Multiplicity: Calvino’s Quality

Multiplicity is demonstrated most effectively in encyclopedic works. Although no one was able to complete the task of creating a wholly encyclopedic work, they got an “A” for effort in Calvino’s grade book. Carlo Emilio Gadda saw the world as a network of connections; a system of systems which are all conditionally related.

He attempted to create a contemporary novel that resembled an encyclopedia. He was not successful and neither was another author: Flaubert. He tried to create an “Absolute Book” but it quickly turned into pedagogy. However, through his research for the book he became an encyclopedia himself because he was so knowledgeable about all of the different topics he researched (science, horticulture, anatomy, medicine, etc.).

This process superficially reminds me of when I was first starting to read. I would always pick up one of my siblings’ books for their classes (mind you, they are at least 8 years older than me) and I would try to work my way through them. However, I would always encounter a word that I didn’t understand so I would look it up in an encyclopedia or dictionary or some other reference book. Then I would become side-tracked learning about this other subject and by the time I made my way back to the novel I was reading I would have forgotten the plot-line. I imagine that writing an encyclopedic work would involve a lot of that type of distraction.

Calvino says that this type of overly-ambitious attitude is pivotal to literature. As writers, we must strive to represent all areas of knowledge; past, present, and future modes of thinking.

Multiplicity: Analogy

Last year I took a class called Behavioral Neuroscience and got an introductory education about the connections within our brains and how information from the outside world is taken in and transmitted to neurons and how we process that information and transmit it into new movements/thoughts. It was fascinating and really helped me to understand some of the neuroscience concepts that I had only superficially studied.

The image below is called a cortical homunculus. Although it’s not very accurate, it allows you to see the “body within the brain;” it is a visual representation of the sensory connections and their respective body parts. From this you can see that many of our nerves are concentrated in the hands, mouth, and lips.

Although not everyone has taken that class I think most people have a basic understanding of how neurons in the brain work. For example, we receive information from the world around us through our senses and we transmit that data via the electrical connections in our brains. Our brain processes that information and sends it out via an electrical signal to produce a response. Our body is infinitely connected. The human brain is the best system of networking ever created. It is the most efficient and complex.

We can think of Multiplicity as a system of neurons in the brain. Our brains are the best example of a physical encyclopedia that we have. Our also have the ability to instantly reference knowledge from our past, present and future thoughts. Moreover, our brains (through evolution and natural selection) represent the past, present, and future forms of Multiplicity.