Ontology of the narrative: An analysis [Reprint 2018 ed.] 9783111341910, 9783110990980

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DE PROPRIETATIBUS LITTERARUM edenda curat C. H. V A N SCHOONEVELD Indiana

University

Series Minor, 12

ONTOLOGY OF THE NARRATIVE An Analysis

by

ROBERT CHAMPIGNY

1972

MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS

© Copyright 1972 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N. V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers

L I B R A R Y OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD N U M B E R : 73-189700

Printed in Hungary

CONTENTS

Introduction

7

I : From Fact to Fiction

17

I I : Time and Experience

28

I I I : Matters of Interpretation

44

IV: From Present to Perfect

69

V: Determinant and Determined VI: Causality, Destiny, Finality Bibliography

84 96 113

INTRODUCTION

The narrative and its species will be introduced as modes of meaning. These modes of meaning will be related to modes of being. Stylistics and semantics involve ontological decisions, though they do not dictate them: an ontological scheme and a semantic scheme should fit; but they should not be expected to be tied by strict reciprocal implication. The distribution of linguistic kinds of meaning which I am going to propose is one classification among other possibilities. I n order to make distinctions, you must adopt a point of view: thus, classifying objects according to color rather than shape or size. You must also decide where to cut: you may posit blue and green as essences, blue-green as a mixture; b u t you might just as well take blue-green as an essence, blue as a mixture. Finally, you must decide how far to go: be content with blue as a simple, or divide it into hues, such as navy blue, sky blue. Why should there be one godhead and two substances, rather than twenty-three or two hundred and a half? I t might be objected t h a t definitions, classifications, models, in brief conceptual distributions, should correspond to "outlines of reality" and "natural articulations". 1 But this requirement amounts to saying t h a t any conceptual distribution must be grounded in an ontological scheme: 'reality' too is a word, which may be defined and conceptualized in various ways. The Same and the Other, the One and the Many, identity and difference, similarity and dissimilarity, are used by the 1

Henri Bergson, La Pensee et le mouvant, in Oeuvres (Paria: 1959), pp. 1272, 1323.

PUF,

8

INTRODUCTION

analyst to suit what happens to be his purpose. But decisions are not made in the void. Besides, once a decision is made, it sets limits to further decisions. The right to definition has its matching duties, the freedom of analysis its assorted artistic constraints. First of all, the linguistic material has to be respected. Of course, the ways in which a 'natural language' such as English or French distributes its vocabulary does not dictate a clear-cut and univocal classification of notions: the semantic range of the terms is open and the ranges of two terms may overlap; two uses of the same term may be contradictory from a certain angle, may lead to paradoxes in one context and not in another. Add to this the right to neologism. But, on the other hand, the fact remains that, if they are not like playing cards or chess pieces with fixed and simple values, words are not arbitrary algebraic signs either. In order to define and conceptualize, the analyst has to find some play, some inconsistency, in usage. B u t he also has to rely on a certain amount of consistency. For it is with words that words are defined and you cannot indefinitely define the words which define. A definition commits the fate of the conceptualized term within the confines of the analysis; it also commits the fate of other terms by implicitly extending or diminishing their semantic range. The requirements of coherence and manageability set limits to the number and arbitrariness of lines of demarcation. For the objective of a classification is not simply a clean listing of items. The parts must be chosen so as to be able to work together according to a certain strategy, certain tactics. Philosophical tradition shows a preference for bipolar divisions. They are of course the easiest to handle. But tripolar and tetrapolar divisions have also been widely used. For my part, I shall stop there: beyond four, I am apt to confuse the reins. To mean, to signify, is not a function special to words. Let it be assumed that anything, that is, any experience, emits at

INTRODUCTION

9

least an aura of significance. B u t the narrative mode is a linguistic mode of meaning, a basic way of putting to work the resources and molds of a natural language. Delimiting the narrative mode may also be construed as isolating a type of thinking: the spatio-temporalizing mode. I n my classification of modes, speech or text will be considered from the standpoint of the recipient. Actually, this is no restriction: this standpoint is implicit in any consideration of modes of meaning. The recipient is simply the interpreter, that is to say, whoever understands language as such. Normally, the speaker or writer interprets what he is saying or writing. He is a recipient among others. He may even be the only one. 2 Someone is an interpreter to the extent t h a t the linguistic phenomenon has meaning for him. He has to understand something, not everything there may be to understand. I n any case, interpreting involves selecting: one has to choose between interpretations. On the theoretical level, the table of modes of meaning which follows is already the result of selections and simplifications. Meaning narrative analytic gestural poetic

engaged history sciences magic

disengaged fiction philosophy theater poetry

This table distinguishes vertically between four ways in which what signifies (the signifier) may be related to what is signified (the signified, or significatum). 3 The first two modes, narrative and analytic, may both be termed designative. 2

T o t h e e x t e n t t h a t t h e speaker d o e s n o t interpret w h a t h e s a y s , there is n o linguistic m e a n i n g f r o m h i s p o i n t o f v i e w . Surrealism w a s interested in t h i s possibility. I n h i s Manifeste du surréalisme (Paris: Kra, 1924), A n d r é B r e t o n t o y s w i t h t h e i d e a o f t h e recording m a c h i n e . 3 H e r e and there in t h e t a b l e w h i c h I use, analogies will b e f o u n d w i t h other classifications. T h u s , 'engaged' and 'disengaged' appear t o

10

INTRODUCTION

The narrative mode is used to designate events, states of affairs and processes. I t disposes what is signified in spatiotemporal order. For short, I shall say 'temporal' instead of 'spatio-temporal'. I assume t h a t succession and simultaneity are correlative and t h a t simultaneity cannot be conceived without spatial distinctions. The analytic mode is used to designate concepts, essences. Its basic order is provided by the logic of classes. Compare "Friedrich Nietzsche is a philosopher" with "Friedrich Nietzsche wrote during the second half of the nineteenth century"; "Water boils at one hundred degrees centigrade" with "The water on the stove is coming to a boil". Analysis classifies and defines intemporally, which does not mean t h a t it posits something permanent: permanence involves temporality. The gestural mode is used to mime (perform, not designate) attitudes and roles. " I t hurts", said in a plaintive voice, helps perform the role of the sufferer. To THIS EXTENT, it does not designate the concept of suffering, nor does it designate an event (though it may also do this). Rather than true or false, a verbal gesture may be sincere or insincere. I t escapes this dichotomy when a professional actor performs a role, portrays a character. Dramatic dialectic is the basic kind of 'logic' which helps compose the roles which are performed. The gestural mode flourishes in social exchanges: sociality consists in performing roles. Thus cordial greetings, passwords, correspond roughly t o 'transitive' and 'intransitive', as used b y linguists. I n s t e a d of 'intransitive', 'autotelic', 'autonomous' and 'selfsufficient' h a v e also b e e n proposed: see, for instance, Eliseo V i v a s , Creation and Discovery (Chicago: R e g n e r y , 1955). T h e distinction bet w e e n designative and gestural brings t o m i n d such oppositions as referential versus e m o t i v e (Ogden and Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, London, 1923), referential versus pragmatic-referential (Thomas Pollock, The Nature of Literature, Princeton, 1942) and statem e n t versus performative utterance (J. L . Austin, Philosophical Papers, Oxford, 1961). I grant m o r e scope and discrimination t o t h e esthetic m o d e s t h a n is customary: t h e y are generally t h r o w n t o g e t h e r into t h e b a g of t h e 'symbolic' or 'poetic' w h e n t h e y are not reduced t o t h e 'emotive'.

INTRODUCTION

11

insults — "Good morning!" and "You p i g ! " are not, respectively, meteorological and zoological statements. Add to this that, psychologically, each of us is a kind of society of selves and t h a t we perform roles for our own benefit. The designative modes and the gestural mode may be lumped together as modes of prose. I n prose, meaning may be considered as a relation between signifier and signified. I n poetry, what is signified remains p a r t of what signifies as a kind of quality. I n prose, the signifier imposes certain molds on the signified — temporal order, class inclusion, dramatic dialectic. I n poetry, meter and harmony are applied to the signifier itself and the logics of prose have to be broken so as to prevent the significatum from asserting itself as narrated process, defined essence, performed role. I n the table, the lateral separation between engaged and disengaged aspects emphasizes a utilitarian side and a playful, or esthetic, side. 'Reference' and 'influence' on the one hand, 'reflection' and 'resonance' on the other, are words which could also help interpret this division. I shall call 'history' the cognitive (or referential) version of the narrative mode. The historical signifier historicizes; what it signifies is historicized. I shall be content with the adjective 'historical' when there is no danger of confusion. The notion of history, thus understood, is designed to cover brief as well as lengthy utterances and texts; reports, biographies, autobiographies, as well as works of history in the usual sense. I t will also cover statements intending future, as well as past or present, events. I do not want to mutilate the temporal field. To my mind, the meaning of a prediction is just as historical (historicizing) as the meaning of a retrodiction. A historical statement may be held to be true or false. Even if it is held to be false, it still keeps some referential meaning: to be held as false, the statement must provide a basis which is held to be true. On the contrary, what is narrated is held to be fictional if all referential values are ruled out. Funny stories,

