Michel Serres’ Hors-la as a Contemporary Way of Being — the Interpretation of Guy de Maupassant’s ‘The Horla’ in the Context of Space, Networks and Capsules

Abstract

This article presents a work of fiction, its interpretation, readings of this interpretation and its continuation. Work of fiction is Guy De Maupassant’s — a 19th-century French author, one of the protagonists of the so-called “weird fiction” (literature of “lovecraftian” type) — The Horla . The interpretation is Michel Serres’ — inspired by topology, it analyzes and names (hors-la) the state of being described in the novel. In the readings of this interpretation its commentators point out, that in today’s world dominated by other spaces (non-places, heterotopias), this hors-la (being in motion and in-between) is the leading way of being. Continuing this interpretation, it will be extended here with issue of technology, captured and presented in a new, broader terminological framework (interiors and exteriors, capsules and networks) and supported by an example of research.
Two main aims here are: (1) outlining the structure of the environment of the (literary and real) subjects — especially in the context of the technology (capsules and nets, extensions and palsies) and (2) showing subjects under the influence of such environment and it’s changes — subjects entangled in global relation that reach beyond their cognitive horizon; subjects being expanded, mediated, unframed, thrown in-between. Those two aims will be briefly supported by an example of research on changes in the functioning of memory and attention caused by the use of the internet (The Shallows by Nicholas Carr).