Puzzling fictions work by violating self-imposed rules, not by ignoring them.
Evidence
The rules are crucial to Nolan’s method. If Memento is a kind of impossible object, then its impossibility is generated not via an anything-goes ontological anarchy but by the setting up of rules which it violates in particular ways – just as the effect of Escher’s paintings depend upon unsettling rather than ignoring the rules of perspective. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 517
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the broader hauntology/noise-web theme — Fisher elsewhere values rigor over anarchy. — connects to: A totem’s evidence test cannot distinguish dream from reality by construction. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 528; Postmodern fiction resists from within instead of opposing wholesale — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 945; Novels rejecting bildungsroman and romance conventions without compensation read as rule-breaking — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 476 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- A novel can build generic trespass into its form, not just its plot
#exemplifies(0.88) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 350 - Novels rejecting bildungsroman and romance conventions without compensation read as rule-breaking
#exemplifies(0.85) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 476 - Postmodern fiction resists from within instead of opposing wholesale
#expands(0.78) — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited, 945