12

INTRODUCTION

novels, tales, epics, in brief, literary narrations, provide, in part at least, examples of fiction. However, since 'fiction' may also characterize dramas, I shall use, when needed, the adjective 'novelistic' to designate the disengaged version of the narrative mode. This convention does not agree with some current uses of 'novel' and 'novelistic'. Texts are generally called 'novels' only if they are somewhat lengthy, whereas I shall assume, in theory at least, t h a t a single sentence may constitute, by itself, a novelistic text. Besides, the texts which have been published as novels often include basic elements which are not narrative, or narrative elements which commentators sometimes construe as historical. On the other hand, I have no use for the distinction between 'novel' and 'romance'. 4 The historical field is the field of verifications. Strictly speaking, only historical statements can have a referential value. A manifestation of suffering at a certain time in a certain place, not suffering itself as it is experienced, can be a referent, an object of knowledge. A copy of a text, not the text itself, can be an object of knowledge, since, unlike the text, it is situated in the historical field. Essences are means and objects of understanding, notobjects of knowledge. However, they can be means of knowledge to the extent that analytical language is linked to perceptual references and techniques of measurement. Note the difference, in this respect, between what chemistry, once its equations are translated into a natural language, says about iron or oxygen and what a philosophy says about Being or modes of meaning. The poetic and the gestural modes, as I have defined them, cannot be distinguished like red and green, nor can they be measured like voltage or intensity. Analytical statements furnish means of knowledge when they are turned into confirmable and disconfirmable general laws and models. 4

I also l e a v e aside t h e various definitions which literary critics h a v e reached a s each tried o n h i s o w n t o sharpen t h e m e a n i n g of t h e t e r m 'novel'. See, for instance, Philip Stevick, TheTheory of the Novel ( N e w York: F r e e Press, 1967).

INTRODUCTION

13

Influence can sum up the engagement of the gestural mode. Assurances, seduction, intimidation, complaints, requests, protests, prayers, insults — the objective is always to impress someone, oneself at least, be it only to derive some poise from the performance of a role. But magic influence on oneself and others cannot dispense with historical reference. Ordering someone to get out stresses the attempt to influence. But this command implies a geographical place and the attempt to influence carries an attempt to refer: a departure from this place is intended, in both senses. Reciprocally, designation can be construed as a role which is implicitly expected to have a magic effect. Applying a causal law, even retrospectively, is to give an order to nature, and also to human beings, in any case to oneself: you order yourself to believe what you are saying. Prediction and prescription imply each other. And retrodiction involves prediction: if something has happened, it will have happened. The disengagement of the gestural mode can be observed in children's games, in theatrical plays, in monologues to be read (which may be published under the label of 'novel' or 'essay'). Dramatic dialectic then exerts its power in a fictional domain. The actor, the spectator, the reader are historical persons; but what takes place in Othello is not historical. The generous spectator who would jump on the stage to save Desdemona could lay his hands on the actor, not on Othello. I have defined the poetic mode in such a way t h a t it can appear only on the 'disengaged' side of the table. If the vertical distinctions were minimized, it could even be said that linguistic meaning is poetic to the extent t h a t it is disengaged; as they become disengaged, the modes of prose manifest a poetic tendency, while retaining prosaic features: narrated events, defined essences, performed roles. This way of proceeding would recall the traditional, and insufficient, distinction between prose (utilitarian language) and poetry (esthetic language), which can still be found in Mallarmé and Valéry. Since reference provides an external criterion of synonymy,

14

INTRODUCTION

sentences which are intrinsically different may be equivalent in cognitive and practical value. As meaning becomes disengaged, what is signified becomes more closely linked to what signifies. Thus, the psycho-social role of the miser admits of many variants, verbal and otherwise. B u t playing the role of Harpagon, in Moliere's play L'Avare, leaves to the actor only a selection of playing styles. What is lost, through disengagement, in referential and influential value can be compensated for by gains in resonance and reflexivity. Thus, a philosophical definition of cognitive truth cannot be cognitively true or false. B u t it may incite the reader to reflect on cognitive meaning. Through isolation in a fictional world, through caricature, a play can do the same for psycho-social roles which would otherwise remain concealed in the daily welter of phenomena. Other classifications of semantic modes could be devised, using other standpoints, other boundary lines. The proposed distinctions are designed to serve the purpose of the present essay. This semantic theory is not scientific: the labels which I have used do not name variables amenable to measurement — for instance, with the help of electrodes planted into the brains of the readers. What experimental criteria could allow us to decide, in every instance, whether a reader interprets a text in a fictional or historical perspective ? My classification has no predictive or prescriptive aspect, except as regards the use of terms in this essay. The modes which I have distinguished isolate perspectives of interpretation, semantic poles, or tendencies. I t can be postulated from the start that no text illustrates one and only one of the modes. For the various writings and utterances draw their material from the same lexical and syntactic resources. Exclamations and imperatives fit the gestural mode particularly well; and, at present, unicorns and griffins are not entitled to the respect of zoologists. But such specializations are rare and relative. I have already noted t h a t prediction

INTRODUCTION

15

and prescription involve each other. Here are a few more remarks. A philosophical text is likely to include examples in narrative style. Some of these examples, taken by themselves, could even pass for cognitive statements: thus the remark I have just made about zoologists, or the one about Mallarmé and Valéry. A primarily narrative text may include speeches in quotation marks; thus, on a secondary level, the gestural mode intervenes. The commentator of a text published as a 'novel' may interpret certain elements as fictional, others as historical. You may even read a whole text as history, and afterwards, or even at the same time, as fiction. The text proposes and the reader disposes. I should consider it perverse, but not impossible, to deliver Apollinaire's Pont Mirabeau like a monologue in a tragedy. Actually, I have heard it done by a professional actor. To recognize plurivalence in a text is one thing; to confuse perspectives of interpretation another. At one point in the development of this essay, I shall try to show t h a t traditional determinism does not distinguish between the determination of singular event by singular event and the determination of singular event by general law: in my terms, this involves a confusion between the analytic mode and the narrative mode. A lack of distinction between the engaged and disengaged poles produces a mythical perspective. 'Legend' may be defined as the confusion between the historical and the novelistic perspectives. The examination of the narrative mode leads to ontology through the question of Time. This is a traditional approach. The distinction between analytic and narrative also ties in with something traditional — namely the Platonic gap between temporal phenomena and intemporal essences. But analysis and narration are not the only two modes of meaning. The semantic and linguistic approach to ontology has become common in our century. On the subject of Time, this

16

INTRODUCTION

new tradition has so far remained in accord with the old one in t h a t the attention has been focused on the historicizing use of the temporal form; the novelistic use has been swept under the rug. The present essay will grant at least as much attention to fiction as to history. This duality interests me. The disengaged version of the narrative mode directs my reflections on the engaged version. My point of departure is the remark that the temporalizing machine can function in neutral as well as in gear.

I

F R O M FACT TO FICTION

To interpret a narrative historically, I must posit myself in the field of what is narrated: I must situate myself, and first of all the event of my reading, in spatio-temporal relation to the narrated events. I can see something as historical only if I make myself historical. I here and now — this is the principle of every cognitive engagement, not to mention ethical commitment. In this sense, cognition is egocentric. I interpret a narrative in a novelistic perspective if I do not situate the event of my reading in relation to the narrated events: the historical event of my reading does not take place in the same spatio-temporal field as the fictional events. 1 Esthetic detachment is thus opposed to cognitive engagement. This detachment is not a lack of interest, an absence of emotional involvement. I may be moved as I read a text about the historical Cromwell; and I may also be moved as I read a text about a fictional character named Cromwell. But reference and resonance do not involve sensibility in the same way. In a cognitive perspective, sensibility is involved in a practical manner. The historical field is the field where practical and ethical actions may take place. No doubt, concerning most pieces of historical information, powerlessness is the predominant impression: how, for instance, could I plan to 1 O f course, the author counts as a reader: " T h e author cannot refer t o himself either b y t h e s u b j e c t pronoun ' I ' or b y his n a m e or b y a n y other m e a n s " . L a u r e n t Stern, " F i c t i o n a l Characters, P l a c e s and E v e n t s " , Philosophy and Phenomenologieal Research, X X V I (December 1965), p. 206.

18

FROM FACT TO FICTION

act in the past ? But the impression of helplessness still belongs to a practical perspective, in the same way that I have to adopt a cognitive perspective in order to hold a statement as false. Concerning fictional events, practical ability and inability are equally irrelevant: I am neither able nor unable to help a character out of a predicament. Esthetics and ethics are not without connections. B u t their connections are of another sort. 'Cognitive' and 'esthetic' name perspectives of interpretation. 'True', 'false' and 'fictional' are abbreviations for 'held as true', 'held as false' and 'held as fictional'. Philosophical tradition has not shown much concern over the status of the fictional. Concentrating on the problem of truth, philosophers have often been content to equate fiction with falsehood and illusion. 2 1 intend, on the contrary, to grant fiction its originality and emphasize the distinction between true or false on the one hand, neither true nor false on the other. If I am told t h a t there is a rhinoceros in the next room, I may, after a cautious verification, decide t h a t the statement is false. B u t I have ascertained t h a t there is a room. And if I find t h a t the door opens onto a garden, I still have verified t h a t there is something beyond the door, rather than nothing. I n theory, anything may be doubted, b u t not everything at once. I can hold a statement as false only if it includes some element which I judge to be true. This element, acting as a frame of reference, allows me to adopt a cognitive attitude. I t may be an implicit element. If I am told t h a t it is starting to rain, I understand that it is here and now, not two thousand miles away. You judge it false that the accident occurred at five. Therefore you believe t h a t some contradictory statement is true. Statements held as false stress the difference between signi2

I l e a v e aside locutions such as "more real t h a n t h e real", which can still b e f o u n d in literary publicity.

