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Unnatural Narrative
Impossible Worlds in Fiction and Drama
By Jan Alber UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2016 the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8032-8669-6
CHAPTER 1
Theorizing the Unnatural
1.1. The Unnatural: A Definition
As I already stated in the introduction, in my usage the term unnatural denotes physically, logically, and humanly impossible scenarios and events. That is to say, the represented scenarios and events have to be impossible given the known laws governing the physical world, accepted principles of logic (such as the principle of noncontradiction), or standard anthropomorphic limitations of knowledge and ability. The retrogressive temporality in Martin Amis's (1992) Time's Arrow, for example, is physically impossible because in the real world time moves forward (rather than backward). The coexistence of mutually exclusive storylines, as in Robert Coover's (1969) short story "The Babysitter," on the other hand, is logically impossible; in this narrative the contradictory sentences "Mr. Tucker went home to have sex with the babysitter" and "Mr. Tucker did not go home to have sex with the babysitter" are true at the same time, violating the principle of noncontradiction. Saleem Sinai, the telepathic first-person narrator in Salman Rushdie's (1981) novel Midnight's Children, has humanly impossible abilities: he can literally hear the thoughts of other characters, which is also impossible in the real world.
My threefold model of unnaturalness integrates and supersedes Lubomír Dolezel's (1998, 115, 165) distinction between physical and logical impossibilities by including human impossibilities as well. The humanly impossible plays a crucial role with regard to instances of telepathy; it is difficult to explain exactly which physical law is violated in such cases, but it is easy to see that the ability to literally read the mind of someone else constitutes a superhuman or humanly impossible power. Also in contrast to Dolezel, who argues that logical impossibilities cancel "the entire world-making project" (165), I analyze and interpret logically impossible worlds.
1.2. The Natural and the Unnatural
Since "the very concept of transgression presupposes an acknowledgement of boundaries or limits" (Cohen 1988, 16), any definition of the unnatural must specify its relationship to the "natural." In this study I measure the unnatural against the foil of "natural," that is, real-world cognitive parameters that are derived from our bodily existence in the world. In my usage the term natural denotes very basic forms of knowledge about time, space, and other human beings (Fludernik 1996, 2003a). This real-world knowledge is not found "as a loose assembly of individual bits of information, but is stored in meaningful structures" (Schneider 2001, 611), namely in cognitive frames and scripts.
Natural (or real-world) frames and scripts comprise the following kind of information: in the actual world humans can tell stories, whereas corpses and objects do not speak; human beings do not suddenly transform into somebody else; time moves forward (rather than backward); and (unless there is an earthquake or a tornado) the spaces we inhabit do not suddenly change their shape.
To highlight the difference between the real and our perception of the real, Paul Watzlawick (1976, 140–41) distinguishes between what he calls "first-" and "second-order reality": "The first has to do with the purely physical, objectively discernible properties of things and is intimately linked with correct sensory perception, with questions of so-called common sense or with objective, repeatable, scientific verification. The second aspect is the attribution of meaning and value to these things and is based on communication." Though I agree with Watzlawick's argument that we never enjoy a transparent relation to things as they really are (142), I argue that second-order reality can "fit" first-order reality (see also Ludwig 1999, 197): cognitive frames and scripts may correspond with basic features of the empirical world around us. In the context of his picture theory of language, Wittgenstein ([1922] 1955, 43) points out that "the picture agrees with reality or fails to agree; it is correct or incorrect, true or false." Natural frames and scripts do not provide immediate access to reality as it is or to things-in-themselves; rather these parameters "fit" basic features of the empirical world concerning time, space, and other human beings: language can be consistent with the facts.
Furthermore I conceive of these real-world parameters as hypotheses that have not yet been falsified, that is, refuted by experience, in the sense of Popper ([1934] 1959, 41, 53–54). For example, once we have the technological means to do so, it might be possible to travel to the future (see also Hawking and Mlodinow 2005, 105). However, as long as nobody has experienced such a journey through time (or read a credible report about it), I accept the idea that time travel is impossible as a valid hypothesis that has not yet been refuted.
