Five more steps and you will be a new person: the procedural closure of the experiential field in Every Day the Same Dream

Abstract

This paper will provide an analysis of the editorial game Every Day the Same Dream (EDSD). EDSD assumes the specific characteristics of a thesis novel (a “thesis game”, in this specific case) which Suleiman (1983: 1) defined as a type of novel which explicitly puts forth “recognized body of doctrine or system of ideas” and which has an “unambiguous dualistic system of values [...] rules of action addressed to the reader [and a] doctrinal intertext” (Suleiman, 1983: 54). According to the principle of procedural rhetoric (Bogost, 2008), the thesis of EDSD is mainly defended through the formal structure of the game, especially in the problem solving processes performed by the player. We therefore analyze EDSD as a thesis game by putting forward the concept of “micro-apparatus of procedural closure of the experiential field”, which arises from the meeting of hermeneutic and cognitive sciences, the objective being to describe the strategies used to disseminate a persuasive message among players and to analyze its reception.