10.13125/2039-6597/5950
Recensione del libro di&nbsp;Stefano Gualeni, Riccardo Fassone, Fictional Games. A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play.
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Cristina Di Maio
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Between
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Stefano Gualeni, Riccardo Fassone, Fictional Games. A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between
13
Reviews: Ed. C. Bertoni, C. Cao, C. Confalonieri, G. Iacoli
2023-12-08
2023-11-03
2023-11-30
2023-12-08
254-258
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Cristina Di Maio
2023/12/08
10.13125/2039-6597/5950
254
University of Turin (Italy)
2039-6597
26
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258
Stefano Gualeni, Riccardo Fassone, Fictional Games. A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/download/5950/5755
13
   Stefano Gualeni – Riccardo Fassone
       Fictional Games. A Philosophy
   of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play
        London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, 216 pp.
     Over the past sixty years, literary criticism has shown growing
interest in a theme that has alternatively been foregrounded, served as a
backdrop, or in some cases has functioned as a structural element in
numerous fictional narratives: games. Games have been interpreted vis-
à-vis the fictional texts embedding them primarily (and sometimes,
systematically) as activities inscribed in specific spatial and temporal
boundaries, being animated by well-defined moves and roles and
having measurable outcomes; therefore, this definition of games differs
from a more fluid conceptualization of play, as a ludic element rather
associated with a playful performance, but not included in a rigid formal
framework. Critical explorations of the function of games (and play) in
narrative texts have thus mirrored their manifold nature, developing a
plurality of theoretical and methodological approaches.
     Moreover, from the 1960s onward, the emergence of
postmodernism has resulted in games being increasingly forefronted as
a metatextual and self-reflexive element (see Brian Edwards, Theories of
Play and Postmodern Fiction, New York, Taylor and Francis, 1998)
highlighting the authors’ sense of disillusionment with previous, and
more stable, understandings of reality and its representation. This “ludic
impulse” (John Kuehl, “The Ludic Impulse in Recent American Fiction”,
The Journal of Narrative Technique, XVI. 3 (1986): 167-178) has occurred in
parallel with the broader expansion of the notion of “narrative text”,
moving beyond the book to include contemporary narrative forms such
as, for instance, video games. And yet, in this extensive overview of


Between, vol. XIII, n. 26 (novembre/November 2023)
                                  Between, vol. XIII, n. 26 (novembre/November 2023)



ludic artifacts/activities and their role in fiction, one area of inquiry had
fatally remained uncharted, namely the investigation of imaginary, or
rather, fictional games included in a large variety of narrative texts.
Stefano Gualeni and Riccardo Fassone’s book Fictional Games. A
Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play aims to fill this specific gap
and provides a groundbreaking taxonomy to reflect on the «meta-
reflexive potential of fictional games» (6); in particular, their in-depth
investigation focuses on the quintessential unplayability and
incompleteness of such games as a deliberate aesthetic strategy opening
a pathway for «philosophical and meaning-making possibilities» (28) in
the narrative texts they examine.
      Gualeni and Fassone’s analysis is theoretically grounded in both
classic philosophical works on play and the most recent developments
in the thriving disciplinary field of Game Studies; the two authors rely
also on specific works of literary criticism to inform their reading of
gameworlds within fictional narratives. The taxonomic impulse that
animates this study is also evident from the structure of the book, which
identifies four main operational functions of fictional games, and
addresses them in four separate chapters. The first one, “Fictional
Games and Ideology”, considers fictional games as mirrors of the
hegemonic cultural and sociopolitical patterns of the (fictional) society
they are inscribed in. However, the reproduction of ideological
dynamics in a fictional game inevitably carries a disruptive import,
which is illustrated in the third chapter, “Fictional Games as Utopian
Devices”. Here Gualeni and Fassone underscore how fictional games
nested in fictional worlds have the subversive potential of destabilizing
the societal status quo, both at an intradiegetic level and as an
extratextual strategy, eliciting the reader’s political reaction. The
dialectical relation between these two chapters is among the most
interesting themes discussed in the volume, as it sheds light on one of
the most ambiguous and yet intellectually stimulating features of games
and play: their fraught relationship with institutional power, and the
ramification of this complex interaction on the narrative framework
which includes fictional (as well as real) ludic activities.



