When we read a novel whose intertext we know, our expectations are activated, completed, reversed, or frustrated not only by the narrative and discursive events within the novel we are currently reading but also by events within the intertext and by points of congruence and difference between the texts. Novels that rewrite other novels require us to modify our application of these rules.
Specifically, I argue that understanding these activities requires us to expand and extend Rabinowitz’s work on what he calls the rules of configuration and coherence, which guide “the reader’s experience of an unfolding text during the act of reading” and her process of “ its elements into a total pattern” once the act of reading is concluded (110). My goal in this essay is to contribute to our understanding of the work that readers do to make sense of transformative narratives.
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