Fiction in the Quantum UniverseIn this outstanding book Susan Strehle argues that a new fiction has developed from the influence of modern physics. The changed physical world appears in both content and form in some of the most ambitious recent fiction, which Strehle names "actualism" after the observations of Werner Heisenberg. Within that framework she explores the meditations on actuality in Pynchon, Coover, Gaddis, Barth, Atwood, and Barthelme. Although important recent narratives diverge markedly from realistic practice, this book claims that they do so in order to reflect more acutely on what we now understand as real. According to Strehle, the actualists balance attention to questions of art with an engaged meditation on the external, actual world. Reality is no longer realistic; in the new physical or quantum universe, it is discontinuous, energetic, relative, statistical, subjectively seen, and uncertainly known--all terms taken from the new physics. Actualist fiction is characterized by incompletions, indeterminacy, and "open" endings unsatisfying to the readerly wish for fulfilled promises and completed patterns. Gravity's Rainbow, for example, ends not with a period but with a dash. Realistic novels typically construct solid, believable, particularized environments, but actualist texts combine the plausible and the strange. Thus a recognizable campus like Berkeley or Cornell has a suburb called San Narciso or Zembla. Strehle makes the point that these innovations in narrative form reflect in allied ways upon twentieth-century history, politics, and science. Arguing that the perception of a changed reality reaches into philosophy, psychology, literary theory, and other areas of inquiry, the book advances a pluralistic view of the meaning of contemporary fiction. A final chapter extends the discussion beyond the North American borders to African, South American, and European texts, suggesting a global community of writers whose fiction belongs in the quantum universe. |
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absolute accident actual actualistic fiction actualistic texts aesthetic Ambrose appears artistic assumptions Atwood Barthelme Barthelme's Bast becomes begins Blicero Bray Cat's Eye causal certainty characters classical physics contemporary fiction Coover's Cordelia critics culture death Donald Barthelme Einstein Elaine Elaine's energy essay experience external father film Gaddis Gaddis's Germaine Gravity's Rainbow Handmaid's Tale Heisenberg human identity imagined ironic John Barth Kuehl language LETTERS linear Margaret Atwood material metafiction metaphor modern modernist mythic narrative narrator nature Newtonian Nixon novel novelists object painting Paradise past patterns physics plot Pointsman political postmodern preterite Public Burning QUANTUM UNIVERSE readers realistic fiction reality rejects relative Robert Coover rocket scientific sense sexual Simon Slothrop space spatial story suggests Tchitcherine temporal theory things Thomas Pynchon tion traditional uncertainty uncertainty principle vision voice Western William Gaddis women writing York