Dissertation

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Fictionality and Ontology in Michael Crichton’s
Eaters of the Dead
By
Tamás Varga
‘Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of [MA in English
Language and Linguistics], University of Sheffield, [2015]’.

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Abstract:
The purpose of this dissertation is to conduct a cognitive-poetic analysis of a
literary text, which is informed by the reader response data collected from two online book
review websites: Amazon and Goodreads. The analysis as a whole is undertaken through the
implementation of the cognitive-linguistic discourse processing framework of Text World
Theory. The text chosen as the topic of analysis is Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead,
due to its complex ontological status. The book contains information that readers might deem
to be purely factual until they are told at the very end that they have been deceived, and that
most of the book is fictional.
As a result of these investigations, this dissertation seeks to answer the
following four research questions:
 What specific techniques were used by the implied author to accomplish deception?
 Why were these specific techniques used?
 How do readers react to being deceived by the implied author?
 Why do readers react the way they do?
By finding answers to these questions, the dissertation provides insights into
the various emotional experiences involved in reading literature that plays with ontology and
deception. It shows that the implied author of the text accomplishes deception through the
presentation of seemingly factual information in the form of footnotes and references. By
writing the novel in the form of a scholarly presentation, the implied author succeeds in
deceiving his readers into believing that the text is an authentic travel document elaborately
put together by a historian. When readers are told at the very end that the book is a work of
fiction, they are either impressed or disappointed that they have been deceived. Readers who
are impressed by being deceived do not feel as attached to their initial mental representations
of the text compared to readers who are disappointed.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter One: Eaters of the Dead
1.1: Michael Crichton
1.2: Ahmed Ibn Fadlān’s Journal
1.3: Eaters of the Dead
Chapter Two: Methodology
2.1: Stylistics
2.2: Cognitive Poetics
2.3: Text World Theory
2.4: Reader Response Data
2.4.1: Reader Responses to Eaters of the Dead
2.4.2: Results and Discussion
Chapter Three: Analysis
3.1: Text-Worlds of Eaters of the Dead
3.1.1: Text-Worlds of the introduction section
3.1.2: Text-Worlds of the middle and ending sections
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix

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Introduction
Based on the online reading group data that some scholars have gathered, it
has been shown that the act of reading is usually described by readers as a process of
transportation (see Gerrig 1993, Stockwell 2009). According to Stockwell (2009: 87) ‘the
notion that a reading mind is “transported” in a literary work involves a projection of identity
into another mental world, in which all the deictic references and attributes of the observing
consciousness are shifted to the imaginary landscape’. From the reader response data that I
have gathered about Eaters of the Dead, I have observed that readers view the mental world
into which they project their identity as being synonymous with the discourse-world in which
they are reading the text (see Appendix section for examples).
A second discourse metaphor which Stockwell identifies is called ‘reading as
control’ (Stockwell 2009: 80). This metaphor emphasises how ‘readers who describe their
literary experience as a form of control tend to see the direction of control as coming from the
book or the author, with themselves as readers being the entity controlled’ (Stockwell 2009:
80). The reason why readers regard their mental representations of Eaters of the Dead as
being synonymous with the discourse-world is because they are controlled and deceived by
the implied author into doing so. This in turn places a lot of emphasis on the various
techniques employed by the implied author to achieve such a degree of control (see Chapter
Three).
Whiteley (2010: 60) states that ‘a central premise in Text-World Theory is that
readers construct text-worlds through the combination of linguistic cues and information
from their knowledge-base’. As a consequence the framework can be used to give a rigorous
and scientific account of both the various types of ‘knowledge scripts’ (Gavins 2007: 22) that

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readers need to use in order to assess the ontological status of Eaters of the Dead, and the
numerous stylistic features (see Section 2.1) that prompt the readers of the novel to construct
their mental representations in a particular way (see Chapter Three).
Chapter One of this dissertation will now introduce the book Eaters of the
Dead, which plays around with readers’ knowledge-base of fact and fiction from start to
finish. Section 1.1 presents a short biography of Michael Crichton, the author of the book.
Section 1.2 provides a short summary of Ahmad Ibn Fadlān’s journal, an old document that
inspired the author to write the novel. Section 1.3 presents a short summary of the contents of
Eaters of the Dead.

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Chapter One:
Eaters of the Dead

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1.1 Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton was an American producer, director and prolific science
fiction writer, who managed to sell over 200 million copies of his books worldwide. He was
born in 1942, in Chicago, Illinois and passed away in November of 2008 (CrichtonSun 2015).
With regard to his writing style in general, Adrian Wootton of The Guardian
wrote:
‘Crichton was never much interested in character - very rarely do his
protagonists rise above their professions - so that the reader can be shocked
and surprised by their humiliation, disgrace and demise, but is not upset for
very long.’ (Wootton 2008)
This emphasis on plot and narrative rather than character in Michael Crichton’s style is
something that other critics point out as well. According to Charles McGrath of The New
York Times:
‘All the Crichton books depend to a certain extent on a little frisson of fear and
suspense: that’s what kept you turning the pages. But a deeper source of their
appeal was the author’s extravagant care in working out the clockwork
mechanics of his experiments [...]’ (McGrath 2008)
Michael Crichton himself, when asked to elaborate on his style of writing, revealed subtle
ontological perspectives that he takes into account when writing his books. He is interested in
notions of reality and helping readers believe something which might seem hard to believe at
first. The writer says:
‘Generally I am aware of trying to do one of two things. Either I am trying to
solve a problem of narrative (for example, how could you make people believe

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in dinosaurs, at least for a few hours?) Or, I am trying to understand a problem
in the real world (what’s the relationship between aggressor and victim in
sexual harassment?)’ (CrichtonSun 2015).
Crichton’s keen interest is in blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction is the main
reason why one of his works was chosen to be analysed in this dissertation in the first place.
A large portion of the first three chapters of Eaters of the Dead is a translation
of Ahmed Ibn Fadlān’s manuscript, a 10th century Arab traveller. Numerous other
translations of the journal are also continuously referenced in the book. As a consequence Ibn
Fadlān’s original text becomes a crucial reference point in determining the ontological status
of Eaters of the Dead. The following section will now present a brief summary of Ahmed Ibn
Fadlān’s journal.

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1.2 Ahmad Ibn Fadlān’sJournal
In 921, an Arab by the name of Ahmad Ibn Fadlān was dispatched as part of a
mission to a recently converted Muslim ruler of the Bulghārs, named Almish ibn Yiltawār
(Lunde and Stone 2012: 13). An embassy set out from Baghdad on June 21 921 (Lunde and
Stone 2012: 19). It was led by a freedman called Sawsān al-Rassī and consisted of Ibn
Fadlān, Tikīn the Turk, Bārs the Saqlab as well as numerous others as part of an
accompanying caravan (Lunde and Stone 2012: 19).
One of the goals of the mission was to extend Islamic influence further to the
north in order to convert the then mostly pagan population of those regions to Islam. The
other goal of the mission was to build fortifications out of a revenue of 4000 dīnārs (Lunde
and Stone 2012: 19) to protect the Volga Bulghārs from their enemies, the Khazars (Frye
2005, Hermes 2012). It took the embassy nearly a whole year to reach their destination, as the
journey was approximately 2000 miles long.
Ibn Fadlān himself was the lead counsellor for Islamic religious doctrine and
law (Knight 2001: 32-34). He was a ‘faqih’, an expert in Islamic jurisprudence and faith, who
prior to his departure served under the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir (Gabriel 2012: 36-42).
Ibn Fadlān recorded his journey to the north through the form of a travel
journal. A significant amount of information about the contents and the history of the journal
used throughout this dissertation is analogous with the data provided in the book: Ibn Fadlān
and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North, published in 2012, edited by
Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone. The translation of Ibn Fadlān’s journal inherent within
Lunde’s and Stone’s book follows the text published by Dahlān in 1959 and is compared
throughout with the manuscript reproduced by Kovaleskii in 1956 (Lunde and Stone 2012:
36).

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Over the years the original manuscript has gone through a considerable
amount of revisions, as it has been studied, archived and translated several times by
numerous scholars (see Blake and Frye 1949, Blake and Frye 1952, McKeithen 1979,
Montgomery 2001). Yāqūt al-Hamawī, an Arab geographer and biographer was the first
scholar who found Fadlān’s manuscript in 1219 (Lunde and Stone 2012: 34). In 1823 a
Russian scholar by the name of Christian Fraehn published an elaborate study of the passages
found by Yāqūt (Lunde and Stone 2012: 34). Much of the information that is known today
about the journal originates from Fraehn’s study of it (see Fraehn 1823). Another important
scholar who studied the passages of Ibn Fadlān was Ahmed Zeki Validi Togan (Lunde and
Stone 2012: 35). In 1923 he came across what is referred to by scholars as the ‘Mashad text’
of Ibn Fadlān (Lunde and Stone 2012: 35). This text differs slightly from the one preserved
by Yāqūt, however both are ‘abbreviated versions of’ a much longer manuscript (Lunde and
Stone 2012: 36). The last portions of the text, supposedly detailing Ibn Fadlān’s account of
his journey back home to Baghdad are yet to be found (Lunde and Stone 2012: 36).
What makes Ahmad Ibn Fadlān’s journal intriguing is that it is ‘the earliest
description we have of the Viking way of life – and death’ (Lunde and Stone 2012: 13). Ibn
Fadlān provides an eyewitness account of the northern culture of the period, by writing a
detailed report/narrative about the manners of the Vikings, their religious and sexual
practices, their customs, their dress, their superstitions and so forth. It is also the ‘only
eyewitness account ever written of a Viking ship cremation’ (Lunde and Stone 2012: 13).
From a less contextual and much more linguistic point of view, Ibn Fadlān’s
manuscript is said to be the earliest first-person travel narrative written in the Arabic
language (Lunde and Stone 2012: 31). What is also important to note, is that at the time of
writing ‘there was no established genre of travel writing in Arabic’ (Lunde and Stone 2012:

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25). The original manuscript does not contain any references of other written sources (Lunde
and Stone 2012: 26).
Scholars have also pointed out how Ibn Fadlān’s report, with a few exceptions
here and there, is mostly devoid of condescending and derisive remarks about what must
have been for him a completely different and in many ways repulsive culture (Lunde and
Stone 2012: 25). His account is viewed as being very objective and ‘scientific in its
detachment’ resembling more an account of a modern day anthropologist rather than that of a
poet (Lunde and Stone 2012: 25).
Crichton heard of Ahmad Ibn Fadlān’s manuscript when he was a college
undergraduate (Crichton 1997). Later on, as part of a bet, he used some of the translated
fragments he had acquired at that time to re-write the story of Beowulf, an old English epic
poem from the eighth century. His project eventually became a short novel known today as
Eaters of the Dead, which was first published in 1976. The following section will now
provide a presentation of the plot and other key features of the book.