FROM FACT TO FICTION

19

ficatum and referent. But this duality persists in the case of statements held to be true. No doubt, the cognitive ideal is a coincidence between the two. B u t the means of cognition remain different from its objective. This is a necessary condition for a perspective to be cognitive: what is held to be true must be open to confirmation, hence to disconfirmation. There is no absolute, definitive confirmation: Thomas touches something, but he has to decide t h a t it is really Jesus t h a t he touches. Besides, compared to the referent, to what there is to know, a narrative can b u t be schematic, incomplete. I n this respect, 'true or false' means 'more or less accurate or inaccurate'. Add to this t h a t precision and probability hardly go hand in hand. Finally, distinct significata may point to the same referent: thus, a door as seen, touched, remembered, talked about. I n this respect, the referent is what is circumscribed by the significata. The duality disappears in a novelistic perspective: the referent reduces to the significatum. I cannot believe that a fictional accident occurred at five. B u t I cannot disbelieve it either, since I cannot believe a contradictory statement. I cannot accuse Dickens of inaccuracy concerning the adventures of Mr. Pickwick. Only the context can confirm or disconfirm fictional propositions. And a new reading may help confirm the meaning of the words. The elimination of external referents bestows completeness and incorrigibility on a narrative which is esthetically considered. No other narrative can be equivalent; no other narrative can contradict it. Novelistic propositions thus behave like axioms. From the narrative axioms of the texts they study, literary commentators try to deduce theorems. These 'theorems' are not narrative, but analytic. From a narrated process the commentator will abstract a theme, or the psychology of a character. His job is not to infer other events from those which are given. To do this would be to create another fictional world. I n history, on the contrary, we assume one historical field and

20

FROM FACT TO FICTION

the various pieces of information, verbal or not, collaborate and fight to furnish this one field. Commentaries of narrative fiction also include quotations, paraphrases, summaries. Such elements have a cognitive aspect: a quotation can be checked. The semantic perspective changes with the context and the addition of such symbols as quotation marks. 3 Inside the fiction, a distinction must be made between the primary level (established by the basic narration) and secondary levels (what a character thinks, says, writes). What a fictional narrator says or writes may coincide with the fiction as a whole. In this case, each sentence is interpreted on two levels: as fundamental narration, without quotation marks; and as words spoken or written by the character, between quotation marks. A novelistic narration need not posit a narrator: an observer is enough. Of course, the basic narration must situate the perceptions or memories of the fictional observer, and the spoken or written words of the fictional narrator if there is one, as events in the fictional field. Other wise, the set of axioms would lack consistency. 4 A fictional narrator may contradict himself; two characters may contradict each other. The text may provide a criterion

3 See Haig Khatchadourian, "About Imaginary Objects", Ratio, VII (June 1966), p. 87. 4 In The Nature of Narrative (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), R. Scholes and R. Kellogg deem it necessary to postulate that a narration implies a narrator and that this narrator is a historical person: "By definition narrative art requires a story and a story-teller. In the relationship between the teller and the audience lies the essence of narrative art" (p. 240). These two postulates fit historical narratives But, in fiction, a narrator is not necessary and, if there is one, he is not situated in relation to the historical readers. It is probably owing t o these postulates that the authors are led to conclude that narrative literature is beset by "inner contradictions" (p. 282). In recent literary criticism, the use of the term 'voice', where 'tone' would be enough, or the use of the term 'implicit author' (see Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, Chicago University Press, 1961), tend to burden us with a legendary narrator - neither fictional, nor historical, and yet both.

FROM FACT TO FICTION

21

for decision. Thus, according to the conventions of the detective novel, the testimonies which agree with the final solution thereby become axioms; the testimonies which are in conflict with this solution are cancelled. If the text provides no means of deciding, the contradictory assertions do not posit any event. However, the assertions themselves are linguistic events which the context situates in the fictional field.5 Note the difference with historical statements: in their case, there is a referent to be known. There is no basic narration: the testimonies which are held to be true do not enjoy an axiomatic status. They remain to be confirmed indefinitely: the determination of the past thus commits the future. There can be no 'final solution', since a cognitive perspective always needs a future as a domain of verification. The openness of the historical field thus contrasts with the closure of fictional fields. Novelistic axioms may also be distinguished from various turns of speech which have something narrative about them, without being historical. I n the examples which follow, the distinction to be kept in mind is not so much between cognitive and esthetic as between what is fully temporalized and what is not. The question "Did the house burn down?" asserts the spatio-temporal existence of the house, but not of its burning down. The alternative "She is in Tours or in Vouvray" states t h a t she is in Touraine, b u t also suggests two incompatible locations. Gnomic formulas of the type "Whenever x, then y" lead to hypotheses "If x happens, then y happens". Potentials: "If it snowed, the road is impassable"; counterfactuals: "If Caesar 5

Contradiction between testimonies can be pusl ed so far that all sentences stop functioning as narrative axioms. In this case, no event is posited at all and we are no longer dealing with a novelistic text, but with some ruminative, dramatic, or lyrical, monologue. See, for instance, Samuel Beckett VInnommable (Paris: Minuit, 1953).

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FROM FACT TO FICTION

were born today, he would not become a statesman". These two examples can help prevent a confusion between two dichotomies: — possible versus temporalized on the one hand, future versus past on the other. What will happen differs from what may happen; 'temporalized' should be construed as a passive, not past, participle. These various examples show the play and interplay between analysis and temporalization. Temporalization relies on analysis: we furnish the historical field by applying general rules, that is to say, at bottom, definitions of essences; and narrative fiction too respects lexical definitions to a great extent. And yet , analysis and temporalization are two types of determination. The preceding examples illustrate possibility, understood as the gap and bridge between the temporal and the intemporal. In the last example, Caesar is to be conceived as a psychological essence to which more than one temporal individual might be made to correspond. 6 Some of these individuals may be fictional. Temporal determination haß to choose between history and fiction. In itself, intemporal determination does not encounter this bifurcation. This indifference allows esthetic narratives in a language, such as English, which does not offer a special vocabulary for this kind of undertaking. True, a dictionary defines "hippogriff" as a "fabulous winged animal". But the adjective "fabulous" does not contribute to the definition of an essence. I t alludes to a historical stage of zoology, contemporaneous with the composition of the dictionary. I t is not logically 6

Counterfactuals are a h o t b e d of philosophical controversy. See, for instance, N e l s o n G o o d m a n , Fact, Fiction and Forecast (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965). This controversy h a s elected a n epistemological perspective. I t remains f a i t h f u l t o a tradition w h i c h tries t o reduce o n t o l o g y t o e p i s t e m o l o g y . I consider conditionals in a different spirit. M y purpose is n o t t o t r y t o o v e r c o m e t h e difficulties o f interp r e t a t i o n w h i c h t h e y raise f r o m a n epistemological s t a n d p o i n t . I should, o n t h e contrary, b e inclined t o underline t h e s e difficulties. F o r t h e y t e s t i f y t o a d u a l i t y b e t w e e n analysis and narration, a n d also b e t w e e n h i s t o r y a n d fiction. A t b o t t o m , t h e y h e l p s h o w w h y I d o n o t confine a t h e o r y o f t h e m o d e s of e x i s t e n c e t o t h e t h e o r y o f a w o r l d .

FROM FACT TO FICTION

23

forbidden to say that a historical person has seen a hippogriff. You may decide t h a t this statement is false; but in order to do so you have to adopt a historical perspective. A narration in the full sense of the term directly posits singular events. A philosophical text may include such narrative pieces as examples: — without using "may", "must", "if", "or". In some cases, it matters whether what is narrated is received as true. In other cases, the historical perspective matters, but not the accuracy: thus an error in the date will generally make no difference to the value of a philosophical illustration. Finally, in most cases, the distinction between historical and fictional is not even relevant. Thus, in this fragment: "The dreamer believes he is holding forth before an assembly. A confused hubbub rises from the back of the audience. I t grows, becomes a rumbling, a screeching, a frightening uproar". 7 I n appearance, this passage is fully narrative, except perhaps for the first sentence (whose point of view is adopted?). But the context denies the narrative mode full autonomy. For this piece of narration occurs only as an illustration in an essay on dreams. The primary level is t h a t of analysis. What makes it obvious is t h a t it would be pointless to try to decide whether the dreamer in question is a historical person or a fictional character. Actually, the narrative mode does not assume its autonomy even in philosophical illustrations which appear to require a historical perspective. For the use of a narrative piece as example amounts to putting it between quotation marks. If I give as an example the date of Verlaine's birth, my objective is not to give information; it may be to reflect upon a use of words which is assumed to be veridical. Similar to philosophical examples are apologues, in which the narrative part is designed to illustrate a maxim. Think also of the fables which Plato uses as substitutes, where analytic language fails him. I n La Fontaine's fables, the i

H e n r i Bergson, " L e R e v e " , in Oeuvres

(Paris: P U F , 1959), p . 891.

