E. L. Doctorow and the Technology of Narrative

Abstract

The work of E. L. Doctorow is difficult to place on the map of postmodernism because he is equally concerned with narrative or representational technique and with issues of history, power, and identity. Doctorow has focused his concerns in the question of technology, representing in each of his major works technological principles that not only typify the historical epoch in which the novel is set but also characterize the representational mode of the novel itself. The differences among technologies in his novels produce an arc of development that moves from a critique of the coercive power of a system epitomized by the electrical circuit in The Book of Daniel to a celebration of the possibilities for imaginative and representational freedom created by the computer in Loon Lake. Concentrating on the technology of narrative, Doctorow has contributed striking redefinitions of the historical subject while testing and extending the resources of the contemporary novel.

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