ABSTRACT
However, Tom McCarthy's Remainder, the novel which the author uses as case study, is remarkable for eschewing the conventions of romance, thus offering neither hopes of healing nor an easy entry for ethical considerations. Remainder belongs in the category of neuronovels insofar as its "hero" is severely wounded, even incapacitated. This chapter focuses on the body as a subject matter and a signal in the novel Remainder: On the one hand, the injured body causes malfunctioning in cognition and hence permeates the narrative voice of the "wounded hero" on every level, with his body language expressing his states of mind. On the other hand, making sense of reading is grounded in embodied perception and sensorimotor experience, as is empathy in response to fiction. The author concludes innovative writers of neurofictions like Tom McCarthy seem to be using stories of damaged minds in order to bring awareness a non-narrative subjectivity that is non-pathological and a part of every self-consciousness.
