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- catalog abstract "In 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.".
- catalog contributor b3561235.
- catalog created "c1992.".
- catalog date "1992".
- catalog date "c1992.".
- catalog dateCopyrighted "c1992.".
- catalog description "In 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.".
- catalog description "Includes bibliographical references and index.".
- catalog extent "xi, 282 p. ;".
- catalog hasFormat "Fiction in the quantum universe.".
- catalog identifier "0807820245 (cloth : alk. paper)".
- catalog identifier "0807843652 (pbk. : alk. paper)".
- catalog isFormatOf "Fiction in the quantum universe.".
- catalog issued "1992".
- catalog issued "c1992.".
- catalog language "eng".
- catalog publisher "Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press,".
- catalog relation "Fiction in the quantum universe.".
- catalog spatial "United States".
- catalog spatial "United States.".
- catalog subject "813/.5409356 20".
- catalog subject "American fiction 20th century History and criticism.".
- catalog subject "Literature and science United States History 20th century.".
- catalog subject "PS374.P45 S77 1992".
- catalog subject "Physics in literature.".
- catalog subject "Postmodernism (Literature) United States.".
- catalog subject "Quantum theory in literature.".
- catalog title "Fiction in the quantum universe / Susan Strehle.".
- catalog type "Criticism, interpretation, etc. fast".
- catalog type "History. fast".
- catalog type "text".