(no subject)
Mar. 31st, 2010 01:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionContinuation of previous:
5. Quain: Still more unconventional is Quain's 'retrogressive, branching novel' April March, whose third (and only) part appeared in 1936. (See story for full description!)
&
Tlön: The books are different too. Fictional works embrace a single plot, with all conceivable permutations.
& of course...
Garden: The garden of branching paths was the chaotic novel; the phrase 'to various futures (but not all)' conjured up an image of branching in time, not in space. A re-reading of the book confirmed this theory. In all works of fiction, each time the writer is confronted with choices, he opts for one and discards the rest. In the inextricable Ts'ui Pen, he opts - at one and the same time - for all the alternatives. By so doing, he creates several futures, several times over, and in turn these proliferate and branch off.
6. Tlön: Works of a philosophical nature invariably contain both a thesis and an antithesis, the strict pros and cons of a theory. A book that does not encompass its counter-book is considered incomplete.
&
Menard: To this third view (which I consider beyond dispute) I wonder if I dare add a fourth, which accords quite well with Piere Menard's all but divine modesty - his self-effacing or ironic habit of propagating ideas that were the exact reverse of those he himself held.
5. Quain: Still more unconventional is Quain's 'retrogressive, branching novel' April March, whose third (and only) part appeared in 1936. (See story for full description!)
&
Tlön: The books are different too. Fictional works embrace a single plot, with all conceivable permutations.
& of course...
Garden: The garden of branching paths was the chaotic novel; the phrase 'to various futures (but not all)' conjured up an image of branching in time, not in space. A re-reading of the book confirmed this theory. In all works of fiction, each time the writer is confronted with choices, he opts for one and discards the rest. In the inextricable Ts'ui Pen, he opts - at one and the same time - for all the alternatives. By so doing, he creates several futures, several times over, and in turn these proliferate and branch off.
6. Tlön: Works of a philosophical nature invariably contain both a thesis and an antithesis, the strict pros and cons of a theory. A book that does not encompass its counter-book is considered incomplete.
&
Menard: To this third view (which I consider beyond dispute) I wonder if I dare add a fourth, which accords quite well with Piere Menard's all but divine modesty - his self-effacing or ironic habit of propagating ideas that were the exact reverse of those he himself held.