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FROM FACT TO FICTION

narrative part often tends to steal the show and reduce the moral to the status of a footnote. I t thus lays claim to a novelistic autonomy.

Legends do not appear in quotation marks; they are not presented as examples. Yet the distinction between factual and fictional remains foreign to them. Not that, in their case, the distinction should be judged irrelevant. But the interpreter refuses it more or less consciously, or is incapable of making it: he stays within a myth-making perspective which confuses the cognitive with the esthetic, and a narrative held as true, hence disconfirmable, with an axiomatic story. Tales about the creation of the world are conspicuous examples. They present this creation as a process which would unfold outside the historical field. Thus, we would seem to be dealing with novelistic axioms. But, on the other hand, the historical field is what is supposed to be created; and the process of creation is supposed to unfold B E F O R E the set of historical events. Hence, it takes place in the same temporal field and should itself be considered as historical. A mythical perspective obtains to the extent t h a t the interpreter remains insensitive to this incompatibility. The way in which most texts labeled 'novels' are written or commented upon also favors the adoption of such a perspective. Think of the fictional characters who find themselves at home in a location whose name and description would fit a place recognized as geographical: — for instance Sherlock Holmes in London. Commentators, and fans, thus encouraged, may accomplish the shift from fiction to legend. Actually, the accumulation of commentaries tends, by itself, to turn a fictional character into a mythical figure. The plurality of paraphrases resembles the plurality of descriptions aimed at a historical referent. And we are apt to forget that, in the case of literary commentaries, the referent is itself nothing else than a verbal significatum.

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25

What about reports of dreams? Take the following example: "Last night, I dreamed I was in London". The main clause invites a historical perspective; but what about the subordinate clause ? I t depends on the way I dreamed, or on the way I think I dreamed. Nocturnal dreams oscillate between an attitude of practical belief and the attitude of day-dreaming To the extent that, while I dream, I believe I am in the capital of Great Britain, I hold as historically true what, a few hours later, I shall hold as historically false: in my report, the dream is granted the same status as a perceptual error. What allows me to consider my dream in a cognitive perspective is that, even after awakening, it appears to include true elements: memories in particular, recognition of myself as the person who did certain things in the past, a belief in which I still retain after awakening. But, even in a nocturnal dream, I may also remain relatively conscious that I am dreaming. To this extent, dreaming is lived in an atmosphere of play; and the report of the dream is to be interpreted in a dual perspective. " I dreamed" is to be taken as historical; my being in London is to be taken as fictional (not false). If the first interpretation is selected, the statement can be likened to " I wrongly believed that I was in London". "London" then names a geographical city and the two subject pronouns indicate the same person, t h a t is to say, the same historical personification. The second interpretation turns "London" into the name of a fictional city and the two pronouns indicate two personifications corresponding to one essence: one personification is historical, the other is fictional. The concordance of tenses in the main and subordinate clauses is misleading: a fictional event and a historical event can be neither successive nor simultaneous. If I took myself for a shaman, a third interpretation would appear. For it would then be postulated t h a t my essence may correspond to more than one historical personification at the same time. I have no ontological objection against this postulate. However, it is customary to suppose t h a t the statement.

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" I was dreaming I was in London" excludes the following version: " I was sleeping in Geneva and at the same time I was roaming the streets of London". Recounting a playful dream can be likened to a statement about a reading of fiction. Compare " I was dreaming I was in London" to " I was reading t h a t Sherlock Holmes had returned to London". Assume t h a t the shift of Sherlock Holmes and London to a mythical status does not occur. I n both cases there is a dual perspective of interpretation. In the first case, there are two personifications corresponding to one essence; in the second, there are two personifications corresponding to two essences (Sherlock Holmes as fictional and myself as historical). To the semantic modes correspond modes of existence (or being). To say t h a t Mr. Pickwick does not exist is to deny that he is a historical person. But his existence as a fictional character is implicitly recognized. And there is a difference between such existence and nonexistence. Literary commentators may compose psychological essences named "Mr. Pickwick" or " E m m a Bovary". These essences will be devised so as to correspond to a fictional process bearing the same name. But we may have several essences named " E m m a Bovary", composed by the various commentators; and their mode of existence is not temporal. The way an essence is made up of properties differs from the way a process is made up of events. The traditional distinction between attribute and accident could be recalled, and adapted. The strategy I have chosen makes existence an incomplete predicate. Existence is distributed in accordance with the distinctions of a semantic scheme and is thus made relative to types of meaning and perspectives of interpretation. However, this strategy is ontologically insufficient: talking about relativity raises a question about what is held to be absolute. The next chapter sketches an ontological scheme. One thing is already clear: the contrast between absolute

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and relative is not to be confused with the distinction between historical and novelistic, factual and fictional. No doubt, historical meaning posits the duality between referent and verbal significatimi. To say t h a t Emma Bovary does not exist amounts to saying that, as far as she is concerned, the text entitled Madame Bovary has no referential value. But the existence of the referent is not absolute: even though it is distinct from the various significata, verbal and otherwise, which circumscribe it, the referent still remains under the sway of a narrative logic. Besides, facing referential value, a value of resonance has been mentioned. Referent and significatum are not the only terms of semantic relations: there is also what signifies. In La Soirée avec M. Teste, this short sentence is to be found: "He suffered". 8 What can the pain of a fictional character be like? Mr. Teste cannot 'really' be in pain. But what about historical persons, or personifications? I remember that, as I was trying to learn the Apostles' Creed by heart, I balked at the following words: "Suffered under Pontius Pilate." How can one suffer under Pontius Pilate? Suffering can be 'real'; but suffering under Pontius Pilate, or under the Third Republic ?

8

Paul Valéry, Oeuvres (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), II, 23.

II

TIME A N D E X P E R I E N C E

Studying the narrative mode leads to ontology through the question of Time. Hence the selection of the words 'intemporal', 'temporal' and 'transtemporal' to name the three types of existence which will be distinguished. The Platonic tradition offers a dualistic plan: intemporal and temporal domains. It grants ontological primacy to the intemporal domain (ideas, forms, essences). Should we ascribe this preference to a professional prejudice? Philosophy adopts the analytic mode of meaning; and essences are composed according to this mode. This tradition depreciates processes ontologically because, if they are transposed into attributes, the accidents of a process appear contradictory. Most of the current uses of the word 'real' point to an opposite hierarchy. Similarly, the opposition between essence and existence often serves to give ontological primacy to the temporal, more precisely the historical, domain. For my part, I have presented the historical referent as the objective of cognition: the referent is what is real in the epistemological sense. But, ontologically, I shall reserve primacy for the transtemporal. The referent is to be known, hence conceived. What is to be conceived is relative to a certain mode of conception, molded by a certain logic. This goes for processes as well as essences, and for the referent as well as for what is verbally stated. Experience (what is felt) is to be distinguished from what is conceived (not conceiving). Ontological primacy belongs to experience (feeling as identical to what is felt).

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Happening is an aspect of experience. Call contingency happening as felt. What happens is an act. An act happens; it does not happen in the past, present, or future; it does not happen before or after another act. Acts differ from essences: an essence does not happen; it lacks contingency. But acts also differ from events, and from states of affairs, processes, which are composite events. Acts belong to experience; events are conceived. Events are reflections of acts in a temporal field. Acts are transtemporal. The distinction between act and event involves a rejection of the phrase "lived time" (temps vécu), which has been in vogue since Bergson, if "lived" means what is felt and "time" what is temporalized. Hope, fear, desire, regret, are experienced; not what is hoped for, what is desired, what is regretted. Appearance and disappearance, endurance and precariousness, also belong to experience; not what is deemed durable or ephemeral. What is temporalized is conceived; but conceiving, temporalizing for instance, is felt. Something is felt: beingness is an aspect of experience. Qualities are felt. By naming and classifying what is felt, we posit properties and compose essences. Properties and essences reflect qualities in an intemporal field. Qualities are to beingness what acts are to contingency. Essences and properties are to qualities what processes and events are to acts. The connection between essence and quality might explain why poets thought they could find something congenial in the Platonic tradition. What is perceived divides into something felt and something conceived. On the one hand, seeing and touching are felt; also conceiving. On the other, what is perceived is temporalized, spatialized, classified. I judge that what I see is a door, not a theatrical prop; I decide that this is a perception, not a dream or a memory. What is felt is such as it is felt. Uniqueness is an aspect of experience. Uniqueness is no more unity than it is multiplicity.

