351. Chaotic narrative : complexity, causality, time and autopoiesis in David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten
- Author
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Sarah Joanne Dillon and University of St Andrews. School of English
- Subjects
Structure (mathematical logic) ,Autopoiesis ,Literature and Literary Theory ,PN0080 ,Science ,Chaos Theory ,Subject (philosophy) ,Ilya ,H.D ,Causality ,Chaos theory ,Interconnection ,Epistemology ,David Mitchell ,PN0080 Criticism ,Narrative ,Sociology ,Ghostwritten ,Relation (history of concept) - Abstract
David Mitchell is one of Britain’s foremost contemporary writers who is only just becoming the subject of academic attention. Focusing on his first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), this essay argues that the science of complexity provides a language with which to account for the novel’s complex interconnecting structure. The novel is defined as an autopoietic system according to the theories of Maturana and Varela and its engagement with the issues of causality and time explored in relation to the work of Ilya Prigogine. The paper concludes that Ghostwritten is a complex narrative system that responds to the intimate connection between the macroscopic and the microscopic in the contemporary world. Postprint
- Published
- 2011