CONCRETIZATION AND DECONCRETIZATION OF REALITY IN PYNCHON’S NOVEL GRAVITY’S RAINBOW Cover Image

КОНКРЕТИЗАЦИЈА И ДЕКОНКРЕТИЗАЦИЈА СТВАРНОСТИ У ПИНЧОНОВОМ РОМАНУ ДУГА ГРАВИТАЦИЈЕ
CONCRETIZATION AND DECONCRETIZATION OF REALITY IN PYNCHON’S NOVEL GRAVITY’S RAINBOW

Author(s): Mladen Jakovljević
Subject(s): Other Language Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Матица српска
Keywords: Gravity's Rainbow; Thomas Pynchon; Reality and fantasy;

Summary/Abstract: The complexity of relations between reality and fantasy in Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow is based on inability to clearly distinguish between them and the potentials of reality and fantasy to transform one into another at any time. Literary theorist Brian McHale has defined two basic principles that govern the transformation of reality and fantasy. The first principle is retroactive deconcretization, which reveals as fantasy what has previously been presented as reality. The second principle of transformation is retroactive concretization, or transformation into reality of what has originally been presented as not real. The ability of one event to go through several concretizations and deconcretization greatly contributes to the complexity of relations between reality and fantasy. The two processes constantly erase, shift and create new boundaries between reality and fiction, thus requiring constant re-examination of reality and fictionality of the described events and episodes, and the novel’s entire reality framework. Along with the novel’s cyclical structure, retroactive concretization and deconcretization challenge and question conventional conception of time and space and open up the possibility that the entire novel is a textual representation of cinematographic projection of reality, with numerous inserted fantasies and alternate realities.

  • Issue Year: 64/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 139-154
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Serbian
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