ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between literature and the event by focusing on a strand of contemporary writing in which projects play a striking role. Exploring what it means to engage in an intellectual project, these ‘project novels’ model some of the key philosophical dimensions of the event and illustrate how the event is linked to the phenomenon of serendipity—that is, the idea that genuine events often emerge from failures and transformations of projects that were originally intended to take a different course. Presenting Geoff Dyer’s Out of Sheer Rage (1997) and Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station (2011) as two exemplary works, the contribution argues that project novels embody an essayistic impulse by cultivating a patient and slow attitude towards future events, valuing their possibility more than their actuality. In doing so, the chapter understands the event of literature by reading the novels considered with special emphasis on the transformative processes they themselves have undergone. The value of the project novel is ultimately located in its capacity to challenge the event logic and strictly goal-oriented ramifications under which projects are conducted in academic institutions today.