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1.3 Eaters of the Dead
Eaters of the Dead was not a commercial success. The reviews of the book by
critics are rather scarce. Jack Sullivan of the New York Times wrote: ‘diverting but
disappointing’ (Sullivan 1976). The Chicago Tribune on the other hand wrote that the book
was ‘funny, fascinating and informative.’ (Chicago Tribune 1976).
The novel was adapted into a film called The 13th Warrior in 1999. The film,
directed by John McTierman and then later on by Crichton himself, starred Antonio Banderas
as Ahmad Ibn Fadlān. Much like the book, the film was not very successful commercially.
The novel Eaters of the Dead consists of a total of fifteen chapters. The book
has an elaborate introduction section, which relates the supposed history of Ahmad Ibn
Fadlān’s manuscript, its provenance, the discoveries of its lost contents, and its various
translations by numerous scholars (Crichton 1997: 1-3).
‘The Vikings’ segment of the introduction section provides a short overview
of the history of Viking culture. It relates numerous scholarly debates between various
archaeologists and geologists about the following topics: notions of civilisation among the
ranks of Vikings, classical dichotomies between East and West, and the history of
civilisations dating back to Ancient Egypt (Crichton 1997: 3-7).
The introduction section also contains a segment entitled ‘About the Author’.
This provides readers with a description of Ahmad Ibn Fadlān’s character: his age, his
conduct, his educated background and his incredibly objective and scientific manner of
reporting back what he has seen. Accompanying this short praise of Ibn Fadlān is a brief
presentation of the Arabic culture of that time. In particular the city of Baghdad, Ibn Fadlān’s

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point of departure, is depicted as a sight of an exquisite and glorious civilisation (Crichton
1997: 7)
The fifteen chapters that follow the introduction constitute the main plot of the
novel (see Appendix section for plot summary). These chapters are filled with constant shifts
in narrative perspective between the implied author and the narrator-character of Ahmad Ibn
Fadlān. The shifts occur mainly through the provision of footnotes and references whereby
the implied author differentiates his own voice from that of Ibn Fadlān’s (see Chapter Three
for further analysis).
The short essay at the very end of the book relates how the novel was written,
what intentions were behind it, what techniques were used and so forth. A final shift in
narrative perspective occurs from the narrator-character of Ibn Fadlān to the implied author.
The latter of the two reveals that the book was written to prove to someone else that the
classical English poem of Beowulf is not just a boring tale, but an exciting and dramatic
masterpiece (Crichton 1997: 182). The book achieves this by combining the core
mythological story of Beowulf with the historical verisimilitude of Ibn Fadlān’s travel
journal. Much like in the case of the classical English poem, the main protagonist sets out to
vanquish an ancient evil that haunts the kingdom of Rothgar. The main difference is that in
the first three chapters of Eaters of the Dead, most of the main character’s personal traits are
actually based of a real life person. Then in the ensuing chapters Ibn Fadlān’s fate slowly
starts to resemble that of Beowulf himself.
It is also revealed that the majority of Ibn Fadlān’s accounts, along with the
footnotes and references provided, are purely fictional. According to the implied author, the
entirety of Ibn Fadlān’s story contains some factual information that can be traced and looked
up, however even he is unsure where the boundary between fact and fiction really is. The

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essay concludes with him revealing his keen interest in the depiction of verisimilitude in
fiction and how readers judge what is real and what is not: ‘I have a longstanding interest in
verisimilitude, and in the cues which make us take something as real or understand it as
fiction’ (Crichton 1997: 185).
Chapter Two of this dissertation will now provide an insight into the various
methodological approaches that I will take in order to find these cues (see Introduction
section) within the novel. The four sections of chapter will provide a brief overview of:
Stylistics, Cognitive Poetics, Text World Theory, and various methods of collecting reader
response data.

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2.1 Stylistics
The word ‘style’ refers to a particular type of language that is used in a
particular type of context by someone with certain intentions and goals in mind (Leech and
Short 2007: 9). The study of style, or stylistics itself, was initially only concerned with the
study of a particular author’s style. Over time this focus purely on authorial intention has
slowly shifted towards the various effects that language itself can create in readers’ minds
(see Carter and Simpson 1989, Leech and Short 2007, Verdonk 2002).
Nowadays stylistics is more concerned with readers and how they construct
meaning from language in order to build their interpretations of a text (Wales 2006).
Stylistics is ‘concerned with relating linguistic facts (linguistic description) to meaning
(interpretation) in as explicit a way as possible’ (Short 1996: 5).
One of the main features of stylistic analysis that this dissertation focuses on is
known as the ‘parallelism rule’ (see Short 1996). According to the rule ‘when readers come
across parallel structures they try to find an appropriate semantic relationship between the
parallel parts. This is often a relationship of quasi-synonymy or quasi-antonymy, but other
relations are also possible.’ (Short 1996: 67). Readers of Eaters of the Dead are constantly
presented with a relationship of quasi-antonymy between the implied author and the main
protagonist of the text. The provision of footnotes and references throughout the novel helps
to establish a seemingly reliable distinction between the voice of the implied author and that
voice of Ibn Fadlān (see Chapter Three for analysis). As a consequence readers are likely to
set up a parallel structure whereby they continuously compare the two voices.
This relationship of quasi-antonymy also reveals itself through the ontological
interplay between fact and fiction inherent in the text. Readers are told by the implied author
towards of the end of the book that only the first three chapters contain factual information,

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while the rest of the novel is fictional (see Section 1.3 above). As a consequence readers
segregate the text into two main parts, which they continuously compare as they ‘try to find
an appropriate semantic relationship’ (Short 1996: 67) between the factual and the fictional
data presented within these (see Section 3.1.2 for analysis).
These juxtapositions in turn also relate back to the concept of foregrounding in
stylistics (see Short 1996). Anytime a shift in narrative perspective or an ontological shift
between fact and fiction occurs, readers are likely to place certain semantic elements related
to these concepts in the foreground, while maintaining others in the background. This
hierarchy is constantly changed in Eaters of the Dead, as the novel shifts readers’ attention
from fact to fiction, and from the implied author to the enactor of Ibn Fadlān back and forth
very frequently (see Sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2).
Since stylistics is not ‘a unified discipline, but a broad set of interrelated
approaches united by the commitment of rigorous textual analysis’ (Whiteley 2010: 3-4), it is
comprised of multiple sub-disciplines. The one that will be used in this dissertation is known
as cognitive poetics, which Stockwell and Carter (2008) describe as being ‘a major evolution
in stylistics’ (2008: 298), ‘particularly with respect to the role of the reader in literary
interpretation’ (Whiteley 2010: 4). Since the analysis of Eaters of the Dead is informed by
the reader response data collected from two online book review websites, cognitive poetics
becomes a very useful approach to take. The following section will now provide a brief
overview of cognitive poetics.

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2.2 Cognitive Poetics
The term ‘cognitive poetics’ was first coined by Tsur in 1982. It referred to
‘an interdisciplinary approach to the study of literature, employing the tools offered by
Cognitive Science’ (Tsur 1982: 1). Today cognitive poetics ‘takes context seriously [...] It has
a broad view of context that encompasses both social and personal circumstances’ (Stockwell
2002: 4). As a consequence the field can be used to give a scientific and retrievable account
of what happens when readers read language, because it ‘has the potential to offer a unified
explanation of both individual interpretations as well as interpretations that are shaped by a
group, community of culture’ (Stockwell 2002: 5). Since my analysis of Eaters of the Dead is
informed by the reader response data collected from two online book review websites,
cognitive poetics helps me to conduct a thorough analysis not only of my own interpretations
of the text, but also that of other readers as well.
The discipline as a whole encompasses a wide variety of different frameworks
and theories. One of the most important theories incorporated in this dissertation is known as
Cognitive Deixis (see Fleischman 1982, 1990; Green 1992, 1995; Lyons 1977; Levinson
1983; Semino 1997; Stockwell 2000, 2002). The term ‘deixis’ refers to the ‘capacity that
language has for anchoring meaning to a context’ (Stockwell 2002: 41). There are many
categories of deixis adapted to a literary context (see Stockwell 2002: 45-46). In my own
analysis of Eaters of the Dead (see Chapter Three) the categories that informed my argument
the most were: textual and compositional deixis.
Textual deixis encompasses ‘expressions that foreground the textuality of the
text, including explicit “signposting” such as chapter titles and paragraphing; co-reference to
other stretches of text; reference to the text itself or the act of production; evidently poetic
features that draw attention to themselves; claims to plausibility, verisimilitude or

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authenticity’ (Stockwell 2002: 46). Eaters of the Dead features all of the above mentioned
textual elements. In particular the consistent occurrence of footnotes and references
throughout the text helps readers to differentiate the voice of the implied author from the
voice of Ibn Fadlān (see Section 3.1.1). Such a scholarly presentation of different sources of
knowledge also plays around with the readers’ beliefs about verisimilitude and plausibility
(see entirety of Chapter Three).
Compositional deixis whereby ‘external factors (such as the book cover, or a
recontextualisation of a text by placing it in a classroom context) can serve to relocate the
compositional quality of the discourse’ (Stockwell 2002: 55), is another prominent category
of deixis that occurs in Eaters of the Dead. In the first three chapters of the book the implied
author provides his readers with a translation of Ibn Fadlān’s journal that is recontextualised
on multiple levels: firstly through the external factor of presenting the journal in the form of a
book, secondly through the temporal factor of presenting a twentieth century translation of a
tenth century manuscript. Compositional deixis also plays around with the readers’ beliefs
about authenticity, as the implied author exhibits a false honesty by telling his audience how
exactly he has recontextualised the journal and why he did it (see Section 3.1.1).
One cognitive poetic framework that incorporates Cognitive Deixis really well
in its analysis of discourse is known as Text World Theory (see Gavins 2000, 2001, 2003,
2007; Stockwell 2002, 2009; Werth 1994, 1995a, 1995b, 1997a, 1997b, 1999; Whiteley
2010; 2011; forthcoming 2015). In Text World Theory, discourse is defined as being
comprised of a text and its relevant context (Werth 1999: 46). This context in which the
discourse processing occurs encompasses the cultural, experiential and linguistic knowledge
scripts (see Gavins 2007) of readers, which are in turn continuously used to ‘produce and
process all fictional and factual discourse by constructing mental representations in their
minds, which are called “text-worlds”’ (Whiteley 2010: 18).

