Schroeder: Inheriting chaos

[jbor]

'Inheriting chaos: Burroughs, Pynchon, Sterling, Rucker' by Randy Schroeder.
_Extrapolation_ 43.1. Kent: Spring 2002, pp. 89-98.

Abstract: 
In cyberpunk literature, Chaos is allowed to creep into narratives of
legacy, which supposedly take on less linear, more fractal shapes; legacy
itself becomes porno pastiche: collage, constellation, crystal growth, as
much influence of anxiety as anxiety of influence. Schroeder analyzes the
works of four pioneers of what he calls the cyberpunk movement: William S.
Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Bruce Sterling, and Rudy Rucker.

Excerpt:

[...] It is almost impossible to contain the reading experience of
_Gravity's Rainbow_, and to say anything coherent about the novel. But that
is just the point. _Gravity's Rainbow_ is information overload; it
explicitly invites a multiplicity of reading strategies and necessary
literacies, none of which finally holds a successful interpretive code. The
Zone itself is a version of the book, a space where the generation of noise
and degeneration of information is so overwhelming that you can't hear
yourself think. The noise is mainly the noise of chaos, as cultural
conventions, blasted into unrecognizable shapes by the war, lie at the side
of the road hoping for new configuration and the production of new
information. [...]

Pdf available. Contact me offlist.

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