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Unity and multiplicity, identity and difference, are correlative tools of conception. Uniqueness is their ground. I t resonates through the various entities which are posited, hence through multiplicity. Uniqueness is not the One-and-All. For a totality is only one totality, one unit, among others. Conception has to use the Same and the Other, the One and the Many, in order to obtain distinct and connected objects: events which compose processes, essences defined by properties and linked into a pyramid of classes. These logical distinctions and compositions are grounded in experience: the domain of acts and qualities is not compact and monotonous. But the duality between temporal and intemporal and the multiplicity of distributions and compositions show that the transtemporal domain is not an organized totality. Being is not a world. If experience were a cosmos, there would be neither need nor possibility of conception, logics and language. I t is thus reasonable to forsake a rationalistic attempt to constitute the transtemporal domain into a system. According to analytical logic, the result would be a structure of essences and properties; and the transtemporal domain would become the superfluous duplicate of an intemporal configuration. In Plato already, and despite a favorable atmosphere, the argument of the Third Man showed the pointlessness of such a manoeuver. To rationalize the ground is not to ground reason. Rationalism is like a blind man who, having managed to drive a nail into a wall, would infer that the wall is a nail. Between processes and essences, there are no one-to-one correspondences. And we should not try to establish one-to-one correspondences between what is transtemporal and what is either temporal or intemporal, except in passing, for the sake of convenience. The philosophical task of grounding is best limited to a few soundings. In the ontological scheme which I sketch in this chapter, the transtemporal domain serves as an intermediary between a few ground notions and the deployment of what is conceived; thus, acts are between contingency and events,

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qualities between beingness and essences, a non-logical multiplicity between uniqueness and what is logically distributed and composed. TemporaKzing involves personification: — position and composition of persons who may be confined to the status of subjects in the epistemological sense (situated individuals capable of conceiving and cognizing). Without me here and now, there is no historical perspective. And novelistic fields need an internal observer. Persons are not to be located in the transtemporal domain, nor should we assume, using the terms of traditional metaphysics, a one-to-one correspondence between body and soul (or spirit). The monadology of Leibniz is more cautious: a monad does not correspond to an animal individual. Similarly, an animism without sharp distribution, an animism which would not list spirits or types of spirits dogmatically, would be more congenial to what is felt. Picture, if you like, the transtemporal domain as a boundless haunted house. Acts are not the activities of someone or something. They are 'substantial'; they are not attributes or accidents of substances. Acts, qualities, are felt. The question "Felt by whom?" would be inappropriate on this level: no personification in the transtemporal domain. Yet personification must be grounded there. Also, its multiplicity, for I cannot personify myself historically except as one person among others. I t seems t h a t two principles have to be laid down. First, act-qualities intercross and the intersections are experiential foci. Better leave in the interrogative the compositions of foci and their interrelations: answering would lead to an assembl age of essences or processes. Second, what is felt is felt as more or less mine or not mine, or anti-mine. The substitution of an adjective for a pronoun or noun ("ego", "self") is designed to suggest the shift from person to atmospheric quality. In this atmospheric sense, a landscape may be felt as more 'mine' than one's shoes or even one's feet (especially if they hurt). The interplay between foci and atmospheres serves

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as a ground for personification in its varied and changing moods, for the esthetic notion of resonance, and for the ethical notion of my neighbor. V

What is felt means (signifies). Significance is an aspect of experience. Conception projects what is signified out of what signifies. To the extent that the significatum can thus be isolated, I shall say that significance becomes signification. The temporal and the intemporal are the domains of what is signified. The transtemporal is the domain of what signifies (in particular, conceiving). The dichotomy between signifying and signified corresponds to that between conceiving and conceived. I n the transtemporal domain, there may be cogitatio, b u t no res cogitaría. A thinking thing is an essence; someone who conceives is a person. They belong to an intemporal or temporal domain. The historical referent is distinct from the various significata, verbal and otherwise, which try to reach it, or at least to circumscribe it. Yet it belongs to the same ontological domain. For it is to be known, hence to be conceived, not to be felt. I t is the limit of historical significata. To reach it, the various significata, verbal and otherwise, would have to become axiomatic and complete. Only narrative fiction can attain this status. Thus the referent is an ideal historical significatum. A self-respecting ideal must remain out of reach; for its job is to orient. Sadness and joy are to be experienced. An atmosphere of sadness or joy belongs to what signifies. But the fact t h a t a person is sad or joyful in a certain place at a certain historical moment is to be known, to be signified. The referent is not what is felt, but the inscription, the manifestation, in the historical field, of what is felt. Interpreting a visual experience, I decide that you are sad. The fact which I try to establish is not an atmosphere to be experienced, but the historical inscription of an atmosphere. There is no possible error regarding what is felt: for judging and naming do not intervene. But

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there may be an error in the statement that someone (including myself) is feeling this or that at a certain historical moment. Since it ties the transtemporal to the temporal and the intemporal, signification is the basic onto-logical (or transcendent) relation. More generally, from a philosophical point of view, it is the relation par excellence. For it reflects itself within the domains of the significatum: as they are linked together, the significata appear to signify each other. Thus correspondences between essences and historical processes (causal laws): cross-signalling between singular events in a process; various significata, verbal and otherwise, aimed at the same referent. The philosophical treatment of a connection consists in interpreting it as a semantic relation. Meaning would lose itself and the significatum would be devoid of a recognizable existence if the relation between what signifies and what is signified did not reflect itself in the field I w h a t is signified. I n particular, the ontological scheme which of have sketched relies heavily on the reflexivity of verbal signification. Otherwise, this scheme would illustrate in its way the paradox of the Liar: Epimenides says that what signifies is to be felt and that what is signified is to be conceived; but he talks about what signifies and thus turns it into something to be conceived. The distinctions which have been proposed between signifier and signified, conceiving and conceived, quality and property, can avoid self-destruction only if they manage to reflect themselves on the plane of the verbal significatum: both "conceiving" and "conceived" are words; "verbal" and "non-verbal" are both verbal. Not all the significance of an experience makes itself explicit as signification: experience does not reduce to conception. There is resonance rather than reflection to the extent that what is signified does not detach itself from what signifies. Philosophy tries to show signification in the signified and bring out the forms which conception imposes on the conceived. By making linguistic meaning as implicit as possible, poetry

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favors resonance. If 'resonance' is taken in a broad sense, reflexivity will be the intellectual and imaginative aspect of resonance. Resonance is to be distinguished from influence: the latter depends on reference. By saying t h a t a historical state of affairs is disgusting, I try to arouse a practical reaction. I do not try to taste, or make someone taste, the word "disgusting". Nor do I try to make someone reflect on the notion of disgust. The gaps between the prosaic modes permit ontological soundings. Thus, the rift between intemporal and temporal (analytic and narrative) serves to introduce the notion of act: unlike an essence, an act happens; unlike an event, it does not happen temporally. Likewise, the existence of fictional characters opposite historical persons invites us to substitute the notion of personification for t h a t of person. Ontology can thus make the prosaic modes play against each other; but it belongs nonetheless to a prosaic mode: the analytic. I t can exempt only a few fundamental notions from the constraints of analytic logic. Poetry, on the contrary, whose logic consists in meter and harmony, does not have to compose essences, processes, or roles. I t can thus make the prosaic modes play against each other more systematically. A poetic text will not posit the notion of act. But it may take advantage of the Ubi Sunt device, as in the following line, for instance: " B u t where are the snows of yesteryear?". The snows are inscribed as an event in a temporal field. They are located in a past moment. The question asks their present location. The answer should be t h a t they cannot be located anywhere now. I n other words, the temporal meaning (present as against past) of "are" is cancelled through contradiction. Are we dealing with an intemporal meaning ? Are the snows to be placed in a field of essences ? This does not work either, since the question asks for an answer which would indicate that the snows are happening. A mythically inclined answer would place the snows in a legendary realm. Poetry is content to give the interrogative adverb itself as a kind of answer:

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'"The snows are where." Through an implicit elimination of temporal and intemporal meaning, the line of Villon gives "where" (oil) as a poetic name of the transtemporal. The poetic solution is more elegant than the analytic explanation, more favorable to resonance. On the other hand, it is less definite. Ontology and poetry need each other. "Suffered under Pontius Pilate" — how can there be suffering under Pontius Pilate, or the Third Republic? Compare the sentence "He came in, with murder in his heart and a carnation in his lapel". The ontological scheme which I have proposed shows how the first of these examples, as well as the second, could illustrate the figure of speech known as ATTELAGE. Suffering is to be felt; under-Pontius-Pilate is to be conceived. Suffering plunges into the transtemporal; underPontius-Pilate is limited to the temporal. This type of uneasy conjunction is inevitable. To be talked about, suffering has to be given an intemporal or temporal inscription: as essence or event. I state an event of suffering in a historical moment named "under Pontius Pilate". The same goes for first-person references: "Yesterday, I had a headache." The present tense would make no difference. Nor would the substitution of the gestural for the designative mode alter the case. If I say "Ouch!", I temporalize in the present an English-speaking role. A French rooster aware of his duties as a national emblem would say "Cocorico", not "Kikiriki", "Quiquiriqui", "Kukuriku", or "Cock-a-doodledoo". No doubt, inscriptions in the first person and in the present enjoy some privilege, since historicizing depends on me here and now. But the fact remains nonetheless that, through language, I posit myself as an individual among individuals, as a person among persons. Even if I talk to myself alone, I personify myself, since only a personified entity can address and be addressed. A plaintive expression such as " I t hurts !", an exclamation such as "Ouch!", implicitly state t h a t a