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Since Eaters of the Dead is a complex amalgamation of fictional and factual
discourse (see Chapter Three for demonstration), the way readers deem these text-worlds to
be either ‘participant-accessible’ or ‘enactor-accessible’ (see Section 2.3 below), makes Text
World Theory a suitable choice to examine the ontological aspects of Crichton’s novel. The
following section will now provide a brief overview of the cognitive poetic framework of
Text World Theory.

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2.3 Text World Theory
Text World Theory is a cognitive-linguistic discourse processing framework.
Its basic foundations were laid down by Professor Paul Werth in the early 1990s through a
series of articles (see Werth 1994, 1995a, 1995b, 1997a, 1997b). The central tenets of Text
World Theory lie in its account of readers’, listeners’, speakers’ and writers’ mental
representations when processing fictional or factual discourse. These mental representations
are referred to as ‘text-worlds’ (Werth 1999: 85 - 87). The framework also puts a
considerable amount of emphasis on the context itself in which the whole discourse
processing occurs. This context is referred to as the ‘discourse-world’ (Werth 1995a: 52).
A useful aspect of the framework is its ‘principle of text-drivenness’ (Gavins
2007: 29), whereby certain elements of the text determine which specific type of knowledge
store or script is used by participants to formulate their interpretation. In Eaters of the Dead
the scholarly presentation of footnotes and references continuously compels readers to
assume that the information provided by the implied author is authentic and verifiable in the
discourse-world. This in turn means that the text-worlds they create in their minds are all
labelled as being ‘participant-accessible’. Participant-accessible text-worlds are ‘created by
the participants in the discourse-world’ and ‘are open to verification by other entities who
exist at the same ontological level’ (Gavins 2007: 77). Enactor-accessible text-worlds on the
other hand are ‘inaccessible to the participants in the discourse-world’ (Gavins 2007: 79),
because they are embedded solely within the text-world enactors’ correspondence and as a
consequence ‘the reader of the text is unable to verify whether they are accurate and true
representations of a real-life situation’ (Gavins 2007: 79). Text-world enactors are ‘simply
different versions of the same person or character which exist at different conceptual levels of
a discourse’ (Gavins 2007: 41). The terms ‘implied author’ and ‘implied reader’ used

22
throughout the dissertation, are also text-world enactors who are often assumed to be
projections of their discourse-world counterparts (Gavins 2007: 129).
The results from the reader response data that I have gathered (see Sections
2.4.1 and 2.4.2) show that up until the very end of the book, most readers assume that the
text-world enactors of Eaters of the Dead are in fact real historical figures who lived at a
certain point in time. More importantly the main enactor of the novel Ibn Fadlān himself, is
thought to be both a discourse-world participant and a text-world enactor. Readers perceive
him as a discourse-world participant, because he is assumed to be involved in the instance of
communicating his tale to his audience (see Section 3.1.1).
When readers are told by the implied author at the end of the book that the Ibn
Fadlān of Eaters of the Dead is only a fictional construct, they undertake what is referred to
in Text World Theory as ‘world-repair’ (Gavins 2007: 142). According to Gavins (2007: 142)
‘when a mistake in world-building or function-advancing is detected by the reader or hearer,
action is normally taken to correct any inconsistencies or illogicalities which may have arisen
in his or her conceptualisation of the discourse as a result.’ Readers need to go back and
reconfigure the participant-accessible nature of their text-worlds to enactor-accessible ones
(see Section 3.1.2).
In Possible World Theory the principle of minimal departure (see Emmott
1997; Ryan 1991) states that when analysing narrative discourse, readers assume that the
various worlds created by the text follow the same rudimentary laws as the discourse-world
until they are presented with information to the contrary. Although Text World Theory
includes some elements of Possible World Theory, the former departs from the latter in that it
focuses more on how readers conceptualise their worlds during ‘the production and reception
of discourse’ (Whiteley 2010: 20), rather than on solving ‘logical problems without having to

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discuss the undefinable, abstract concept of truth’ (Werth 1999: 70). This is very important,
because my analyses are informed by the reader response data that I have collected (see
Sections 2.4, 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 below).
Along with the core terminologies mentioned above, my Text World Theory
analysis also incorporates elements of Wolfgang Iser’s three ‘fictionalising acts’. Iser, a
pioneer in literary anthropology, states that:
‘The literary text is a mixture of reality and fictions, and as such it brings
about an interaction between given and the imagined. Because this interaction
produces far more than just a contrast between the two, we might do better to
discard the old opposition of fiction and reality altogether, and to replace this
duality with a triad: the real, the fictive, and what we shall henceforth call the
imaginary. It is out of this triad that the text arises...’ (Iser 1993: 1)
He goes on to say that a text is constituted through three varieties of what he
calls ‘fictionalising acts’. These are ‘selection’, ‘combination’ and ‘self-disclosure’ (see Iser
1993: 4). Selection refers to how the parameters of the text are set in social, cultural and
historical terms. Combination is concerned with how the text is organised into linguistic and
semantic patterns. Finally, self-disclosure can be perceived when a text reveals its own
fictionality to the reader. This triad is ‘particularly important since it considers the
relationships between fictional, actual and reader-centric imaginary as well as gesturing
towards the potential impact of this imagined world on the reader’ (Gibbons 2014: 410).
In Eaters of the Dead deception is achieved because right until the end of the
book, the reader-centric imaginary is more closely related to the real rather than the fictive
(see Section 3.1.2 for further analysis). Since my Text World Theory analysis of Eaters of the
Dead is informed by the reader response data collected from two online book review

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websites, Iser’s triad of ficitionalising acts helps me determine the impact that the
reconfiguration of the imagined participant-accessible text-worlds to enactor-accessible ones
has on the readers’ interpretations of the text (see pages 76-79).
My dissertation also incorporates certain elements of rhetorical narratology
(see Rabinowitz 1977; 1998 [1987]; Phelan 1996, 2005), which although does not belong to
the field of cognitive poetics (see Whiteley 2010), I find it to be very practical when dealing
with the ontological issues of Eaters of the Dead.
One very useful term in rhetorical narratology is known as ‘double-voicing’
(see Phelan 1996, 2005). The term refers to ‘the presence of (at least) two voices in one
utterance. In unreliable narration, for example, we hear both the narrator’s voice and the
implied author’s voice undermining the narrator’s’ (Phelan 2005: 215). In Eaters of the Dead
the homodiegetic narrator’s voice in the introduction and ending sections of the book is
continuously merged with that of the implied author’s (see Sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2). But
more importantly readers are made to believe that Ibn Fadlān’s voice, the homodiegetic
narrator of the main fifteen chapters of the book, by comparison is not double-voiced and is
distinct from that of the implied author/homodiegetic narrator’s. This is mainly achieved
through the provision of footnotes whereby readers are compelled to believe that there is a
continuous dichotomy between the two voices (see Sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2).
Another reason why rhetorical narratology is used in my analyses is because
through it I can segregate the audience of Eaters of the Dead into four main categories of
projection: actual or flesh-and-blood audience, authorial audience, narrative audience, and
ideal narrative audience (see Rabinowitz 1977: 126-34).
In this context, the actual audience would be the discourse-world participants
or the real readers of Eaters of the Dead. The authorial audience refers to a ‘hypothetical

25
ideal audience for whom the author designs the work’ (Phelan 1996: 140). In this case the
authorial audience would be comprised of readers who are interested in reading an authentic
account of an indigenous culture.
The term ‘narrative audience’ refers to ‘an imaginary audience to which the
narrator is writing’ (Rabinowitz 1977: 127), ‘an audience upon whom the narrator projects a
set of beliefs and a body of knowledge’ (Phelan 1996: 140). In this case this would be the
narratee who is addressed firstly by the homodiegetic narrator of the introduction section, and
then later on by the homodiegetic narrator of Ibn Fadlān in the fifteen chapters of the book.
Finally the ideal narrative audience, the audience ‘for which the narrator
wishes he were writing’ (Rabinowitz 1977: 134), would be comprised of narratees who
accept that the information being provided by both of the above mentioned homodiegetic
narrators is true and reliable. According to Rabinowitz, readers can take up places in these
four audiences simultaneously (see Rabinowitz 1977). This simultaneity in turn ‘is largely
responsible for readers’ complex relations to truth in fiction’ (Phelan 1996: 14).
In Eaters of the Dead, readers’ projection into the very last role, that of the
ideal narrative audience, is very important from an ontological point of view, because it is
through this projection that readers can become deceived into believing that Ibn Fadlān is a
discourse-world participant whose voice is reliable and authentic (see Section 3.1.2). Once
they are told that this is not the case, some readers still project themselves into the role of the
ideal narrative audience, despite being deceived into doing so before (see page 67).
Lastly, in my Text World Theory analyses I also frequently use terminologies
from systemic-functional linguistics (see Berry 1977; Halliday 1985, 1994; Thompson 2004),
which throughout the years has been incorporated into the framework of Text World Theory.
Halliday’s systemic-functional linguistics has been used to investigate ‘the discursive

26
practices of socially situated groups in relation to each other. For example, the manipulations
of power through language have been explored in the forms of discourse used by politicians’
(Stockwell 2002: 170). In my own analysis of Eaters of the Dead, I incorporate Halliday’s
discipline in order to emphasise the text’s manipulation of readers’ beliefs about fact and
fiction. In many instances Halliday’s transitivity relations initiate either a world-switch from
one text-world/modal-world to another, or a toggling back to a previous mental
representation in the reader’s mind (see Sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2 for numerous examples).
The following section will now provide a brief overview of the different
methods of gathering reader response data.

