While we often think of intertextuality as referring to relationships between texts, there is also the relationship between text and paratext to consider. Literary theorist Philippe Lejeune claims that “the fringe of the printed text which, in reality, controls the whole reading” and Gerald Genette concurs that this relationship is one of transaction that influences the reception of the text (Introduction to the Paratext, Genette: 1991). I thought that the paratextual elements in Asterios Polyp definitely corresponded consciously to the material of the story itself in a variety of interesting ways.
First of all, there is the three-dimensionality which is perhaps most apparent on the cover. The choice of colors not only references the cyan and magenta used in printmaking but also creates two overlapping shapes which, when viewed through the corresponding color-separating 3D glasses, turns into a holograph. The front cover also depicts Asterios mirrored across the spine, his past and present selves facing their counterparts. These paratextual elements are all constructed around the theme of perception: its limits, our prejudices, and the frameworks we apply to interpretive approaches. Without the 3D glasses, we, like Asterios, are seeing everything in binary and not the possibilities that arise from the overlap. The mirror images of Asterios himself also show the transformation from the start of the book- the front cover- to the end- the back cover. He is reflecting on himself, demonstrating that his experiences and relationships have taught him the value of self-reflection and that his perception of himself can be augmented by the perceptions others have of him. Within the text, the chapter markers are also often reflexive. For example, in the second chapter we are introduced to Asterios by his dead twin brother. The image of Asterios, haggard and dismayed over the loss of his apartment, coincides with the chapter marker on the previous page of Asterios as a pompous academic. The two circular images are placed so as to become two sides of the same coin as we turn the page. (This might also be another Greek mythology reference, since the custom of putting faces in profile on coins arose in ancient Greece.) As we read, we are becoming more attuned to the ‘extra’ information, the paratext, which we typically disregard. Like Asterios, who has to open his perceptual framework in order to incorporate extra information outside the binaries, we too have to adjust our binary ideas of what is ‘the story’ and what isn’t. Fortunately, again like Asterios, we are not alone. Mazzuchelli is using this meta-referential paratextual art in concert with the text itself to teach us new interpretive strategies as we read.