Moreover the natural closely correlates with the realist, which, in my usage, is not restricted to literary realism but more generally refers to a narrative "which appears to provide an accurate, objective, and confident description or authentic impression of reality" (Palmer 2005, 491). Like Monika Fludernik (1996, 37), I use the term realism to denote the "mimetic evocation of reality," and this representational process is based on natural frames and scripts; realist texts in the sense in which I use the term reproduce real-world parameters because they are about human beings who go through experiences that could also happen to us in the real world. Literary realism, on the other hand, is based on natural cognitive parameters — it focuses on recognizably human characters in settings that could exist in the actual world — but it obviously also involves a wide variety of (artificial) conventions (such as the compulsory tying up of loose ends in death or marriage or the eschewing of representations of sexuality and bodily functions).
It might be helpful to briefly relate the unnatural to the two conceptions of mimesis as they were developed by Plato and Aristotle. In book 10 of Plato's (1970, 431, 595A) Republic, Socrates equates mimetic art with "the art of imitation" (see also 439, 600C, 443, 601B); according to Socrates, art merely reproduces empirical reality and is illusory because it does not take us to the transcendental World of Ideas, where we can allegedly grasp the essence of all entities. By contrast, in his Poetics Aristotle (1995, 33–37, 1448a–b) equates mimesis with the process of representation, projection, or simulation. For him "mimesis coincides with artistic representation as such: epic poetry, drama, the art of dithyrambs, of flute and lyre, painting, choreography, and religious poetry are all mimetic" (Schaeffer and Vultur 2005, 309).
The unnatural is only antimimetic in the sense of Plato because it does not primarily try to imitate or reproduce the world as we know it; rather it involves the representation of scenarios or events that are physically, logically, or humanly impossible. However, the unnatural is mimetic in the sense of Aristotle because impossibilities can be represented in the world of fiction. The natural and the unnatural are therefore two slightly different manifestations of Aristotle's mimesis (see also Petterson 2012); they both involve processes of simulation and thus what P. N. Johnson-Laird (1983, 10–12) calls the construction of "mental models," that is, mental representations of states of affairs evoked by narratives. In the case of natural mental models, the represented can in principle exist or happen in the real world, whereas in the case of unnatural mental models, the represented cannot exist or happen in the real world.
From the perspective of representation, the natural (which is based on the laws and principles of the real world) and the unnatural (which deals with the impossible) can be found on a continuum; they are not diametrically opposed to one another. For me the unnatural is on an equal footing with the natural because both involve forms of representation. It is not the case that the physically, logically, or humanly impossible is in any sense superior to the realist. Yet in narrative studies the natural has so far received more critical attention than the unnatural. I find unnatural forms of representation to be more challenging than natural ones.
The narratives that I discuss are combinations of natural and unnatural elements, and they typically contain only one or two unnatural scenarios or events. Purely unnatural narratives might exist, but I think that no reader would be able to make sense of them. Along the same lines, Teresa Bridgeman (2007, 63) argues that we as readers "continue to require spatio-temporal hooks on which to hang our interpretations. If these are not consistently provided or their uncertainty is highlighted in a given narrative, we experience disorientation and a degree of unease as an essential part of our engagement with that narrative."
What kind of information, then, does the unnatural provide? Sämi Ludwig (1999, 190) argues that representations of the impossible (i.e., what I call the unnatural) are "digital rather than analogic." That is to say, they offer particular types of information, namely "processed information ('meaning') rather than mimesis of the outside ('imitation')." Furthermore "there is no direct or proportional 'likeness' involved: Depending on whether they are more important or less important to human beings, elements and experiences of outside space and time are allotted larger or smaller presence on such a customized map. This kind of representation, then, must be seen as the careful recording of useful information, which is based on one's needs and one's experience with the environment; it reflects the purposeful negotiation of space and time by living people" (190). Even though the unnatural does not consistently imitate the outside world, the representation of impossibilities addresses certain intellectual needs, and the way it does so is one of the objects of this study.
1.3. Impossibilities in Narrative Texts
Brian Richardson (2000, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2011) has shown that many novels, short stories, and plays contain impossibilities, and Ruth Ronen (1994, 51) also acknowledges the fact that many fictional worlds are "non-actualizable." Nevertheless, according to her, "impossible fictional world[s]" can be depicted: they are "already out there in the ontic sphere of fictional existence" (56). That is to say, the unnatural can be imagined and represented even though it cannot be lived or experienced in the actual world.