27
2.4 Reader Response Data
When one decides to undertake an empirical study of any kind, a choice needs
to be made between the following methods: quantitative, qualitative or a mixture of both. The
former method is ‘geared towards testing existing theories or hypotheses (Van Peer et al
2007: 58). In general they are more useful if the topic of analysis has already been researched
by others beforehand. In contrast, qualitative methods are useful ‘whenever one is confronted
with a field or topic that has hardly been investigated and where few theories and hypotheses
exist’ (Van Peer et al 2007: 59). As such it is a lot more useful for those who seek to provide
insights into their topic of choice.
With regard to the specific types of reader data one can collect, in his article
about the empirical study of literary reading, Steen (1991) defines two types of data: non-
verbal and verbal. Examples of the former type are ‘reading time measurements of the
duration of readers’ text-processing activities’ (Steen 1991: 563). Verbal data on the other
hand are ‘in the form of linguistic expression’ such as ‘thinking-out-loud (TOL) data by
readers about texts’ (Steen 1991: 563). For examples of thinking-out-loud studies (see
Alderson and Short 1989; Miall 1990; Short and van Peer 1989). Both types of data have
advantages and disadvantages.
Non-verbal data is a lot harder to collect, because one needs to have access to
appropriate equipment in order to undertake the analysis. However due to the fact that the
data is analysed using different ‘laboratory techniques, such as reading-time measurements’
(Steen 1991: 563), it is also easier to compare findings and draw conclusions. Verbal data on
the other hand is much easier to collect, but is rather difficult to analyse, because of their
cognitive, emotional and moral content (Steen 1991: 564). For a few good examples of

28
studies incorporating verbal data (see Whiteley 2010; 2011; forthcoming 2015; Burke 2008;
Stockwell 2009; Miall 2006).
Steen also specifies the varying degrees of control that the researcher can have
on the data collected (Steen 1991: 567). Maximal control can be achieved by the researcher
through questionnaires with closed questions, interviews, and calibrated tests. For examples
of studies employing maximal control (see Hakemulder 2001; Brewer 1996). In these cases
the verbal data is purely determined by the researcher. Medium control, where there is a
balance between the verbal data being partially determined by both the researcher and the
participant as well, can be achieved through cloze procedures and underlining tasks. Finally
minimal control is achieved through the application of questionnaires with open questions
and free writing. In these cases the verbal data is solely determined by the participant.
Due to the vast amounts of reader response data that I managed to collect, I
started out by employing quantitative methods in order to narrow down my findings to a
small set of things, and then I transitioned into qualitative methods to develop my thesis
about the patterns that I discovered.
Given the fact that Eaters of the Dead is not a very popular text (see Section
1.3), there are not too many analyses of its contents available for comparison. This makes the
qualitative method the better choice overall, because I can generate insights into a topic
which has not been investigated as much. I was primarily interested in seeing what readers
would talk about after they have read the book, because I wanted to see how they would
respond to being deceived by Crichton into thinking that the contents of Eaters of the Dead
are purely factual. As a consequence I chose to collect verbal data instead of nonverbal data.
Discussions in online environments are the most naturalistic type of data, as
they are not ‘researcher-provoked’ (Silverman 2006: 404). Participants can say whatever they

29
want to say, whenever they want to. There is no researcher asking them specific questions
about certain stylistic features inherent in the text. Further to this online discussions on book
review websites are the easiest way to collect vast amounts of reader response data in a very
short time, since these are usually accessible to anyone who has an internet connection.
According to Allington (2007) the ethical issues that are involved with such
data collection are that:
‘postings made to a message board that appears on internet search engines and
does not require the reader to log in should be regarded from an ethical point
of view as analogous to letters published in magazines or newspapers, being
accessible to anyone who can access the World Wide Web.’
(Allington 2007: 50)
As a consequence I chose to collect reader response data from two online book reviews
websites (Amazon and Goodreads), where I had open-access to the postings of the
individuals. These postings have been reproduced without permission and anonymised in my
dissertation (see Appendix section).
The disadvantage of collecting data from online websites is of course that
participants can shield their true identities through the creation of fictitious accounts, which
makes it rather difficult to gather reliable information about their true identities: ethnicity,
age, religion, gender etc. The cultural background of readers has been shown to play a
significant role in shaping how they interpret or respond differently to a text than others (see
Parkinson 1995: 15; Parkinson et al 2005: 10; Stockwell 2009: 96).

30
The following sections present the reader response data collected about the
novel Eaters of the Dead. Sections 2.4.1 to 2.4.2 provide a detailed overview of the data
collected.

31
2.4.1 ReaderResponses to Eaters of the Dead
Initially a total of fifty-five reviews were collected, twenty-one from Amazon,
thirty-four from Goodreads. Out of these, fourteen reviews were discarded mainly because
they were extremely short and provided no incentive to be analysed. For ethical reasons (see
Section 2.4) the remaining forty-one reviews, fifteen from Amazon, twenty-six from
Goodreads, have all been anonymised (see Appendix section). The authors are referred to as
‘R1, R2, R3’ etc. The following table was used as a tool to look at the reader response data
in order to find emerging patterns worthy of further analysis.
Review Label Website
Subjective/Personal x out of x (%)
Objective x out of x (%)
Implied Author Emphasis x out of x (%)
Enactor Emphasis x out of x (%)
Genre Emphasis x out of x (%)
Quotation Emphasis x out of x (%)
Narrative Style Emphasis x out of x (%)
Intertextuality x out of x (%)
Ontological Features x out of x (%)
Cultural Features x out of x (%)
Lengthy x out of x (%)
Short x out of x (%)
These categories, which reflect my own interests and concerns when reading
literature, were structured to accommodate quick cataloguing of certain topics present in the

32
reviews on the spot in order to minimise the risk of losing any valuable information over the
course of time.
Reviews that were marked as ‘Subjective/Personal’ were ones that
incorporated either one of the following linguistic elements: first person singular and plural
pronouns: ‘I’ and ‘We’, second person singular and plural pronouns: ‘You’, object pronouns:
‘Me’, ‘Us’ and ‘You’, and finally the slightly less explicit, but still quite personal phrase: ‘the
reader’. In addition to these any diction that reflected the experience of reading, how the user
felt during and after reading the books, or any other statements related to a therapeutic effect
or the contrary that the works might have had were also included in this category. The
‘Objective’ column in turn was filled with reviews that excluded the usage of the pronouns
enumerated above, and opted to provide a much more detached perspective about the works
being read.
The label ‘Implied Author Emphasis’ was applied to reviews that talked about
the skills of the ‘implied author’ (see Section 2.3), his accomplishments, his previous books,
his supposed aims, his shortcomings, what he should have done and should not have done
and so forth. In the case of the ‘Enactor Emphasis’ grid, reviews that were labelled as such
were the ones that analysed the personal traits of the ‘enactors’ (see Section 2.3) of the text,
the relationships between them, as well as ones that incorporated elements of ‘identification’,
‘association’, or ‘disassociation’ (see Whiteley 2010, 2011) with one or more of the
characters from the book.
Postings that were included in the ‘Genre Emphasis’ section were the ones that
explicitly referred to the various genre labels that might apply to the text. Discussions about
whether the text followed the conventions of these labels or not, or if the novel was overall a
very good example of a specific type of genre or not, were all included in here.

33
Readers who emphasised the significance of a specific passage from the text
by incorporating direct quotations from the novel into their reviews were included in the
‘Quotation Emphasis’ grid.
The ‘Narrative Style Emphasis’ column was filled with reviews that
mentioned any of the following aspects of narration: the significance of ‘homodiegetic
narration’ or ‘heterodiegetic narration’ (see Simpson 1993), whether the former proved to be
a better choice than the latter, the authenticity and reliability of the narrator as a whole,
external and internal focalisation, variable and fixed focalisation (see Gavins 2007: 126-45).
Reviews that referenced other sources such as: the movie adaptation of the
book (see Section 1.3), or any other short story or novel in order to draw a comparison that
might aid them in their understanding of the text, were included in the ‘Intertextuality’ grid.
Postings that delved into the ontological aspects of the text such as: the
verisimilitude of the various documents provided, the importance of footnotes and references,
the blurring of the boundaries between fact and fiction, were all labelled as reviews
containing ‘Ontological Features’. Reviews that expressed a certain degree fondness or a
sense of apathy towards the feeling of being deceived into thinking that something was true
when it was not or vice versa, were also included.
The label ‘Cultural Features’ was applied to reviews that focused on how the
blending of the northern and southern cultures within the text affected their reading, whether
they liked it or not, whether it was done properly or not. Postings that featured personal
information about the cultural background of the readers were also included in here.

34
Finally categories ‘Lengthy’ and ‘Short’ evidently referred to the word count
of the reviews themselves. Those that were well above one hundred words were classified as
lengthy, while those that were lower or around one hundred words were labelled as short.
Although on first sight the grid and its labels might appear to be a set of rather
‘rigid’ classifications, the majority of them can actually overlap very easily. For instance
postings that would focus on describing and analysing the main enactor’s difficulties with
integrating into a new culture would tick the boxes of both the ‘Enactor Emphasis’ and the
‘Cultural Features’ grid.
The following section will now provide a brief overview of the results found
on Amazon and Goodreads.

