Chaos dialectic?

[cathy ramirez]

Oklahoma City University Law Review 
Volume 24, Number 3 (1999) 
reprinted by permission Oklahoma City University Law
Review 
FICTION AT A BIFURCATION POINT: FROM NEWTONIAN
LAW TO POSTMODERN UNCERTAINTY IN PYNCHON'S
MASON & DIXON 
CARMEN PEREZ-LLANTADA AURIA

Now that science rejects predetermined patterns and
accepts an uncertain and indeterminate nature,
literary
works such as Mason & Dixon suggest that any attempt
to
unravel such complicated nature involves,
metaphorically
speaking, a labyrinthic complexity. Enriched by the
symbolic journey of the historical, social, political,
and
religious aspects of the America of those times,
Mason's
and Dixon's personal desire to transcend their
existential
doubts leads the reader, at the end of the novel,
towards
deep philosophical and metaphysical conclusions. It
seems,
for Pynchon the philosopher, that the only way out of
the
existential void of the self is the one posited by the
theorists
of chaos: the reconciliation--or holistic
synthesis--of
opposites, namely chance and determinism, order and
chaos, subjectivity and objectivity, self and world. 

The concept of the dialectic is hostile to the
linearity which is at
the core of modern science. Is Pynchon's "project" at
war with the sciences? 
I don't think so. I doubt that Pynchon "the
pholosopher" ever 
provides "deep and mataphysical conclusions" or a WAY
OUT (89 is not a bad number Norman) of the Existential
voids via some sort of chaos dialectic. 


http://reason.com/9501/dept.bkSTOREY.text.shtml


http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jconte/Hawkes.html

"Design and Debris":  John Hawkes's Travesty, Chaos
Theory, and the Swerve
Joseph M. Conte




__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com