Encyclopedic novel
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The encyclopedic novel is a literary concept popularised by
Mendelson
Mendelson describes numerous qualities of the encyclopedic novel: they include "the full account of at least one technology or science" and the display of "an encyclopedia of literary styles, ranging from the most primitive and anonymous levels ... to the most esoteric of high styles".[8] He notes that there is often a short but significant interval between the era portrayed in the novel and the era of the novel's writing (as in, for example, James Joyce's Ulysses, and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow). Mendelson states that "[b]ecause they are the products of an epic in which the world's knowledge is larger than any one person can encompass, they necessarily make extensive use of synecdoche". Orderly plot structures are often absent.
Other perspectives
There has been considerable debate about the nature and function of the encyclopedic novel since Mendelson's exposition of the concept. Hillary A. Clark attributes to this type of discourse the importance of ordering the information which the writer discovers and retrieves.
The illusion of
While an encyclopedia is a factual reference work, a novel stands in opposition to it as a "literary nonreferential narrative".[16] One critical review questions why a novelist would paradoxically reference a fictional universe, and what literary purpose is served by the proliferation of the "junk text" that is often a carrier of the encyclopedic conceit. When excessive real-world data is presented to the reader, the author's purpose is unclear: those readers who already know the material will find it superfluous, and those who do not know it may find that it adds nothing of interest to the text. Giving examples of "junk text" in encyclopedic fiction, the review cites "the pseudo-scientific cetology chapter" in Moby-Dick and "minor-character chatter about art and economics" in William Gaddis's The Recognitions (1955) and J R (1975). Yet, a defining characteristic of the encyclopedic novel is the presentation of unwanted or unnecessary information. Such writing "terminate[s] focused attention", and is in danger of boring the reader.[17] One view of the encyclopedic novel's method, therefore, is that it requires the reader to practice modulating their attention to the text, bringing more consciousness to the act of filtering the important from the tangential.[18]
Notes
- ^ JSTOR 2907136.
- ^ Mendelson, Edward (1976). "Gravity's Encyclopedia". In Levine, George; David Leverenz (eds.). Mindful Pleasures: Essays on Thomas Pynchon. Little, Brown. pp. 161–95.
- ^ Mendelson, "Encyclopedic Narrative", 1269. Quoted in Herman.
- ^ Letzler, 304
- ^ Burn, Stephen J. Abstract. "At the edges of perception": William Gaddis and the encyclopedic novel from Joyce to David Foster Wallace. 2001, doctoral thesis, Durham University.
- ^ LeClair, Tom, The Art of Excess: Mastery in Contemporary American Fiction University of Illinois Press, 1989.
- ^ Ercolino, Stefano, The Maximalist Novel: From Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow to Roberto Bolano's 2666. Bloomsbury, 2014
- ^ Mendelson, "Gravity's Encyclopedia". Quoted in Boswell
- ^ Clark, 99; For Mendelson see note 1, 108
- ^ Clark, 95, 105
- ^ a b Letzler, "Paradox", 2
- ^ Rasula, Jed. "Textual Indigence in the Archive." Postmodern Culture (May 1999). Quoted in Letzler, "Paradox", 2
- ^ Herman, Luc and Petrus van Ewijk. "Gravity's Encyclopedia Revisited: The Illusion of a Totalizing System in Gravity's Rainbow." English Studies 90.2 (April 2009): 167–179. Quoted in Letzler, "Paradox", 2
- ^ Herman
- ^ Bersani, 143
- ^ Letzler, 305, quoting Dorrit Cohn with added emphasis
- ^ Letzler, 304–308
- ^ Letzler, 309 et seq
Sources
- Bersani, Leo. "Flaubert's Encyclopedism". Novel: A Forum on Fiction. 21:⅔ (Winter – Spring, 1988): 140–146
- Boswell, Marshall. "Introduction: David Foster Wallace and 'The Long Thing'". Studies in the Novel 44:3 (2012): 263–266.
- Clark, Hillary A. "Encyclopedic Discourse". Sub-stance 21.1 (1992): 95–110.
- Herman, Luc. "Encyclopedic novel". Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Routledge, 2010. 137–38.
- Letzler, David. "Encyclopedic novels and the cruft of fiction: Infinite Jest's endnotes". Studies in the Novel 44:3 (2012): 304–324.
- Letzler, David. "The Paradox of Encyclopedic Fiction". 2012. Presented at NeMLA 2012.
- Mendelson, Edward (December 1976). "Encyclopedic Narrative: From Dante to Pynchon". MLN. 91 (6): 1267–1275. JSTOR 2907136.
- Mendelson, Edward (1976). "Gravity's Encyclopedia". In Levine, George; David Leverenz (eds.). Mindful Pleasures: Essays on Thomas Pynchon. Little, Brown. pp. 161–95.
- Reprinted in Mendelson, Edward (1986). "Gravity's Encyclopedia". In Bloom, Harold (ed.). Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow: Modern Critical Interpretations. New Haven: Chelsea House. pp. 29–52.
Further reading
- Cohn, Dorrit. The Distinction of Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999.