35
2.4.2 Resultsand Discussion
Overall, there are some interesting patterns that have emerged through the
study of the reviews. The table below shows the results from the two websites side by side.
Review Label Goodreads Amazon
Subjective/Personal 26 out of 26 (100%) 15 out of 15 (100%)
Objective 0 out of 26 (0%) 0 out of 15 (0%)
Implied Author Emphasis 21 out of 26 (80.7%) 14 out of 15 (93%)
Enactor Emphasis 15 out of 26 (57.6%) 5 out of 15 (33%)
Genre Emphasis 13 out of 26 (50%) 4 out of 15 (26%)
Quotation Emphasis 3 out of 26 (11%) 0 out of 15 (0%)
Narrative Style Emphasis 18 out of 26 (69%) 12 out of 15 (80%)
Intertextuality 22 out of 26 (84.6%) 11 out of 15 (71%)
Ontological Features 19 out of 26 (73%) 10 out of 15 (66%)
Cultural Features 16 out of 26 (61%) 6 out of 15 (40%)
Lengthy 22 out of 26 (84.6%) 7 out of 15 (46%)
Short 4 out of 26 (15%) 8 out of 15 (53%)
As it can be seen every single one of the readers on both websites used a
mixture of the following personal pronouns: ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘you’, ‘we’, ‘us’ and the term ‘the
reader’ to describe their personal experience of reading the text. In addition to this, in the case
of both websites, over half of the reviews included information about the following things:
the implied author’s craft of writing, the narrative style of the main narrator/enactor,
dissimilarities between the novel and the movie adaption, or between the novel and the old

36
English poem Beowulf, and finally the successful or unsuccessful blending of fact and fiction
within the novel.
The biggest discrepancy between the two websites can be seen in the length of
the reviews. In general, reviews on Amazon tend to be a lot shorter than the ones on
Goodreads. Some of the reviews that were initially collected from Amazon were eventually
discarded, mainly because of their length.
Even though both Amazon and Goodreads are two very popular book
recommendation websites, the former has a business niche to it. Readers on Amazon write
reviews in order to help someone else decide whether the book is worth to be bought or not,
which in a way endorses the idea of practicality and efficiency in terms of word count.
The environment on Goodreads on the other hand is a lot more congenial.
Readers write reviews in order to share their thoughts and passions about the texts they love.
Otis Chandler, the founder of the website states: ‘Our mission is to help people find and share
books they love’ (Chandler 2015). The maintenance of such a personal sphere on the website
is essentially a useful way to advertise works of literature, because it is easier for many
people to relate to the subjective and much more elaborate nature of the reviews.
Still, the majority of the labels in the tables above show that even so, the
topics of discussion on both websites are similar overall. This final table below shows the
percentages of the reviews from the two websites combined. The review labels have all been
put into descending order (starting from the highest percentage down to the lowest).

37
Review Label Both Websites
Subjective/Personal 41 out of 41 (100%)
Implied Author Emphasis 35 out of 41 (85%)
Intertextuality 33 out of 41 (80%)
Narrative Style Emphasis 30 out of 41 (73%)
Ontological Features 29 out of 41 (70%)
Lengthy 29 out of 41 (70%)
Cultural Features 22 out of 41 (53%)
Enactor Emphasis 20 out of 41 (48.7%)
Genre Emphasis 17 out of 41 (41%)
Short 12 out of 41 (29%)
Quotation Emphasis 3 out of 41 (7%)
Objective 0 out of 41 (0%)
I chose to investigate the ontological features of the text, mainly because I was
intrigued by the varied interplay between fact and fiction when I read the novel myself, and
also because twenty-nine reviews out of forty-one (70%) talk about it as being a salient
feature of the text.
The following sections will now present a detailed Text World Theory
analysis of certain passages from the text that is informed by the reader response data
collected about the novel Eaters of the Dead.

39
3.1 Text-worldsof Eaters of the Dead
At the discourse-world level, Eaters of the Dead features two discourse
participants: Michael Crichton and a particular reader. Because these participants do not
share the same spatio-temporal location, the discourse-world is ‘split’ (Werth 1999: 54-5)
meaning that primacy is placed on the text of the novel in order for communication to take
place.
3.1.1 Text-worldsof the introduction section
The first page of the novel presents its readers with the following text:
‘INTRODUCTION
The Ibn Fadlān manuscript represents the earliest known eyewitness account
of Viking Life and society. It is an extraordinary document, describing in vivid
detail events which occurred more than a thousand years ago. The manuscript
has not, of course, survived intact over that enormous span of time. It has a
peculiar history of its own, and no one less remarkable than the text itself.’
(Crichton 1997: 1)
The term ‘introduction’ provides deictic information about the text as an
object. As a consequence it cues up Text-world 1 (see below), which is a participant-
accessible text-world containing the enactors of the ‘implied author’ and the ‘implied reader’.
The titling of the passage above is a good example of the implied author being highlighted
(see textual deixis Section 2.2), as the reader is given information about the implied author’s
intent and methods of structuring his text.

40
Text-World 1
(participant-accessible)
time: ?
enactors: implied author,
implied reader
w-s
Text-World 2
time: present
enactors: narrator, narratee, Ibn
Fadlān,Viking
objects: manuscript, Life, society,
account, document, history, text,
detail
w-s
Text-World 3
time: past
objects: events
Text-World 4
time: nonspecified continuous
past
objects: manuscriptw-s

41
A world-switch occurs from Text-World 1 to Text-World 2 in the first
sentence of the ensuing passage. Temporal deixis is achieved through the present simple verb
‘represents’. The text-world contains the enactors of: a nonspecified third person or
heterodiegetic narrator, a narratee, Ibn Fadlān, and Viking. The majority of the world-
building elements of the text-world are essentially objects which are the synonyms of the
word ‘manuscript’, for instance: document, account, and text. Through the intensive
relational process in the identifying mode: ‘it is an extraordinary document’, the manuscript
is regarded as a document, which lends it a scientific appeal in that its contents are
documented facts. The ensuing noun phrase ‘detail’ with the premodifier ‘vivid’ further
emphasise this.
A world-switch to Text-world 3 occurs through temporal deixis. The past
simple ‘occurred’ cues up a text-world set in a loosely specified past: ‘thousand years ago’,
which contains the world-building element of ‘events’. The present perfect in the next
sentence ‘has survived’ initiates another world-switch to Text-world 4. This text-world
relates a nonspecified continuous past time: through the noun phrase: ‘over that enormous
span of time’, starting from the time of Text-world 3 leading up to the present time of Text-
world 1. Finally, the present simple verb ‘has’ in the last sentence toggles me back to Text-
world 1 and provides further world-building elements (see page 42 above).
Each of the four text-worlds cued up by the passage above are participant-
accessible ones, because they are ‘created by the participants in the discourse-world’ and ‘are
open to verification by other entities who exist at the same ontological level’ (Gavins 2007:
77). Having researched the origins of the manuscript (see Chapter One), I can state that Ibn
Fadlān was a person who really existed, who lived in the tenth century, and who actually
wrote the manuscript mentioned in this passage.

42
It is interesting to note how there is already a perceptible gap being created
between the implied author and the enactor of Ibn Fadlān. This short introduction prepares
the reader for the presentation of a supposedly purely factual and unaltered account of
history. R1 on Goodreads writes:
‘I have to confess, the first time I read this book I thought it was a real
manuscript, and that Crichton was just putting it for us in book form...until I
got to the epilogue. That was when I understand that Crichton is an amazing
story teller.’ (R1)
In this case compositional deixis (see Section 2.2) occurs as readers believe that the implied
author took the manuscript as it was and recontextualised it without changing much of its
contents, or adding things to it himself. The analysis of the following passage further
emphasises this:
‘In June, A.D. 921, the Caliph of Bagdad sent a member of his court, Ahmad
Ibn Fadlān, as ambassador to the King of the Bulgars. Ibn Fadlān was gone
three years on his journey and never actually accomplished his mission, for
along the way he encountered a company of Norsemen and had many
adventures among them.
When he finally returned to Bagdad, Ibn Fadlān recorded his experiences in
the form of an official report to the court. That original manuscript has long
since disappeared, and to reconstruct it we must rely on partial fragments
preserved in later sources.’
(Crichton 1997: 1)

43
Temporal deixis occurs in the first sentence of the passage through the noun
‘June’ and the ensuing date ‘A.D. 921’. This cues up Text-world 1 (see below) which is set in
a specified past time and includes the enactors: the Caliph of Bagdad, Ibn Fadlān and the
King of the Bulgars. A world-switch occurs in the second sentence of the first paragraph.
Text-world 2 is cued up by the noun phrase ‘three years’, which in my mind refers
specifically to the time span of Ibn Fadlān’s journey overall. The locative expression ‘along
the way’ in the subordinate clause of the second sentence initiates a world-switch to Text-
world 3. Spatial deixis occurs as emphasis is shifted from time to space. This text-world is
shaded grey in the diagram below, because it is interpreted as a participant-accessible text-
world by readers with no knowledge of the manuscripts, but is actually enactor-accessible.
Having thoroughly researched the various translations of the manuscript (see references in
Section 1.2), I can say that the real Ibn Fadlān never encountered a company of Norsemen
specifically, and as such never embarked on any dangerous adventures. Because of this, the
material supervention process of Ibn Fadlān stumbling upon the Norsemen (i.e. ‘he
encountered’), as well as the enactors of Ibn Fadlān and the Norsemen themselves are
invented fictions which only appear in this particular novel. As a consequence the text-worlds
containing these enactors ‘remain inaccessible to the participants in the discourse-world.’
(Gavins 2007: 79)
The reason why very few readers if any at this point could potentially doubt
the reliability of Text-world 3, has to with what is referred to as the ‘principle of minimal
departure’ in Possible World Theory (see Section 2.3). The historical date of ‘A.D. 921’,

44
Text-World 1
time: past (A.D. 921)
enactors: Caliph of Bagdad, Ibn
Fadlān, King of the Bulgars
objects: court
w-s
Text-World 2
time: past (three years)
enactors: Ibn Fadlān
objects: journey, mission
w-s
Text-World 3
time: past
location: nonspecified (along the
way)
enactors: Ibn Fadlān, Norsemen
objects: adventures
Text-World 4
time: nonspecified past
location: Bagdad
objects: experiences, report, court w-s
w-s
Text-World 5
time: nonspecified continuous
past
objects: manuscript
deo
Deontic Modal-World
time: nonspecified present
enactors: narrator, narratee
objects: fragments, sources

