09/10, Or, How Do Texts Work?

ABSTRACT This paper proposes to describe the reception of literary texts with the help of attractors, a concept developed in chaos theory. The main thesis is that attractors can describe literary texts — especially highly fragmented and open contemporary texts — in a more differentiated way than reception theory does. With the concept of attractors, phenomena come into focus that only resonate on the margins of other models of reception. An analysis of the famous Latin American novel Los detectives salvajes written by Roberto Bolaño shows how incongruous, possible, unsettled and alleged meanings work together and create an impression of dispersion and convergence of meaning in the text. This can clearly be shown by an analysis organized around attractors.