Children’s literature revised: De l’autre côté d’Alice by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud

 

In his short stories from De l’autre côté d’Alice, Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud chooses three classics belonging to children’s literature in order to rewrite them for adults. First, the intertextual principle, which is constituted by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up and The Adventures of Pinocchio, can be easily identified through elements of the paratext. Then, the analysis of references to the models shows that the French writer modifies mainly themes, and theses transformations are of two types: diegetic (changes within protagonists and the chronotope) and pragmatic (changes in narrative sequences). The meeting of the past texts and the present ideas leads to an original rewriting example, demanding a ludic and hermeneutic reading.

Children’s literature revised: De l’autre côté d’Alice by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud

 

In his short stories from De l’autre côté d’Alice, Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud chooses three classics belonging to children’s literature in order to rewrite them for adults. First, the intertextual principle, which is constituted by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up and The Adventures of Pinocchio, can be easily identified through elements of the paratext. Then, the analysis of references to the models shows that the French writer modifies mainly themes, and theses transformations are of two types: diegetic (changes within protagonists and the chronotope) and pragmatic (changes in narrative sequences). The meeting of the past texts and the present ideas leads to an original rewriting example, demanding a ludic and hermeneutic reading.