During the construction phase of Mr Memory Encore, I had (I think) a pretty clear idea of what rabbit holes may be.
Thus. Rabbit holes are sought out by (or indeed are created by or, if you want to look at this another way, just damned-well open up in front of) writers with an ingrained disposition towards confounding the linear narrative. Romantics in other words; fantasists who believe their magic incantations can unshackle us from the tyranny of time.
Time, our ultimate nemesis.
Interconnected rabbit holes may constitute a labyrinth in and of themselves… but ultimately, if they don’t, they will (you hope and pray) lead to a greater and more sophisticated labyrinth.
What do I mean by labyrinth? Well, let’s just say that not all labyrinths are dank and dark and underground and eerily deserted.
Labyrinths, at a metaphorical or symbolic level, are merely zones of complex and conjectural and seemingly random connectivity.
And they too are portals. Portals, ultimately, to the unconscious and, in Jungian terms, the collective unconscious. Or, in Platonic terms, to the forms of beauty and the good.
There’s a symbolist aesthetic in play here, going back to Baudelaire and Rimbaud and Verlaine, taken (more notably from my point of view) into the 20th Century by the likes of WB Yeats.
In other words, it’s relatively modern notion – and of course it’s just one of many techniques (for this is an age-old struggle) a writer may choose to deploy against time’s tyranny.
So. A new route towards a timeless goal.
Intriguingly, for an aesthetic theorist like yours truly, the digital domain is putting a new spin on this. Narrative structural possibilities derived from computer games offer new ways of plotting to undermine the linear narrative. Likewise, the “Netflix stretch” has prompted writers to build upon narrative lattice techniques that you can source right back to the rise of the television soap opera.
Anyway, one way or another, I reckon the rabbit-hole aesthetic plugs into something fundamental. Something, dare I say it, archetypal. Something pertaining to a peculiarity in the way the human mind works.
I’m not for a minute arguing that all notable narratives embrace labyrinthine elements. Far from it. (But I think I could convince you that a surprising number do.)
But it has to be conceded, here and now, unequivocally, that the greatest works of art aren’t labyrinthine. They are, contrariwise, wide-eyed in the clear light of day. They march towards the sound of… well, that’s another story for another day.
We’re merely talking (sorry if I’m repeating myself) about just one relatively new technique for pushing the compelling towards the transcendental.
Anyway, I give you rabbit holes writ large. But before I go, I think it worth mentioning that in many cases, as a reader, you’ll enter the labyrinth with a vague expectation that in doing so you may encounter the spirit of mischievous creativity.
As a writer you’ll know that we will fail, this is absolutely our destiny, to recognise him.
But the realisation of this, in hindsight, time’s tyranny having been restored, gives us our payoff paragraph.
