanism is exploited to the maximum, so much so that turning the pages does not merely mean getting access to the rest of the tale, but actually creating some of the Wonderland characters (145) and ultimately creating Wonderland (144). Similarly, when Sabuda discusses the creation of his pop-up books, he notes that the tension between subjection and agency lies at the core of his work: he wants to make “the paper listen and obey” (9) while knowing at the same time that “the paper will do what it wants to do” (10). My talk will then address the following question: is the reader of Sabuda’s Alice as playfully involved in the book as the reader of Carroll and Tenniel’s version is? or does the (too?) intricate pop-up device actually plan the reader’s role so much that her intervention is drastically limited? In other words, can Sabuda’s reader indulge in what Caillois calls “paidia” while at the same time recognizing the “ludic” rules of the pop-up game, or is she forced to abide by these rules without counter-interpellating them, consequently relinquishing any chance of being a playful reader?