A play on the term
wormhole, a
wordhole is a literary mechanism used most effectively in
Naked Lunch by
William S. Burroughs. In its simplest form, a wordhole is the same phrase repeated at two different points in the manuscript, possibly more than a hundred pages apart, probably in entirely different contexts. An example from
Naked Lunch:
"Please
Boss Man. I'll wipe your ass, I'll wash out your dirty
condoms, I'll polish your shoes with the oil on my
nose...."
- page 17
A Sollubi rushes into the bar and starts polishing The
Saint's shoes with the oil on his nose.... The Saint kicks
him petulantly in the mouth.
- page 118
"Naked Lunch contains multiple reference points, flashpoints, which propell the reader forward and backward through time and space. Using cutups and other montage techniques, Burroughs has effectively created a work that can be 'intersected at any point.'"
- from http://www.bigtable.com/