45
the noun phrase ‘June’, the enactors of ‘Caliph of Bagdad’, ‘King of the Bulgars’, ‘Ahmad
Ibn Fadlān’, and ‘Norsemen’ as well, are all important textual cues which trigger the
knowledge schemas of the readers. The superordinate ‘Norsemen’ based on my own
knowledge scripts of history encompasses a wide variety of people who spoke the Old Norse
language between the 8th and 11th centuries. As such its usage in conjunction with the
enactors and the historical date mentioned above, reinforces the idea of minimal departure.
Readers are inclined to believe that the information provided is reliable and verisimilar.
‘The whole thing reads like a travel journal of an extremely observant man.
Written matter-of-factly with no attempts of embellishments or even attempts
to make the story more dramatic. Its a great book.’ (R1, Goodreads [sic])
‘This book overlaps the stories of Beowulf and the documented adventures of
historical writer Ahmed Ibn Fadlān and merges them into an original story
written in the style of Ibn Fadlān's travelogue.’ (R6, Goodreads)
Such an emphasis on verisimilitude, on the originality of ‘documented
adventures’ can be further perceived in the text-worlds and the deontic modal-world of the
second paragraph quoted above (see page 45). Text-world 4 is set in a nonspecified past
through the past simple tense of the verb of motion ‘return’. It contains the enactor of Ibn
Fadlān along with a specified location that still exists in the discourse-world today ‘Bagdad’.
A crucial element of the text-world is the object ‘report’, which is premodified by the
adjective ‘official’. The noun phrase ‘official report’ reinforces the idea that the manuscript
that will be presented is authentic, verifiable, and official. Still, based on my research, as of
yet there is no report of Ibn Fadlān actually making it back to Bagdad (see Section 1.2). This
means that the contents of Text-world 4 are embedded solely within the text-world enactor of
Ibn Fadlān’s correspondence. As a consequence the Ibn Fadlān in Eaters of the Dead is in

46
fact not the same as the real Ibn Fadlān (see Section 1.2). This in turn makes me label Text-
world 4 as an enactor-accessible text-world instead of a participant-accessible one, because I
am unable to verify whether the contents of it are true representations or not.
The world switch from Text-world 4 to Text-world 5 occurs through social
deixis or ‘perceptual deixis’ (see Section 2.2), as attention is shifted away from the enactor of
Ibn Fadlān, to the object of the manuscript itself. The material supervention process relating
the disappearance of Fadlān’s account of his return home is verifiable and true (see Chapter
One, Lunde and Stone 2012), which in turn makes it so that I categorise this text-world as
participant accessible.
A deontic modal-world is cued by the conditional ‘must’ in the coordinating
clause of the last sentence. Up to this point the reader has a deictic projection of the implied
author as an objective entity who presents facts in a detached way. The moment readers are
presented with the first person pronoun ‘we’, the deictic fields of the narrator and the implied
author are momentarily merged as they become hard to tell apart. Through this double-
voicing (see Section 2.3), the readers of the text are made to believe that instead of potentially
fabricating his own versions of the text, the implied author relies heavily on other sources to
provide the necessary information. Through textual deixis, the reader’s attention is drawn
towards other texts.
The entirety of the introduction section of the book can be described in Text
World Theory terms as a mixture of participant-accessible and seemingly participant-
accessible, but in reality enactor-accessible text-worlds. To demonstrate this in a relatively
short space, each of the following sentences were taken from the start of numerous chunky
paragraphs:

47
‘The best-known of these is an Arabic geographical lexicon written by Yakut
ibn-Abdallah sometime in the thirteenth century. [...]
Another fragment was discovered in Russia in 1817 and was published in
German by the St. Petersburg Academy in 1823. This material includes certain
passages previously published by J.L. Rasmussen in 1814[...]
In 1878, two new manuscripts were discovered in the private antiquities
collection of Sir John Emerson, the British Ambassador in Constantinople. [...]
One is a geography in Arabic by Ahmad Tusi, reliably dated at A.D. 1047.
[...]
The second manuscript is that of Amin Razi, dating roughly from A.D. 1585-
1595. [...] The Razi manuscript contains some material about the Oguz Turks,
and several passages concerning battles with the mist monsters, not found in
other sources. [...]
Per Fraus-Dolus, Professor emeritus of Comparative Literature at the
University of Oslo, Norway, compiled all the known sources and began the
massive task of translation which occupied him until his death in 1957.
Portions of his new translation were published in the Proceeding of the
National Museum of Oslo: 1959-1960 [...]’
(Crichton 1997: 2-3)
Some of the text-worlds cued up by these passages (see below) are participant
accessible, since its enactors and the material intention processes such as: writing or
publishing the translations, can be verified through other texts. Yakut and Ahmad Tusi, the
enactors of Text-world 1 and Text-world 4, are discourse world participants who lived in the

48
past, and who were actually referenced in Section 1.2 of this dissertation (see above).
Text-worlds 2, 3, 6 and 7 have been shaded grey, due to the fact that the
readers of the text at this point would probably regard them as participant-accessible text-
worlds given the reliability of the implied author/homodiegetic narrator thus far. However
they are enactor-accessible text-worlds because J.L. Rasmussen, Sir John Emerson, Amon
Razi and Per Fraus-Dolus are fictional entities made up by the implied author. They are text-
world enactors and as a consequence the contents of these text-worlds become embedded
within their correspondence, which in turn makes it hard to assess the truth and reliability of
the information provided.
Text-world 5 is in a similar position. Although readers might regard it as being
participant-accessible, it is enactor-accessible because based on the knowledge that I have
acquired about the history of the manuscript (see Chapter One), the real Ibn Fadlān never
came into contact with the enactors of the mist monsters.
The whole passage overall is a long succession of text-worlds created by the
implied author/homodiegetic narrator. Each of these seemingly present readers with the
following things: specified and reliable enactors: Yakut, Rasmussen, Sir John Emerson, Amin
Razi, Oguz Turks, Ahmad Tusi, Per Fraus-Dolus; specified and reliable locations: Russia, St.
Petersburg Academy, Constantinople, Norway, University of Oslo, National Museum of
Oslo, and specified and reliable dates: thirteenth century, 1814, 1817, 1823, 1887, A.D. 1047,
A.D. 1585 – 1595, 1957, 1959 - 1960. An internal structure occurs within the text, which can
be summarised as follows: Source A did this here followed by Source B did that there
followed by Source C and so forth.
Although it might hard to believe at first that the text-worlds containing the
enactors ‘mist monsters’ would be viewed by readers as anything else than fictional, none

49
Text-World 1
time: past (thirteenth century)
location:?
enactors: Yakut ibn-Abdallah
objects: lexicon
w-s
Text-World 2
time: past (1817, 1823, 1814)
location: Russia, St. Petesburg
Academy
enactors: J.L. Rasmussen
objects: fragment, material,
passage w-s
Text-World 3
time: past (1887)
location: Constantinople
enactors: Sir John Emerson
objects: manuscript, antiquities,
collection
Text-World 4
time: past (A.D. 1047)
location:?
enactors: Ahmad Tusi
objects: geography
w-s
Text-World 5
time: past (A.D. 1585 - 1595)
location:?
enactors: Amin Razi, Oguz
Turks, mist monsters
objects: manuscript, battles,
sources
Text-World 6
time: past (1957)
location: Norway, University of
Oslo
enactors: Per Fraus-Dolus
objects: task, translation, death
Text-World 7
time: past (1959 - 1960)
location: National Museum of
Oslo
enactors: Per Fraus-Dolus
objects: translation
w-sw-s
w-s

50
of the readers who talk about the ontological features of the text mention that they have
actually looked up whether the various sources provided are authentic or not.
‘I had the feeling from the beginning to the end that i was reading a realistic
story.... and in the most part it is quite realistic, since its based on a real
manuscript found 10 centuries ago. Besides linking the manuscript parts in a
very intriguing and misterious narration, Crichton also gives explanatory notes
in almost every page that quite add to the athmosphere and understanding of
the book.’ (R8, Amazon [sic])
‘Crichton reveals some serious skills with this and it was only when reading
how the book came about that I even realised it was fiction!’ (R12, Amazon)
‘Eaters of the Dead is narrated as a scientific commentary on an old
manuscript. A sense of authenticity is supported by occasional explanatory
footnotes with references to a mixture of factual and fictitious sources.
I almost believe it is true’ (R16, Goodreads)
Throughout the introduction section of the book, and in fact throughout the
entirety of the book overall, textual deixis has the effect of encouraging readers to believe
that what is being presented is fact and not fiction, that the worlds being cued up are all
participant-accessible. This has to do with how readers ‘use their existing linguistic,
perceptual, experiential and cultural knowledge in order to make sense of new sensory and
linguistic input and to construct coherent mental representations of the discourse’ (Whiteley
2011: 30). When I first read the book, my linguistic and cultural knowledge about the
provision of different sources of knowledge through the form footnotes and references, led
me to believe that the information being presented is reliable and authentic. Like the readers
on Amazon and Goodreads, I did not look up these sources to verify the implied author’s

51
claims, because based on my own knowledge and experience, this act of referencing others in
your work supposedly helps to provide a strong ontological basis whereby the text-worlds
being cued up are not at an ontological distance from the reader. For ethical reasons, claims
can and need to be verified by providing a reference to the original author who wrote it in the
first place.
Due to this prejudice about the compulsory verisimilitude of a scholarly
presentation, which usually relies heavily on textual and compositional deixis, readers do not
feel the need to research what is being delivered. Although most readers on Amazon and
Goodreads make claims about the fictitious nature of the sources provided (see page 50 for
some examples), they do this after being told at the very end of the book by the implied
author that the contents of the text are mostly fictional.
What complicates things further from an ontological point of view is that some
of the text-worlds that are cued up in this particular passage (see Text-world 1 and Text-
world 4) are actually participant-accessible. It is possible that some readers who might decide
to look up the sources, could potentially pick one of these, find out that they are authentic,
and then automatically assume that the rest of the text-world contents are also reliable.
Another factor that prompts readers to not dig deeper and question the
information they are provided is the reliability of the implied author and the narrator. As was
shown above, through the usage of the first person pronoun in the plural ‘we’ (see page 42),
the narrator positions himself within the same epistemological domain as the real reader. In
my mind a perceptible gap is established between the group of ‘us’, which consists of: the
real reader, the implied author, and the momentary homodiegetic narrator; and the group of
‘them’, which consists of: the scholars, the manuscript, and the soon-to-be new homodiegetic

52
narrator of Ibn Fadlān. The text-worlds cued up in the following passages further emphasise
this gap.
‘A word should be said about Ibn Fadlān, the man who speaks to us with such
a distinctive voice despite the passage of more than a thousand years and the
filter of transcribers and translators from a dozen linguistic and cultural
traditions.
We know almost nothing of him personally. Apparently he was educated and,
from his exploits, he could not have been very old. [...]’ (Crichton 1997: 7-8)
The conditional ‘should’ in the first sentence cues up a deontic modal-world
set in a nonspecified present time containing the enactor of Ibn Fadlān, the implied author
and the implied reader. Text-world 1 is cued up by the objective first person pronoun in the
plural form ‘us’. The text-world is grounded in a nonspecified present time, when the enactor
of Ibn Fadlān is speaking to both the narrator and the narratee. A world-switch occurs
through the occurrence of the present simple verb ‘passage’ accompanied by the noun phrase
‘a thousand years’. The text-world in my mind reflects a specified continuous past time,
spanning a thousand years leading up to the present time of Text-world 1. Social deixis also
occurs within Text-world 2, as attention is momentarily shifted away from the narrator and
narratee to the enactors of the translators of Ibn Fadlān’s journal. In the next sentence the
modal lexical verb ‘know’ cues up Epistemic Modal-World 1, while Epistemic Modal-World
2 is cued up by the modal adverb ‘apparently’ immediately in the next sentence. The
conditional ‘could’ in the coordinating clause of the sentence cues up a Hypothetical modal-
world that shares the same time as the two Epistemic modal-worlds preceding it. In my mind
these three modal worlds branch out of Text-world 1 as they are all grounded in the same
time (i.e. a nonspecified present time evident through the present simple tenses of the verbs).

