1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910807891803321

Autore

Conte Joseph M (Joseph Mark), <1960->

Titolo

Design and debris : a chaotics of postmodern American fiction / / Joseph M. Conte

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Tuscaloosa, : University of Alabama Press, c2002

ISBN

0-8173-8268-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (287 p.)

Disciplina

813.5409113

813/.5409113

Soggetti

American fiction - 20th century - History and criticism

Chaotic behavior in systems in literature

Literature and science - United States - History - 20th century

Postmodernism (Literature) - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [249]-260) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Being in uncertainties : orderly disorder in postmodern American fiction -- Design and debris : John Hawkes's Travesty, chaos theory, and the swerve -- Discipline and anarchy : disrupted codes in Kathy Acker's Empire of the senseless -- American oulipo : proceduralism in the novels of Gilbert Sorrentino, Harry Mathews, and John Barth -- Noise and signal : information theory in Don DeLillo's White noise -- The perfect game : dynamic equilibrium and the bifurcation point in Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association -- The excluded middle : complexity in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's rainbow -- The superabundance of cyberspace : postmodern fiction in the information age.

Sommario/riassunto

Reading eight major contemporary authors through the lens of chaos theory, Conte offers new and original interpretations of works that have been the subject of much critical debate. Design and Debris discusses the relationship between order and disorder in the works of John Hawkes, Harry Mathews, John Barth, Gilbert Sorrentino, Robert Coover, Thomas Pynchon, Kathy Acker, and Don DeLillo. In analyzing their work, Joseph Conte brings to bear a unique approach adapted from scientific thought: chaos theory. His chief concern is illuminating those



works whose narrative st