I asked a friend, "What is a linear novel?" Before the middle of this century, I don't believe anyone spoke of a linear novel.

People from other fields, often have no idea what nonlinear fiction is. I believe, as a term, this is a relatively recent phenomenon coming out of first chaos theory and later computer science.

I have been taking an informal survey of writers. Nonlinear means everything from chronologically non-sequential to unpredictable to oblique.

One could cite references going all the way back to the Bible—Song of Solomon—for nonlinear texts. Did Sterne refer to Tristram Shandy, a popular reference, as nonlinear. Well, no.

How and why does a movement take off and what are its aims? And in the present case, how can it advance art-writing.

I believe not many ask this question. Rather there is a rush to be fashionable, to catch the energy, to be close to power.

A larger question is how does one create a satisfying form of literature? Admittedly, this may involve personal aesthetic, which I'm not afraid to address.

If one would like to create a form more satisfying than the conflict-crisis-resolution model, one has to ask what was satisfying about that model so succinctly shaped by Madame de Lafayette in the Princesse de Clèves in l678?

Do I believe there can be other satisfying models? Of course, the race is on. Is hypertext that model? Not quite.

 

 

I am writing this for the student I was and for those whose journey I might shorten. For the more sophisticated, I've tried to identify worthy areas of excitement and experimentation. My journey was so forbidden. The arts are influenced by many factors, especially ideas about the universe and human nature. Ideas slip unnoticed into the arts. I present this work to show a type of thinking necessary to formalism. The individual instances are often historic but the mode of thinking can address new ideas. Why is this important? Without awareness the writer and artist become a slave to ideas that seep into the culture. Better to know and evaluate what appears. As Henry Miller said in a recorded interview with Ben Grauer, Our fate is linked with the common fate but I try to cut adrift. The biggest danger in the arts is that people will follow ego, power and fame instead of thinking for themselves.

 

 

At some point new ideas cease to spur formal innovation. The groping to define becomes articulate and codified. Techniques remain like remnants. Nonlinearity may be at that point. I visited a site recently which alluded to the flashback as an example of nonlinearity. A flashback seldom impedes the flow of events. It amplifies story elements.

A breeze ripples through Jerry's wavy, steel-gray hair. Fleeting, transitory, beloved.

Citing the flashback shows how specious the notion of a linear text is, or how rare. I don't want to be dismissive; nonlinearity is an important concept. And, the flashback could be considered a classic example.

Nonlinearity as being chased today could be further inspired by chaos theory and possibly even before that by quantum mechanics if one considers turbulence. Space-time and dynamical systems are the areas where there is much to be done.

 

 

"Attempts at the analytical description of nature regularly encounter strong nonlinearities. The majority of existing methods treat only weak nonlinearities and consist of corrections to behaviors that are simple distortions of linear behavior. The methods in the strong case, on the other hand, are largely recent developments and pertain to behaviors qualitatively distinct from linear ones. One of the most striking such behaviors is the appearance of highly erratic spatial configurations and/or highly erratic temporal evolution, a phenomenon called 'chaos.'"

http://www.rockefeller.edu/labheads/feigenbaum/feigenbaum-lab.html

Mitchell Feigenbaum, important contributor to the mathematics of chaos.