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Stefano Gualeni – Riccardo Fassone, Fictional Games (Cristina Di Maio)



      Chapter three, titled “Fictional Games as Deceptions and
Hallucinations” is devoted to the treatment of ludic activities which, by
thematizing deceptive games that confuse players and push them to the
brink of mental insanity, question the very boundaries that separate
reality from games. Although Gualeni and Fassone draw on the
philosophical work of Hans-Georg Gadamer to interpret this category
of games, the sense of dizziness, danger and bewilderment provoked by
the players’ search for meaning also recalls sociologist Roger Caillois’
notion of ilinx (see Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, Champaign,
Universty of Illinois Press, [1958] 2001), which can be similarly and
productively applied to reflect on the impact of these representational
stratagems on oblivious players. Finally, chapter four (“Fictional Games
and Transcendence”) introduces hints of post-human perspectives, in
describing and discussing games which foreground the possibility to
overcome the limits of human subjectivity and existence. Such games
are understood as generative narrative devices, which can foster
opportunities for evolution for all the players involved.
      For each of the four rich thematic categories, Gualeni and Fassone
present a number of compelling case studies, centered on fictional
games they unearth across different media and genres – ranging from
novels and movies, to TV series and videogames. The corpus the two
scholars take into consideration is composed of works by English-
speaking authors, in an effort to approach the cultural conventions
engaged by the ludic artifacts examined in a more conscious way;
however, the observe that mapping artistic/cultural works in other
languages may lead to results equally worth exploring in the future.
Interestingly, the last section of the book briefly deals with the critical
and/or satirical function of fictional games as mise en abyme of existing,
actual games, in popular culture texts: one example in this sense are
several fictional videogames featured in The Simpsons, which create
intertextual    connections      between     the    cartoon    and     the
movies/videogames referenced in the episodes. These inclusions
alternately convey witty critical commentaries on upcoming
technological development and commercialization of games, and
caricatures of successful game franchises.


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                                 Between, vol. XIII, n. 26 (novembre/November 2023)



      This last section in the volume is indeed particularly intriguing,
and it offers a variety of insights for further expansion regarding the role
of fictional games in different textual categories; to this extent, Gualeni
and Fassone’s elaboration in this respect may seem somewhat
underexplored. However, upon closer examination, this openness to
new and further research trajectories consistently fits in the volume’s
scope and methodological approach: the book admittedly tackles an
underexamined issue intersecting a wide range of disciplines and
narrative forms, and aims to start an academic conversation around
fictional games, rather than providing a unified, definitive theory of the
latter.
      In fact, the lines of theoretical and critical experimentation traced
and left open by Gualeni and Fassone arguably mirror the fascinating,
generative and transformative incompleteness of their main object of
inquiry: as they posit in the last pages of their study, they «believe that
fictional games could be used as important case studies in new scholarly
efforts in game ontology. We hope that this book will encourage such
projects in the game studies community» (178). While Game Studies
scholars are surely the privileged interlocutor for this academic
endeavor, the wealth of close readings provided by Gualeni and Fassone
and the many iterations of fictional games in narrative texts spanning
several decades and across different media suggest that such project is
worthy of further exploration also in fields such as literary criticism and
philosophy – the symbolic potential encapsulated in fictional games
seems yet to be disclosed.




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Stefano Gualeni – Riccardo Fassone, Fictional Games (Cristina Di Maio)




                                       L’autrice
       Cristina Di Maio

       Cristina Di Maio is Junior Assistant Professor (RTDA) in
American Literature at the University of Turin. She received her Ph.D.
in Linguistic, Philological and Literary Studies from the University of
Macerata, and she has previously taught American Literature and
Culture at the Universities “L'Orientale” and “Federico II” in Naples.
She is the author of contributions on contemporary American women
writers and in 2022 published her first book, La posta in gioco. I giochi e il
ludico nei racconti di Toni Cade Bambara, Rita Ciresi e Grace Paley. She
recently co-edited, with Daniele Giovannone and Fulvia Sarnelli, the
essay collection What’s Popping? La Storia degli Stati Uniti nella cultura
popolare del nuovo millennio (2022).

       Email: cristina.dimaio@unito.it



                                   La recensione
Data invio: 15/09/2023
Data accettazione: 30/10/2023
Data pubblicazione: 30/11/2023



                     Come citare questa recensione
Di Maio, Cristina, “Stefano Gualeni, Riccardo Fassone, Fictional Games.
A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play”, Eds. V. Serra – R.
Calzoni, Between, XIII.26 (2023): 254-258, www.betweenjournal.it.




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