Towards a transdisciplinary thresholds model

How do readers make sense of stories that seem to resist interpretation? This dissertation argues that experimental literature does not simply make reading more difficult—it invites readers to play an active role in creating meaning. Using Facsímil (2014), by Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra, as a case study, the research explores how readers respond when a literary work replaces certainty with ambiguity and encourages multiple valid interpretations.

The dissertation develops the Thresholds Model, a theoretical framework that explains what happens when readers encounter moments of uncertainty during the reading process. These “thresholds” emerge when the text can no longer be understood through a single, familiar perspective. Readers are prompted to draw more on their knowledge, cultural background, previous reading experiences, and broader interpretive traditions to test different possibilities for understanding the text. Meaning is therefore not discovered as something hidden within the work but created through the interaction between the text and the reader.

Through a close analysis of Facsímil, the dissertation identifies four textual strategies that trigger this interpretive process: semantic, referential, metatextual, and teleological dissonance. These strategies encourage readers to negotiate among competing interpretive frameworks rather than search for a single correct answer. In doing so, the novel transforms its parody of Chile's former Academic Aptitude Test into a broader reflection on education, authority, memory, and the assumptions underlying standardized ways of producing knowledge.

More broadly, this research proposes a new approach to experimental fiction by arguing that uncertainty is not a failure of communication but one of its essential conditions. The Threshold Model offers a framework for understanding reader participation in literary interpretation and provides a methodology that can be applied to the analysis of other experimental narratives.

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