Openings: the Act of Modelizing and the Question of Complexity

Abstract

Richard Powers’ novels are commonly associated with “systems novels” as Tom LeClair first described them, notably because of the constant compositional use the novelist makes of different extra-textual systems (including various fields such as biology, computer science, or more extensively chaos theory).To what extent do those modelized systems, apparently meant to supply structuring tools to readers keen for interpretive keys, contribute to the novels’ inner complexity, and how does their installation in the texts take place? The way I have chosen to address this issue is to look into the openings of the novels as privileged locations where formal guidelines are provided. Focusing on the openings helps point out functional variations in the use of models, which appear to be essential to the continuous development of complexity throughout the texts. The openings therefore seem not only to have programmatic virtues, but also to offer disorienting elements whose impact on the global scale (that is that of the novel as a whole) forces us to reconsider the scope of the models at stake in Richard Powers’ writing.

Keywords

• complexity
• model
• opening
• Systems novel