From Being to Becoming: Writing the Now

Abstract

Nostromo is anchored in historical forces that undermine the notion of human agency: whether it is the power of capitalism and revolution or the inevitability of family inheritance and psychodynamic repetition, the individual conducts a life that is always already scripted. The novel is action heavy; the twists and turns of the plot performatively mirror the historical or libidinal forces that draw the heroes into a predetermined future. Moments of deceleration and hesitation that punctuate the narrative nevertheless interrupt the rush of history with the suggestion of accident, the unforeseen, and the new. The chapter turns to stylistic and thematic articulations of suspension in order to think the possibility of recurrence with difference, of an escape from an inevitability that is not only historically but also generically determined.