FRAGMENTATION AND (DIS)ORDER IN NOLLIAN “FICTIONAL INSTANTS”
A SCHIZOANALYTIC APPROACH TO MINIMOS, MÚLTIPLOS, COMUNS (2003)
fragment; contemporary narratives; fictional instants; schizoanalysis; neobaroque
This thesis proposes a detailed investigation into textual fragmentation and its implications in the construction of contemporary narrative, with a specific focus on the work Mínimos, Múltiplos, Comuns (2003) by João Gilberto Noll. This book, composed of small texts initially published in the "Relâmpagos" column of the "Ilustrada" section of Folha de São Paulo between 1998 and 2001, presents a fragmentary language that evokes the concept of Barthesian narrative haikus through its 338 "fictional instants," as the author calls them. These instants are characterized by conciseness, autonomy, disconnection, and a raw or dreamlike impression of reality. The analysis draws on theories of literary fragmentation, particularly those proposed by Barthes (1986; 1987; 1989; 2004; 2005; 2015), Novalis (1988), Schelegel (1997), and Susini-Anastopoulos (1997), in addition to referencing the concepts of schizoanalysis by Deleuze & Guattari (2014), Guattari’s notion of chaosmosis (2012), and Sarduy’s theory of the neobaroque (1975; 1979; 1989; 1999). The aim of this thesis is to present Noll's book as a paradigm of contemporary fragmentary writing, in which the fragment functions both as a compositional form and as an aesthetic model of meaning, in line with the theories proposed by the scholars who support this hypothesis.