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certain person is in pain and that this person is the same who did this and t h a t the day before — without past and future, there is no present. 1 In the case of a tree, I may wonder whether I should suppose temporal inscriptions of experience; and, in the case of an animal, human in particular, what kind of experience is temporalized. I do not wonder in my case: what is felt is embodied, spatio-temporally inscribed. I n other words, the search for analogies starts from my own inscription. But, as soon as I try to determine this inscription through language, the analogy becomes symetrical: I use a classification. I consider myself as a process distinct from, and similar to, other processes: more or less similar in kind to stones, animals, humans, if this distribution is adopted. And I judge that, as I say I am in pain, I am using the word "pain" correctly. I may be talking to myself alone. But this "myself" functions as a representative of the users of a language such as French or English. Otherwise, why say "Ale!" or " O u c h ! " rather than something else ? Suppose I invent a private language and say "Camoucalo !". If I use this word to make myself historical, I must understand it as equivalent to some locution which a user of a language such as French or English would resort to under similar circumstances. The question which was raised concerning Valery's Mr Teste "What can the pain of a fictional character be like?" thus loses much of its power. For we do not have to wonder what the 'unreal' suffering of a fictional character might be like, in opposition to the 'real' suffering of a historical person. The reality of a suffering lies in its being felt and what is felt I n The Blue Book, L . W i t t g e n s t e i n likens t h e difference b e t w e e n " I have pain" and "He has pain" to that between moaning and saying t h a t s o m e o n e is m o a n i n g ; see The Blue and Brown Books ( N e w Y o r k : Harper, 1958), p. 68. According t o t h e classification I h a v e a d o p t e d , " I a m in p a i n " w o u l d stress t h e gestural mode, " H e is in p a i n " t h e narrative m o d e . I n b o t h cases, h o w e v e r , a person is m e a n t . B e s i d e s , " H e is in p a i n " c a n b e said in a p l a i n t i v e voice and " I a m in p a i n " c a n be a deliberate lie. 1

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is no more felt within the historical field than within a fictional field. The reality of a historical person, you or me, is to be known, not to be felt. The difference between ontological reality and cognitive reality allows the sentence "He suffered" to have a meaning in a novelistic perspective, if it can have one in a historical perspective. B u t these two types of meaning must still be kept distinct. The chosen example (inscription of suffering) suggests the ethical consequences which a confusion would entail: it would lead to a religious (mythical) perversion of morals, or to an estheticism. The legendary assimilation of history to a novel, or a drama, can be observed in metaphysicians who try to pass off good and evil as some delectable symphony of light and shade. I t would already be an esthetic perversion to present suffering as dissonance. I t would be, in other words, pretending t h a t the ideal goal of moral activities (suppression of suffering) had been accomplished, leaving the stage free for purely esthetic judgments, favorable or unfavorable. The moral perspective views the historical field as an interworld between foci of experience. These foci themselves are not to be known: only their inscriptions. But, through their inscriptions, they have to be recognized. Historical personifications imply something beyond. Fictional characters, on the contrary, are deemed to conceal nothing, outside the experience of reading and reflecting about them. I t is not through formal definitions t h a t a novelistic and a historical interpretations of^words could be distinguished. A formal definition analyzes an essence into properties. I t is concerned with intensional meaning, remains non-committal about extension. 2 The difference between historical and novelistic meaning, more generally between cognitive and esthetic meaning, is not 2 Logicians generally limit the extension of a concept to its historical correspondences. This procedure manifests a tendency t o reduce ontology t o the theory of knowledge.

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the difference between literal and figurative sense. Twenty to twenty-five years ago, I suppose t h a t the use of the word "brain" applied to computers must have still sounded metaphorical. Yet it was no less referential than it is now. The novelistic, the fictional, must also be distinguished from the fantastic and the improbable. Figurative, metaphorical, fantastic, improbable: these notions apply to discrepancies between utterances and the implicitly accepted definition of some terms. The fantastic and the improbable more precisely concern the discord between what a narration says and the limits of an essence, hence between temporal and intemporal, not between historical and fictional. If I hold that the essence of the swan includes the property of being white, black swans are fantastic and the statement t h a t one has seen a black swan is improbable. When a respectable record has been beaten, a journalist may speak of a "fantastic feat". If you believe what he says and if your concept of man used the broken record as a limit, you may either modify this limit or put the champion into another category: that of superman, for instance. The first solution is more economical: it involves only a slight modification in one direction among many. The difference between historical and novelistic meaning concerns the perspective in which the text is interpreted as a whole. The first two chapters of this essay have sketched the basis of this distinction. The others will develop what the disjunction between cognitive and esthetic, reference and resonance, implies as far as the narrative mode is concerned. Several aspects will be brought into relief. For its own part, the end of the present chapter will deal with the topic of affective vocabulary. You are told t h a t a tree was writhing with pain. If you hold that pain may haunt the body of a tree, the statement will be true or false, as if you had been told the same thing about a human person. If, on the contrary, your concept of treeness excludes the property of being liable to suffer, the statement

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will not be true. But will you interpret it as false ? If you are ready to modify your concept of treeness if the need arises, you will rather decide that the statement is fantastic or improbable. 3 Otherwise, you would call it an impropriety, a metaphor perhaps: the tree was writhing like a person in pain (but it cannot be in pain). Shifting the perspective a bit, you might say instead that it is a 'poetic' turn of speech. You would then agree not to give "pain" personifying implications. Likewise, a "sad sky" would not be interpreted as a saddened sky, nor even as a saddening sky, b u t rather as a sky the color of sadness. Within the confines of the proposed sentence, the esthetic interpretation of "was writhing with pain" goes with a depersonification of the tree. Unlike an essay or a poem, narrative fiction needs a certain amount of personification. But this need is limited to the internal point of view which is required to situate, orient, polarize events. The bearing of the chosen example is thus extended. The historical perspective radiates from me here and now. Practical personifications differentiate my person from other persons, my body from other bodies. My practical personification rests on 'mineness'. B u t my person and the quality thus called do not correspond. I n action, mastered tools are experienced as mine. I n suffering, my body is experienced as mine and not mine: my arm hurts, this arm is hurting me. And you may consider with antipathy your own person, with sympathy some other. Add to this that, among unusual possibilities, the ontological scheme I have proposed does not preclude one and the same personification in two distinct places, in other words a dual here for a single now. However, it must be recognized t h a t the historical perspective would lose its consistency if the application of such theoretical openings became indiscriminate. 3 For recent views on verisimilitude, see issue no. 11 of the review Communications (1968).

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Mme de Sevigne wrote to her daughter " I feel pain in your chest". 4 Should we infer that, at the moment she was writing, the noble lady personified herself in two distinct human bodies ? Whatever the suggestive power of her sympathy may have been, let us rather assume t h a t she was overplaying the role of the mother. As far as designation is concerned, the chest of the daughter is turned into a legendary entity. None of the characters posited by the fictional narrative I am reading is to be identified with my person or any other. I continue to personify myself historically (I am reading here and now); and I personify fictionally. Shall we say t h a t I personify MYSELF fictionally? What matters is to note t h a t the practical difference between self-personification and otherpersonification disappears. I personify myself historically as I personify others. But this similarity involves a distinction which is erased as I interpret a text in a novelistic perspective: the characters are no more someone else than they are myself. I adopt the point of view of the internal observer as I would adopt a philosophical point of view, with this difference that the latter does not temporalize itself, except hypothetically, in the examples. Since fictional characters are neither I nor someone else, since the internal observers are only means of situating, orienting and polarizing events, the novelistic meaning of affective vocabulary is more homogeneous than its historical meaning. A historical sky is not judged to be sad or angry as a person; in fiction, a human character is sad as a sky. This does not mean that novelists should resurrect Ouranos. I t means, rather, that, to pass from historicized sadness to fictional sadness, one had better use the ford of the sky than of man. If, in a narrative fiction, a character claims that, since he is a man, not a thing, he is not angry like a sky, I shall be content to note that the same utterance could come out of a record-player. And if you object t h a t this kind of procedure 1

Madame de Sevigne, Lettres (Paris: Gallimard, 1953), III, 294.

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will stifle all that is gripping and poignant in a fiction, I shall answer that this is a condition for the value of resonance to be freed. Furthermore, I invite you to ask yourself whether there is not something morally suspicious in a fictionally oriented search for poignancy. From La Chatte, by Colette, I extract a passage which can be translated as follows: He was talking to the cat who, as the overwhelming fragrance of the heliotropes caught her empty golden eyes, half-opened her mouth, and manifested the nauseous ecstasy of the wild animal subjected to outrageous scents.5 "Manifested" and "of the wild animal subjected to outrageous scents" show that, not the cat, but the character who is talking to the cat, anchors the point of view. I n a cognitive and practical perspective, this sentence would raise such questions as the following: Are cats capable of feeling in this way? If so, did this particular cat feel in this way at that particular moment ? Did the person who describes her in this way see her in this way ? Why does he talk ? Why does he talk in this way ? Does he want to impress us, and himself, with his keenness of perception ? In an esthetic perspective, such questions are inappropriate. I am instead inclined to remark t h a t the description helps establish the mentality of the character who speaks to the cat. And, above all, I enjoy the resonance of nauséeuse extase. I notice that the phonetic aspect is not foreign to the effect: synonyms or a translation ('nauseous ecstasy') would not yield as much. I wonder, on the other hand, whether the addition of the "wild animal" does not endanger the effect. In any case, I am tempted to say t h a t nauséeuse extase is a fitting phrase, a mot juste. The fittingness I have in mind differs from cognitive truth. To say that nauséeuse extase is a fitting phrase means that from the verbal experience there arises a felt quality which 5

Colette, La ChaUe (Paris: Hachette, 1960), p. 167.

