“A Geo-ontological Thump”: Ontological Instability and the Folding City in Mikko Rimminen’s Early Prose

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines ontological instability in terms of Deleuze’s concept of the fold in the early prose texts of Finnish author Mikko Rimminen: The Tipplers’ Novel (2004), Woodblock (2007), and “An Extract from a Manuscript” (2009). The focus is on how the relationship between the fictional city and its referential counterpart is foregrounded as well as undermined in a way that destabilizes the ontological status of the storyworlds. Key concepts used in the analysis of the literary space and storyworld are Brian McHale’s “flickering effect” and Bertrand Westphal’s “heterotopic interference.” Deleuze’s “fold” is proposed as a heuristic concept to describe how ontological instability in postmodern storyworlds is shaped. This chapter proposes a reading of Rimminen’s prose from the perspective of apocalyptic undercurrents, which have remained largely unappreciated.

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