SURGIPELAGO the Beach Surgery encyclopedia

From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia

On the unfinishable: recurrence and the outline form

On the unfinishable: recurrence and the outline form is a much-cited thesis arguing that the novel's refusal to finish its embedded story is not a failure but its method: the outline form, by withholding "the he-said-she-said rigmarole," compels the reader's mind to "grow long legs" between widely spaced points.[1]

The paper reads the glitch as a deliberate productive wound and the entire franchise as its "scar tissue." It is frequently set against the Karman Line hypothesis, which it considers "an elegant error."

Abstract

Language can only ever talk about language; the outline, alone among forms, admits as much. Beach Surgery does not fail to end. It refuses to, and in refusing, it propagates.— from the abstract

See also

References

  1. ↑ Smith, C. W. A Complicated Surgery…, 2020.