Novelistic simultaneity links strangers through shared clocked time and the reader’s omniscient view.

Evidence

Notice that during this sequence A and D never meet, indeed may not even be aware of each other’s existence if C has played her cards right. What then actually links A to D? Two complementary conceptions: First, that they are embedded in ‘societies’ (Wessex, Lübeck, Los Angeles). These societies are sociological entities of such firm and stable reality that their members (A and D) can even be described as passing each other on the street, without ever becoming acquainted, and still be connected. Second, that A and D are embedded in the minds of the omniscient readers. Only they, like God, watch A telephoning C, B shopping, and D playing pool all at once. That all these acts are performed at the same clocked, calendrical time, but by actors who may be largely unaware of one another, shows the novelty of this imagined world conjured up by the author in his readers’ minds. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 89

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the mechanism by which the novel’s temporal structure — same clocked time, actors unaware of each other — mirrors the nation’s imagined simultaneity.
• XREF: This mechanism of anonymous simultaneity is exactly what scaffolds readings on how colonized subjects came to imagine a national community. — connects to: The novel is a device for presenting simultaneity in homogeneous empty time — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 88; The stranger embodies a simultaneous union of closeness and remoteness — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 388; Shared universal traits make the stranger simultaneously near and far — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 397 (+4 more)

Related

• The novel is a device for presenting simultaneity in homogeneous empty time (similarity 0.86)
• A novel’s readers and characters can be fused into one imagined community. (similarity 0.79)
• Modernity transforms the stranger from a whole suspect person into a fleeting contact. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The stranger embodies a simultaneous union of closeness and remoteness #expands (0.85) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 388
• Modernity transforms the stranger from a whole suspect person into a fleeting contact. #expands (0.85) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 197
• Shared journeys among strangers create the sense of an imagined community #expands (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 223
• A novel’s readers and characters can be fused into one imagined community. #expands (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 95
• Shared universal traits make the stranger simultaneously near and far #qualifies (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 397
• Life alone realizes time by transcending the present in both directions #complicates (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 808