The existence of physical and human impossibilities in narrative texts is relatively uncontested (see also Ryan 2012). Dolezel (1998, 115) argues that physically impossible worlds are "fictional worlds that violate the laws of the actual world." The house in Mark Z. Danielewski's (2000) novel House of Leaves, for instance, is physically impossible because it constantly alters its internal layout, while the telepathic first-person narrator in Rushdie's (1981) Midnight's Children transcends standard limitations of human knowledge (see Culler 2004; Royle 1990, 2003a, 2003b).
On the other hand, some critics have doubts concerning the representation of logical impossibilities in fictional worlds. Jan Erik Antonsen (2009, 128) believes that the logically impossible can neither be imagined nor represented (see also Eco 1990, 76–77; Klauk and Köppe 2013). By contrast I argue that a narrative can contain logical impossibilities — if (and only if) a storyworld is represented in which two logically incompatible statements are true at the same time. In his short story "Sylvan's Box," the logician Graham Priest (1997) presents his readers with a logically impossible object: a box that is empty and full at the same time. The first-person narrator describes this box as follows: "At first, I thought it must be a trick of the light, but more careful inspection certified that it was no illusion. The box was absolutely empty, but also had something in it. Fixed to its base was a small figurine, carved of wood, Chinese influence, Southeast Asian maybe. ... The experience was one of occupied emptiness. ... The box was really empty and occupied at the same time. The sense of touch confirmed this" (575–76, my italics). Here we are confronted with a box that is — actually and objectively — empty and full at the same time. Since p and non-p are simultaneously true, the box in Priest's short story violates the principle of noncontradiction.
In 1699 Leibniz (1969, 513) imposed a restriction on possible worlds by arguing that "possible things are those which do not imply a contradiction." This statement influenced the ways theorists and critics have since thought about alternative possible worlds. The most common view in possible-worlds theory associates possibility with logical laws: "Every world that respects the principles of non-contradiction and the excluded middle is a PW" (Ryan 2005b, 446). From this perspective worlds that include or imply contradictions are unthinkable or empty. Indeed the standard view in logic is that if a single contradiction enters a system of propositions, anything can be inferred, and it becomes impossible to construct a world out of these propositions.
However, Marie-Laure Ryan (2006b, 671n28) has recently shown that this view is too rigid in the case of fiction because readers of literary narratives do not treat logical inconsistencies as an excuse for giving up the attempt to make inferences: "If contradictions are limited to certain areas — to what [might be called] the holes in a Swiss cheese — then it remains possible to make stable inferences for the other areas and to construct a world." Ronen (1994, 55) elaborates on the notion of logical impossibility as follows: "Although logically inconsistent states of affairs are not restricted to specific literary periods or genres, with postmodernism, impossibilities, in the logical sense, have become a central poetic device, which shows that contradictions in themselves do not collapse the coherence of a fictional world" (see also Ashline 1995; Littlewood and Stockwell 1996; Stefanescu 2008). In this context Priest (1997, 580) argues that "there are, in some undeniable sense, logically impossible situations or worlds. ... In particular, a [logically] impossible world/situation is (partially) characterized by information that contains a logical falsehood but that is closed under an appropriate inference relation." Dolezel (1998, 165) is also willing to entertain the idea of logically impossible worlds; however, he argues that the writing of impossible worlds in the strict logical sense is, "semantically, a step backward in fiction making; it voids the transformation of nonexistent possibles into fictional entities and thus cancels the entire world-making project."
My own position parallels that of Ryan, Ronen, and Priest and therefore goes beyond the thesis Umberto Eco (1990) presents in The Limits of Interpretation. Eco points out that logically impossible worlds can be "mentioned" because "language can name nonexistent and inconceivable entities," and he argues that we can draw nothing from them but "the pleasure of our logical and perceptual defeat" (76–77). In contrast to Eco, who simply gives up the interpretative process, I outline reading strategies that help us make sense of various different kinds of impossibility. For me all propositions representing events or states of affairs (including unnatural ones) are the result of somebody's subjective experience or imagination. In other words, all representations somehow reflect human motivation, which is part of their very texture. Like Ronen, therefore, I refuse to view logical impossibilities in fictional worlds as violations of possible-worlds semantics. Rather I see them as a "domain for exercising ... creative powers" (Ronen 1994, 57) that we as readers are invited to make sense of.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Unnatural Narrative by Jan Alber. Copyright © 2016 the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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