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could also arise from visual experience under circumstances similar to those which are described, to the extent that the observer would adopt an esthetic perspective. I t does not mean that every cat would be overwhelmed with nauseous ecstasy under similar historical circumstances, nor, of course, every observer. A perspective is affectively esthetic to the extent that, according to Amiel's formula, a landscape is a mood and a mood a landscape.6 Plato viewed with misgiving tragedies which bring tears from the audience. Aristotle, on the other hand, justified as purgation the pity and terror he assumed in the spectators. Such hypothetical spectators might help to support a theory of art as illusion. And the same could be said about readers who confuse history and fiction. Esthetic and practical sensibilities are thus mixed up, which is detrimental to the ethical sense as well as to the esthetic sense: treating characters as persons trains one to treat persons as characters, that is to say, to adopt the ethics of the voyeur. Instead of "purgation", should not we say "alibi", or "escape"? In a sense, a fictional conversion represents an ideal for historical reality. Cognition aspires to be axiomatic and complete. And, for someone in pain, it would already be quite appreciable if suffering were turned into ugliness. The way in which a reader reacts to a narrative fiction depends on the reader. It also depends on the text. An accumulation of affective vocabulary favors a confusion between character and person. Concentrated on the internal observer, Some literary critics call 'pathetic fallacy* the endowment of nonanimal, or non-human, characters with affective traits. Others call "objective correlatives" fictional things described in such a way as to reveal the feelings of the internal observer. These two locutions tend to obscure the distinction between esthetic and practical. Regarding affectivity, a perspective is esthetic to the extent that the opposition between person and thing, subject and object, disappears. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the commentary of a narrative text is led to ignore the distinction between practical and fictional in its own analytic perspective: the definition of a mentality does not distinguish between person and fictional character. 6

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this vocabulary obscures his status as point of view and tends to detach him as a person from the rest. Resonances must be consonant: what matters is the atmosphere which arises from the whole. Affectively, it is with the text, not with this or that character, t h a t the reader has to become one. Regarding this atmosphere, it is the analytical commentary, not the narrative text, which should resort to affective vocabulary: the commentary projects the atmosphere through its own language as an essence defined by properties. These remarks tend to liken narrative fiction to poetry. Which is to be expected: it is poetry which is allowed to carry furthest the esthetic conversion of linguistic meaning. B u t a difference should still be noted. Poetry does not have to use an internal observer: it can discard the opposition between subject and object imaginatively as well as affectively. Imaginatively, the opposition remains in narrative fiction: the spatio-temporal structure depends on an internal observer. The atmospheres which befit narrative fiction are those which can arise from an interplay of moments and places.

Ill

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The distinctions which I have proposed in the Introduction and the first chapter may be difficult to apply. When dealing with certain texts, or fragments, questions may arise as to the perspective which would best be suited. The present chapter develops characteristic examples. Les Mots, by Jean-Paul Sartre, has a narrative aspect. 1 But there are also many shifts from narrative to commentary. Let us start with the narrative aspect. Are we dealing with a historical or a novelistic narration ? No subtitle is given by the publisher, which would classify the text as novel, biography, or autobiography. I am inclined to see it as autobiography. My attention is attracted by a number of words which, in current practice, are used to designate geographical places, historical events and persons, about which I happen to have some knowledge, verbal and otherwise, outside what is said in Les Mots; thus: in Alsace around 1850; Macon; Lyons; Paris; September 1914; war of 1870; rue Le Gofï; Auvergne; today the twenty-second of April, 1963; lycée Montaigne; Arcachon; Limoges; Aurillac; La Rochelle; campaign of 1940; lycée Henri IV; Utrecht; Albert Schweitzer; Bergson; Courteline; Nizan; Giacometti. By themselves, such ingredients are not decisive. Further on in this chapter, I shall deal with the difficulties of interpreta1 Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mots, in the Soleil collection (Paris: Gallimard, 1964).

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tion which they may raise. In the case of Les Mots, however, no problem arises. For these elements are not mixed with names of places or individuals, nor with mention of events, which I would be inclined to consider in a novelistic perspective. Furthermore, they are linked to the actions of an individual who serves as the observer and whom I recognize as a historical being. Referred to in the first person, this observer is named in the text; and the chosen name is the same as the author's name printed on the cover. Allusions are made to other books published under the same name (pp. 41, 210); and I have read these works. Finally, I remember having met a person whom everything leads me to identify with the author and narrator of Les Mots. As it happens, I had asked him in 1953 if he was working on an autobiography and if he intended, as I had been given to understand, to entitle it "Memoirs of a slimy rat". My outside information is such that I am inclined to adopt a historical perspective concerning what is narrated in Les Mots. This does not mean that I am ready to accept every description as true. Thus, concerning the relationship between grandfather and grandmother Sartre, it is stated t h a t "now and then, without a word", he "would make her pregnant" (p. 8). How are we to receive this hearsay report about a silence apparently heavy with consequences ? Consider also the following sentence, which purports to illustrate the young Sartre's creative spelling: "Le lapen qovache eme le ten' (p. 61). I t looks made up, even if it is not, since it is attributed to a child who, if he had not done any dictation yet, was at least an omnivorous reader, of the dictionary in particular. Or so we have been told. But it hardly matters. Such details may arouse suspicion: they may be judged to be false. But they are nonetheless viewed in a cognitive perspective, t h a t is to say, as either true or false. The interventions of the commentary raise more delicate questions. The following extract will show how the text can move from description to commentary:

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He took me on his knees and spoke with gravity. I would write, that was agreed: I knew him well enough not to fear he might oppose what I wanted. But the facts had to be faced with lucidity: literature did not pay. Did I know that some famous writers had starved to death ? That others, in order to eat, had sold themselves ? If I wanted to stay independent, I must choose a second job. Teaching afforded some leisure; professors were interested in the same things as writers: I would pass constantly from one ministry to the other; I would live in the company of the great writers; I would reveal their works to my pupils and at the same time I would draw my inspiration from them. I would cheer my provincial solitude by composing poems, a translation of Horace in blank verse; I would send short literary notes to the local newspapers, a brilliant essay on the teaching of Greek to the Revue Pédagogique, another one on the psychology of adolescents; after my death, unpublished manuscripts would be found in my desk, a meditation on the sea, a one-act comedy, a few erudite and sensitive pages on the monuments of Aurillac, enough to make up a plaquette which would be published by my former students (pp. 129-130). From the transcription of a homily to the embroidery of the commentary, the shift is quite smooth, since the transcription itself is in free indirect style. Still, we can pinpoint where the commentary definitely takes off: the colon between "writers" and "I would pass constantly from one ministry to the other". The word "ministry" (sacerdoce) is heavily ironical and the irony is confirmed in what follows: "translation of Horace in blank verse", "the Revue Pédagogique", "the monuments of Aurillac". We are far from an even approximative transcription of a speech. Rather, we collect the echo of the way the grandfather's speech was interpreted. But who is the interpreter? The child as he is listening, or the author-narrator as he is writing? Here and there the commentary adopts causalistic turns of speech; thus: "Rather than the son of a dead man, I was given to understand that I was the child of a miracle. Hence, no doubt, my incredible levity" (p. 13). "When animals and children are loved too much, they are loved against men" (p. 21). "I mistook the disorder of my reading experiences for the

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haphazard course of real events. Hence this idealism which it took me thirty years to get rid o f " (p. 39). "If I committed, in an iron age, the monstrous blunder of mistaking life for an epic, it was because I was a grandchild of d e f e a t " (p. 96). " A t seventy, he was still marvelling a t the French language, because he had learnt it with difficulty and had not completely mastered i t " (p. 115). " L e t t h e source of this bleak and grandiose musing be sought in the puritan a n d bourgeois individualism of my environment" (p. 122). "Docile by condition, taste, custom, I later turned to rebellion because I had pushed submissiveness to the extreme" (p. 138). " I was fascinated by death because I did not love life" (p. 160). Speaking of t h e illustrated covers of Nick Carter: "This is the origin of my passion for New Y o r k " (p. 180). The commentator's addiction to counterfactuals should also be mentioned; thus: " H a d he lived, my father would have lain on me with all his weight and crushed m e " (p. 11). "Without this major illusion, I would never have written" (p. 47). "A father would have weighed me down with a few durable obstinations" (p. 70). "Were it not for this mistake, I would be a m o n k " (p. 79). " I f it had occurred to me to keep them under lock and key, they would give me back my whole childhood" (p. 127). " I f Charles had exclaimed from afar, opening out his arms to me: 'Here comes the new Hugo, a Shakespeare in the b u d ! ' , t o d a y I would be an industrial d r a f t s m a n or a professor of letters" (p. 131). " H a d he predicted to me t h a t I would drench my paper with my tears or t h a t I would writhe on t h e carpet, m y middle-class moderation would have recoiled" (p. 131). These various fragments do not apply accepted rules of socio-psychological nature; they do not unpack what is implicitly contained in the meaning of certain terms. This will appear clearly if we indulge for a moment in t h e game of variations; thus: " H e had become disgusted with t h e French language, because he had learnt it with difficulty and had not completely mastered i t . " "You have to love animals and