53
Deontic Modal-World
(should)
enactors: Ibn Fadlān, implied
author, implied reader
objects: word w-s
Text-World 1
enactors: man (Ibn Fadlān)
narrator, narratee (us)
objects: voice
w-s
Text-World 2
time: specified continuous past
(thousand years)
enactors: translators, transcribers
objects: filter, tradition
eps
Epistemic Modal-World 1
(know)
Fadlān
object: nothing
(apparently)
objects: exploits
eps
hyp
Hypothetical Modal-World

54
The lack of certainty on the narrator’s part within these three modal worlds
reveals that he shares the same epistemological domain as the narratee. Readers are made to
believe that much like them, the narrator/implied author does not know anything about the
enactor of Ibn Fadlān. Even in the passages where the narrator breaks up this pattern of
inclusion, there is still a perceptible distance between the momentary homodiegetic narrator
of the introduction section of the book, and the soon-to-be homodiegetic narrator of Ibn
Fadlān of the next fifteen chapters of the book. The following paragraph is a good example of
this:
‘In preparing this full and annotated version of the Fraus-Dolus translation, I
have made few alterations. I deleted some repetitive passages; these are
indicated in the text. I changed paragraph structure, starting each directly
quoted speaker with a new paragraph, according to modern convention. I have
omitted the diacritical marks on Arabic names. Finally, I have occasionally
altered the original syntax, usually by transposing subordinate clauses so the
meaning is more readily grasped.’ (Crichton 1997: 3)
This passage cues up three very important text-worlds. Text-world 1 is set in a
nonspecified past time when the narrator was performing the material intention process of
preparing the annotated version of the manuscript for the narratee. Although Text-world 2 is
also set in the same nonspecified past time, textual deixis occurs through each of its essential
world-building elements, as they draw attention to the stylistic features of the text. My
knowledge schemas related to the fields of linguistics are continuously used when I read the
following noun phrases and their premodifiers: repetitive passage, paragraph structure,
quoted speaker, new paragraph, modern convention, diacritical marks, Arabic names, original
syntax, subordinate clauses, and finally meaning. All of these noun phrases reflect the
specific features that the narrator has apparently changed within the manuscript. Text-world 3

55
Text-World 1
enactors: narrator, narratee, Fraus-
Dolus
objects: translation, alterations,
version
w-s
Text-World 2
objects: repetitive passage, paragraph
structure, quoted speaker, modern
convention, diacritical marks, Arabic
names, syntax, subordinate clauses,
meaning
w-s
Text-World 3
enactors: implied author, implied
reader
objects: text

56
is cued up through both temporal deixis (through the present simple verb ‘are’), and textual
deixis.
This passage seemingly reinforces the reliability of the implied
author/homodiegetic narrator. He exhibits honesty by telling his readers what specific
elements of the manuscript he has changed, and why he has changed them (see Text-world 2
above). More importantly by stating that all of his alterations are indicated in the text through
textual deixis (see Text-world 3 above), the reader is prompted to believe that ‘double-
voicing’, which has been a prominent feature of the introduction section of the book, will not
occur within the next fifteen chapters of the text. The implied author’s voice will not merge
with Ibn Fadlān’s voice, because the various footnotes will help distinguish the implied
author’s voice from that of the homodiegetic narrator’s.
Perhaps the best way to further describe the ontological complexities of the
text so far, is to implement Peter Rabinowitz’s and James Phelan’s definitions of the four
types of audience (see Section 2.3). Through these classifications, it is easier to see why the
implied author/homodiegetic narrator spends so much time setting up a proper introduction
section in which he distances himself from the homodiegetic narrator of Ibn Fadlān. Without
this distance, readers would find it problematic to assume the role of the ideal narrative
audience, because they would deem the voice of the implied author/homodiegetic narrator’s
as being unreliable and filled with false information right from the start.
This way however, readers believe the statements of both the double-voiced
implied author/homodiegetic narrator of the introduction section:
‘I have to confess, the first time I read this book I thought it was a real
manuscript, and that Crichton was just putting it for us in book form’ (R1,
Goodreads)

57
As well as the statements of the homodiegetic narrator of Ibn Fadlān:
‘The narrator, Ibn Fadlān, is an actual Muslim writer from the 10th century.
The first 3 chapters of this book are actually from his original narrative.’
(R3, Goodreads)
The following passages taken from the last pages of the introduction section
serve the purpose of maintaining the readers’ attention throughout the entirety of the text:
‘Ibn Fadlān himself is clearly an intelligent and observant man. He is
interested in both the everyday details of life and the beliefs of the people he
meets. [...]
Ibn Fadlān never speculates. Every word rings true, and whenever he reports
by hearsay, he is careful to say so. He is equally careful to specify when he is
an eyewitness: that is why he uses the phrase “I saw with my own eyes” over
and over. [...]
In the end, it is this quality of his truthfulness which makes his tale so
horrifying. For his encounter with the monsters of the mist, the “eaters of the
dead,” is told with the same attention to detail, the same careful scepticism,
that marks the other portions of the manuscript.
In any case, the reader may judge for himself.’ (Crichton 1997: 7-9)
Epistemic Modal-world 1 is cued up by the modal adverb: ‘clearly’, which
reflects certainty from the implied author’s part about the meticulous nature of the
homodiegetic narrator/enactor of Ibn Fadlān.

58
The negation adverb ‘never’ cues up a Negative modal-world in the second
paragraph. This modal-world by itself reflects a very important aspect of the enactor of Ibn
Fadlān readers need to know, which is that he does not speculate. Based on my own
knowledge framework of linguistics, the word ‘speculate’ entails uncertainty. A person
speculates when he or she is unsure of something. On the other hand, the material intention
process of reporting, which is the main function-advancer of Text-world 1, reflects a high
degree of certainty on the enactor’s part. This certainty is further emphasised by two
important textual elements. The first one is the noun phrase/synonym ‘eyewitness’, which is
essentially used as a substitute for Ibn Fadlān. The second one is the phrase ‘I saw with my
own eyes’, which becomes foregrounded (see Section 2.1) in my mind, due to the
orthographical choice made by the implied author to put it into quotation marks.
Text-world 2 is cued up in the third paragraph through proximal spatial deixis.
The demonstrative ‘this’ shifts my attention away from the enactor of Ibn Fadlān to his
‘quality of truthfulness’ (Crichton 1997: 9), his story overall. The material supervention
process of Ibn Fadlān encountering the mist monsters in the next sentence cues up Text-world
3. Textual deixis also occurs through the quoted noun phrase and its postmodifier ‘eaters of
the dead’, which foregrounds the title of the novel as a whole. Text-world 3 has been shaded
grey, due to the fact that the readers of the text at this point would probably regard it as a
participant-accessible text-world given the reliability of the implied author/homodiegetic
narrator thus far. In reality however, it is an enactor-accessible text-world, as the enactors of
the mist monsters within the text are fictional (see Lunde and Stone 2012).

59
Text-World 2
enactors: : implied author, implied
reader, Ibn Fadlān
objects: truthfulness, tale,
reader, Ibn Fadlān, people
objects: everyday details, life
beliefs, hearsay
neg
Text-World 4
objects: manuscript, portions
Text-World 3
enactors: : Ibn Fadlān, mist
monsters, eaters of the dead
objects: encounter
w-s eps
implied reader
Negative Modal-World
implied reader, Ibn Fadlān
Text-World 1
implied reader, Ibn Fadlān,
objects: word, hearsay
attention, detail, careful
skepticism
w-s
w-s w-s

60
The passive verb in the present tense ‘is told’ toggles me back to Text-world
1, as it reminds of the material intention process of reporting being done by Ibn Fadlān.
Further world-building elements are provided to flesh out Text-world 1 even more. The noun
phrases ‘attention’, ‘detail’ and ‘careful scepticism’ all serve the purpose of accentuating the
main enactor’s authenticity and reliability.
A world-switch occurs from Text-world 1 to Text-world 4 through textual
deixis. The premodifier ‘other’ and the postmodifier ‘of the manuscript’ in the noun phrase
‘other portions of the manuscript’, have the effect of segregating the manuscript into two
main parts. The parts of the text that contain the enactors of the mist monsters (see Text-
world 3) are foregrounded in my mind as they are juxtaposed with the ‘other portions of the
manuscript’. I regard this long noun phrase to be synonymous with the noun phrase of
‘everything else’. As a consequence readers’ attention is drawn towards Text-world 3, which
is also the most important one in terms of ontological status (see above).
Finally, after all this information, the implied author is also careful to give his
readers a sense of freedom when it comes to judging the reliability of Ibn Fadlān’s account.
Epistemic modal-world 2 is cued up through the present simple verb ‘to judge’, which in my
mind is synonymous with the act of formulating an opinion. The reader is addressed directly
by the implied author through the noun phrase ‘the reader’, and is told that the decision to
believe the authenticity of Ibn Fadlān’s account is in the end theirs to make.
The implied author fleshes out the enactor of Ibn Fadlān for his readers in
order to properly inform them of what is yet to come, what they can expect from the main
enactor of the story. I am reminded of the common expression among writers ‘show and not
tell’, as the text-worlds throughout the introduction section of the book do the exact opposite

