The purpose of the footnote varies, of course, with the purpose of the text. Most importantly, it affects how readers relate to the text. Whether they’re discursive, citational, or performative, how we understand the purpose of footnotes-and endnotes-affects how we treat them as writers and as editors. And sometimes (as in Jordy Rosenberg’s recent novel Confessions of the Fox), an entire story unfolds in the footnotes. Sometimes the author is across the room with their feet up, flicking spitballs at us as we read. Sometimes it’s pedagogical, as many scholarly footnotes are, situating the author’s writing in the field of play. Sometimes the author is just showing off, jerking us around from page to page, toying-amusingly or maddeningly-with our attentions. Sometimes it’s a cocktail-party conversation going on in the background. In the discursive note, though, it becomes a side conversation-the author peering over the reader’s shoulder at the page, whispering in their ear, anticipating objections, cracking jokes, or tossing out fascinating anecdotes that didn’t quite fit into the text. Sometimes the citational note is a quiet reminder of the author’s research and erudition, a resource to be mined. Is the author speaking to us as a friend, a confidant, a teacher, a performance artist, an interpreter? Are we reading in a classroom, on the subway, in a leather armchair at the Yale Club? Are the author’s notes a discreet aside, a whispered anecdote, a dialogue with the words on the page? The author’s intervening voice tells us what kind of conversation we’re having. Like all conversations, this one is a socially situated experience. Footnotes complicate the relationship between author, text, and reader-in some fascinating ways. When we read footnotes, though, a third party enters that conversation-the author, commenting on the text.
When we read a text, it’s a direct one-way conversation: the text speaks to the reader.
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