Janiform Texts and Covert Plots: From Shakespeare to Said

Janiform Texts and Covert Plots is a sequel to The Deceptive Text: An Introduction to Covert Plots, which maintained that although almost all fictional narratives have a main plot, some have, in addition, a covert plot. At a first reading, the reader sees parts of the covert plot but does not recognise how they cohere. Only in retrospect, or at a second, third or subsequent reading, is the covert plot seen in its entirety. Sometimes many years may elapse before the covert plot is detected and described.

Some covert plots are transtextual: they span two or more texts (e.g. Heart of Darkness and Chance). Some are supernatural: within a secular narrative is a contrastingly supernatural covert plot. Examples are The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, The Shadow-Line and Victory. This book goes controversially further by postulating covert plots in critical works by Roland Barthes, Mikhail Bakhtin and Edward Said.