61
(see page 59). Readers are told instead of shown what will ensue, and are in the process
compelled to stay, read and more importantly trust the reliability of Ibn Fadlān’s story.
From an ontological perspective, after having read the introduction section of
the book, readers are prone to believe that at the discourse-world level, Eaters of the Dead
features three discourse participants: Michael Crichton, Ahmad Ibn Fadlān and the real reader
or the flesh-and-blood audience. As a consequence the discourse-world is essentially split
into three parts, as none of these participants share the same spatio-temporal location.
Since the split between Ibn Fadlān and the real reader is far bigger (early 10th
century – early 21st century) than the split between Michael Crichton and the real reader
(early 20th century – early 21st century), readers are prone to rely more on Michael Crichton
at first due to the temporal proximity. This obviously puts a lot more pressure on the
discourse participant of Michael Crichton, which in a way explains why the book has such an
elaborate introduction section (see Section 1.2 for summary, Chapter Three for analysis).
From an ontological point of view, it is easier to make real readers assume the role of the
ideal narrative audience by helping them to trust the implied author/homodiegetic narrator’s
voice at first, and then the enactor/homodiegetic narrator of Ibn Fadlān’s voice.
Of course when analysed, the discourse world of Eaters of the Dead only
features two discourse participants: Michael Crichton and the real reader. The following Text
World Theory analysis of passages taken from the middle and ending sections of the book
demonstrate this.

62
3.1.2 Text-worldsof the middleand endingsections
The implied author/homodiegetic narrator of the introduction section achieves
such a reliability that even when readers are told at the very end of the book that the majority
of what they have read and thought to be reliable is all fiction, most of the them still trust the
implied author/homodiegetic narrator’s claims.
‘Crichton imitated the real Ibn Fadlān's voice so thoroughly that the point
where the historical manuscript ends (the first few chapters) and Crichton's
novel begins is practically seamless.’ (R2, Goodreads)
‘As he admits in the back, the first three chapters are real enough but the rest
is faked.’ (R14, Amazon)
‘The facts (the first three chapters) are seamlessly blended with Crichton’s
views; which are accompanied by some very detailed footnotes.’
(R26, Goodreads)
‘The style changes from the first three chapters and I found that I was sucked
into the story more as the book went on. The postscript by the author did
colour my views on the tale slightly, however overall this is a gem that should
not be missed.’ (R15, Amazon)
‘The narrator, Ibn Fadlān, is an actual Muslim writer from the 10th century.
The first 3 chapters of this book are actually from his original narrative.
Crichton then moves from there in to the fictional portion, using Fadlān as a
first hand observer of the events surrounding the Beowulf story.’
(R3, Goodreads)

63
The textuality of the novel is foregrounded through textual deixis, as the
readers in these reviews segregate the entirety of the manuscript into two main parts. The first
part consists of the first three chapters of the book, which are associated with the idea of the
authentic, the real, the historical and so forth. The second part encompassing the remaining
twelve chapters, are in turn regarded as being fictitious, imaginary, and made-up. This
dichotomy is in many ways analogous with one mentioned by the implied author in the
introduction section (see Text-worlds 3 and 4 on page 59)
The important thing to note however, is that the readers on both Amazon and
Goodreads draw this line between fact and fiction not because they have researched the
contents of the real manuscript (see Lunde and Stone 2012, Montgomery 1971) and then
compared it with the contents of Eaters of the Dead, but mainly because they are told by the
implied author/homodiegetic narrator at the very end of the book that this is the case:
‘The historical and cultural observations (of which, not doing the research, I
wonder how much is accurate) are fun to see [...]’ (R4, Goodreads)
‘A factual note on Eaters of the Dead’
(Crichton 1997: 182)
Here deictic information is provided about the text as an object. The whole
title is a noun phrase, with the head-noun ‘note’ being premodified by the very important
adjective ‘factual’, and postmodified by ‘Eaters of the Dead’, the title of the book itself. The
text-world cued up by the noun phrase contains the enactors of the implied author and
implied reader (see page 65 below). Much like in the case of the introduction section, readers
of the text are given a signpost by the implied author about the information that will soon be

64
provided. In my own reading, the premodifier ‘factual’ also has a very important role,
because it implies truth, it implies reality.
‘I obtained the existing manuscript fragments and combined them, with only
slight modifications, into the first three chapters of Eaters of the Dead. I then
wrote the rest of the novel in the style of the manuscript to carry Ibn Fadlān on
the rest of his now-fictional journey. I also added commentary and some
extremely pedantic footnotes.’ (Crichton 1997: 185)
[Footnote Section]Tomyknowledge thereare still onlytwoprincipalsourcesinEnglish. The
firsttextfragmentsIreadas an undergraduate:RobertBlake and Richard Frye, “The Vikings
Abroad and at Home,” in Carleton S. Coon, A Reader in General Anthropology, Henry Holt
and Co. NY, 1952, pp. 410-416. The second source is Robert P. Blake and Richard N. Frye,
“Note on the Risalaof Ibn-Fadlan,”Byzantina Metabyzantina, 1949, v.1part 2, New York pp.
7-37. (Crichton 1997: 185)
A world-switch occurs from Text-world 1, cued up by the title above, to Text-
world 2 through the past simple verb ‘obtained’. A world-switch from Text-world 2 to Text-
world 3 occurs through textual deixis, as the long noun phrase ‘the first three chapters of
Eaters of the Dead’ provides deictic information about the text as an object. The head-noun
‘chapters’ being premodified twice, firstly by the adjective ‘first’, secondly by the adjective
‘three’, foregrounds a specific portion of the text in my mind (i.e. the first three chapters).
The footnote provided right after the postmodifier ‘Eaters of the Dead’ cues
up Text-world 4 through textual deixis, as deictic information is provided by the implied
author about the text as an object. Text-world 4 contains an Epistemic modal-world and two
text-worlds (see Text-world 5 and 6). The Epistemic modal-world is cued up through the
subjective expression ‘to my knowledge’.
A word-switch to Text-world 5 occurs through temporal deixis. The past
simple tense verb ‘read’ in the next sentence of the footnote refers to a material intention
process being done by the narrator in a nonspecified past time.

65
Text-World 1
time: ?
enactors: : implied author,
implied reader
objects: note
Text-World 2
enactors: : narrator, narratee
objects: manuscript, fragments,
modifications
Text-World 3
time: ?
objects: three chapters, Eaters of
the Dead
Epistemic Modal-World
objects: knowledge, principle
sources, English
Text-World 5
location: New York
enactors: narrator, narratee, Robert
Blake, Richard Frye, Vikings, Carlton
S. Coon, reader, Henry Holt
objects: text, fragments, abroad, home,
anthropology
Text-World 6
location: New York
enactors: Robert Blake, Richard
Frye, Ibn Fadlān,
objects: note, Risala
Text-World 7
Fadlān
objects: novel, style, manuscript,
journey
Text-World 8
objects: commentary, pedantic
footnotes
w-s w-s
Text-World 4
time: ?
reader
w-s
eps
w-s
w-s w-s
w-s

66
Text-world 6 on the other hand is set in a nonspecified present time, through the present
simple verb ‘is’. Both text-worlds contain enactors who are real historical figures: Richard
Frye, Robert Blake, Carlton S. Coon, Henry Holt, and Ibn Fadlān. Their inclusion in the strict
referencing style of the sentences, which consists of: name of the author, title of the work
cited, editor of the anthology, the title of the anthology, publisher, place of publication, date
of publication and page range; helps to solidify the authenticity of the works cited, because
they can easily be looked up and verified.
Textual deixis occurs yet again, as the noun phrase ‘rest of the novel’ provides
deictic information about the text as an object. Chapters four to fifteen of the book become
momentarily foregrounded in my mind as they are deemed as being fictitious. Through the
presence of the essential world-building element ‘now-fictional journey’, I juxtapose Text-
world 3, which contains world-building elements that foreground the first three chapters of
the book, with Text-world 7, which in turn compels the reader to momentarily place the
previously foregrounded first three chapters into the background and think about the
remaining twelve chapters of the book. The premodifier ‘now-fictional’ implies a transition
from factual (first three chapters) to fictional (chapters four to fifteen), as I juxtapose the
temporal adverb of ‘now’ with the temporal adverb of ‘then’.
The world-switch from Text-world 7 to Text-world 8 occurs through another
form of textual deixis. The noun phrases ‘commentary’ and the double premodified
‘extremely pedantic footnotes’, emphasise the presence of the implied author throughout the
text.
In terms of rhetorical narratology, much like in the case of the passages from
the introduction section, double-voicing is a prominent feature of the paragraph above,

67
because the implied author and the homodiegetic narrator’s voices are continuously merged
together.
From an ontological perspective a number of different complications arise.
The real readers of the text having assumed the role of the ideal narrative audience, the
audience that trusts whatever both the implied author/homodiegetic narrator and the
enactor/homodiegetic narrator of Ibn Fadlān tells them, need to go back and undertake a
world-repair of their text-worlds and modal-worlds (see Section 2.3).
They can either choose to replace the entirety of the innumerable participant-
accessible text-worlds and modal-worlds that the text cued up in their minds with purely
enactor-accessible ones, thus deeming them all as being fictional. Or they can choose to
maintain the role of the ideal narrative audience despite being deceived into assuming the role
once before in the introduction section, and trust the implied author/homodiegetic narrator’s
claims yet again by changing only the participant-accessible nature of the text-worlds and
modal-worlds cued up in chapters four to fifteen.
As it can be seen through the reader responses included above, most readers
on both Goodreads and Amazon chose the second option. They believe that the text can be
easily segregated into two main parts: a factual part consisting of: the text-worlds of the
introduction section, the first three chapters, and finally the ending section; and a fictional
part encompassing chapters four to fifteen. Moreover they still believe that at the discourse-
world level Eaters of the Dead features three discourse-world participants instead of two; that
the enactor/homodiegetic narrator of the first three chapters is not the same as the double
voiced homodiegetic narrator of the introduction and ending sections of the book.

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