«En finir avec la géographie» : détournements ludiques de l’écriture du voyage dans Six degrés de liberté de Nicolas Dickner et Document 1 de François Blais
Influenced by travel and exploration stories, as well as the American and Quebec road narratives, the contemporary novels Six Degrees of Freedom by Nicolas Dickner and Document 1 by François Blais subvert travel writing by challenging its conventions and assumptions, while interrogating a stable understanding of space. These two novels feature unusual journeys: whether on board a refrigerated container or through the web, crossing vast territories or confined, Blais and Dickner’s protagonists transform the cartographic purpose of travel. As they rewrite codified travel narratives and take over a number of topoï and clichés, these two texts deploy singular cartographies, which mix invention and reality, geographical spaces and imaginary places. This thesis therefore intends to focus on the representation of space and travel in these two novels, with a particular attention to the way novelists play with their reader, for it is through a ludic irony that Document 1 and Six degrees of freedom observe and record today’s reality.
Nicolas Dickner François Blais Roman contemporain Quebec litterature Contemporary novel Space Irony