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children too much in order to love men enough". "If Charles had exclaimed from afar: 'Here comes the new Hugo !', today I would be a bum or president of the Republic". "If, in an iron age, I committed the monstrous blunder of mistaking life for an epic, it was because I was a grandchild of victory". "Let the source of this bleak and grandiose dream be sought in the working-class collectivism of my environment". "Death fascinated me because I loved life". "This is the origin of my resentment against New York. For, when I saw the real New York in 1945, it hardly resembled the legendary city about which the illustrated covers of Nick Carter had made me dream". To characterize the connections which the text establishes, let us first try a rapprochement with a conceptual development. Roughly, Les Mots would compose three psychological essences: the environment of the child (especially the grandfather), the child himself, and the middle-aged man whom the child has become. They would be developed through the use of analogies and contrasts. If not of a full-blown essay, the text as a whole would a t least be reminiscent of those analytic novels which turn into novelized analyses: thus Proust. In any case, Les Mots does not try to be a closely-knit narration: it does not strive after a genetic coherence. I t appears intent on preparing and fashioning well-rounded formulas in the tradition of the moralistes. The sentences I have quoted bear witness to this design. The text may even parody the well-balanced alexandrines of French classical tragedy: 11 Je feins d'etre en péril pour accroître ma gloire" (p. 18); "L'inceste me plaisait s'il restait platonique" (p. 42). Let us pursue this line of thought. The best way of characterizing the coherence which the text is seeking would probably be to speak of dramatic connections. The grandfather, the child and the middle-aged man are characters rather than concepts, and dramatic characters rather than characters in a novel. The analogies and contrasts I mentioned are more precisely dialectical relations, essentially spell-binding and

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reaction, which go from the grandfather to the child and from the child to the middle-aged man. Of course, since we are dealing with a commentary, these magical relations are not shown a t work, as they would be in a drama: thus there is no scene between the child and the middle-aged man, comparable to the exchange between the two Maximes, in L'lnconnue d'Arras, by Salacrou; and even the scenes between the child and his relatives are transposed, summed up, amalgamated. However, there is something directly dramatic on another level: the commentary itself, in view of its style, is a dramatic monologue. On the level of the characters who are talked about, the dramatic relations are analyzed. But, on t h e level of the character who comments, they are mimed, they are performed: they contribute to the rhetorical cement of the monologue. If we view the commentary in this way, as a dramatic monologue, are we not led to modify the perspective which I proposed at the beginning? Is not the whole text attracted into the perspective which suits the appreciation of dramatic a r t ? If this were so, the interpretation of the text as historical narration would be rejected. The narrator-commentator himself invites us to abandon this perspective: " W h a t I have just written is false. True. Neither t r u e nor false like everything t h a t is written about madmen, about men. I have related the facts as accurately as my memory allowed. B u t to w h a t extent was I a victim of my delirium?" (p. 54). No doubt, this invitation to adopt a fictional perspective is limited. But, on the basis of the generalization: "Everything t h a t is written about madmen, about men", we might be t e m p t e d to extend this perspective to the whole text, and in particular to what " m e m o r y " is supposed to whisper to the character who speaks. The following passage could also influence the choice of a perspective: " I was conditioned to endorse — if I had been old enough to understand t h e m — all the conservative maxims which an old liberal t a u g h t me through his behavior: t h a t

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Truth and Fable are the same thing, t h a t passion must be played to be experienced, that man is a ritualistic being. I had been persuaded t h a t we were created to give each other a show; I accepted the comedy, but I insisted on being the main character" (p. 69). Epimenides, who hails from Crete, says that Cretans are incapable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood. Is what he says true or false ? To escape the merry-go-round, all we have to do is to adopt the position that it is neither true nor false. With appropriate esthetic detachment, we can then appreciate the congruence between the style of EpimenidesSartre and what is said about the characters he presents. He puts on a show for himself by picturing himself in the past as a child actor. Besides, the most effective way of snatching the leading role is to do what the commentator does: allow the other characters to appear only through one's colorful monologue. Making the dramatic point of view take over the historical would probably be the best strategy for a reader who would not have any outside information at his disposal. But, in my case, it is possible and preferable to proceed in the opposite way. Not that, in most instances, the commentary may be considered as either true or false. But its rhetorical verve does not contaminate the pieces of historical and geographical information. The character who comments remains anchored as a historical individual. And the commentary itself is historical to this extent: if J e a n - P a u l Sartre puts on a show for himself, he does so at a certain time in a certain place. At one moment, in a certain phase of his evolution perhaps, he chose to use in a certain way rather than another the material furnished by his recent and distant past. The way the commentary is written tells me something about a historical individual: J e a n - P a u l Sartre as he was writing and to the extent he was writing. I t might be objected that, thus considered, namely as expression rather than statement, the commentary is axiom-

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atic, rather than true or false. But what may be axiomatic in this case is that language expresses thought. What is not axiomatic, on the other hand, but true or false, is t h a t the commentary tells me something about the intentions of J e a n Paul Sartre, t h a t is to say, the man whom the text talks about and I remember having met. Someone else might be the author, or a team of monkeys, or a machine. " I n Alsace around 1850; Macon; Paris; Nizan; Giacometti; today the twenty-second of April, 1963" — these items, among others, have inclined me to consider Les Mots as belonging to history. And yet, such ingredients can also be found in texts commonly labeled 'novels'. When this is the case, how can their meaning be made suitable to a fictional context ? By itself, conceiving an essence does not decide whether its translation into a process must be made in a fictional or in the historical field. Defined by properties, the notions of car, poplar, rabbit, man, can correspond to fictional, as well as historical, individuals. And there is no conceptual requirement that the notion of dryad or centaur should be precluded from receiving historical applications. Take the example of Paris, the capital of France. Using a Platonic kind of jargon, we could define the corresponding essence as the logical product of capitality and franceness. Such a transcription shows t h a t a neutralization takes place: the use of words, or neologisms, ending in ty or ness dispels the suggestion of a particular geographical city. As I approach a narrative, I start from such non-committal essences. And, according to the context, I decide for a historical or novelistic interpretation. "Paris" is a name. I t can be used to name anything: a dog, a house, a family, a ship. And the capital of France is not the only geographical town called "Paris". Likewise, in a narrated fiction, there may be a town named "Paris" which, turned into an essence, would have no remarkable property in common with the capital of France.

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But it also happens that, between the essence corresponding to the geographical capital and the essence which befits some fictional Paris, there are remarkable properties in common, for instance capitality and franceness. I n this case, the notion of parisness is to be considered as a class formed by the intersection of the two essences drawn from the two towns. And we may agree to give the name "Paris" to this class. I n rhetorical terms, we shall have resorted to an antonomasia. Translating into a jargon of essences shows how one can pass from a historical to a novelistic interpretation. I n order to shift the entire narrative to fiction, what we have to do is to sever the spatio-temporal relations between the described places and events, and the position which we occupy at the moment of our interpretation. I t is these relations which determine the historical character of the perspective: a nonarbitrary I-here-and-now cannot pass into a language of essences. If you try to interpret a text as narrative fiction, certain elements may prove refractory; those, for instance, whose conception clings stubbornly to t h a t of your own location. The accumulation of geographical details and historically dated events favors the adoption of a historical perspective. Suppose t h a t such elements are accompanied, not merely by a commentary as in Les Mots, but by indications of places, events, characters, held to be fictional. How, in such cases, can the perspective of interpretation be unified ? I t depends on the text. I have selected, as an example, Sons le soleil de Satan, by Bernanos. 2 But, before examining this text, I have a few words to say about a type of entity which has so far been largely ignored: 'spirits'. Spirits can be considered as personified entities. Most often, historical narrations personify processes which are presumed continuous: human beings, animals. However, a town, destroyed then rebuilt, may be presented as one entity and 2

Georges Bernanos, Oeuvres romanesques

(Paris: Gallimard, 1961).

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personified. A human being may also reappear after death as a ghost, without losing his identity. In both cases, I should say we are dealing with a spirit. The apparitions of a spirit may be discontinuous even in simultaneity. Thus, Jehovah seems to enjoy the logical right of manifesting himself, as a voice for instance, in several places at the same time. In the case of the Homeric gods, it is rather their abrupt metamorphoses which introduce an element of discontinuity. A spirit may compose its own manifestation; or it may borrow a ready-made body, even a body already equipped with a soul: we are then dealing with a case of possession. The same muse may babble in a brook, whisper in a tree, vaticinate in a poet. Discontinuity in historical manifestations may raise problems of identification. Thus, is the Holy Virgin entitled to appear naked? in an evening gown? with white, blonde, red hair? under an appearance other than feminine? other than human ? Is some evil genius entitled to appear with the same features as the Holy Virgin and say that he is the Immaculate Conception? If so, what telltale sign is he required to give? Conversely, has the Holy Virgin the right to declare to anyone that she is NOT the Immaculate Conception? In a historical text, the fundamental narration may posit spirits directly; thus: "The Holy Virgin appeared to Bernadette Soubirous"; "Athena appeared before Socrates." The basic narration may instead avoid the responsibility of personifying and relegate the spirit to a secondary level. One might say, for instance, that Bernadette had an experience of the manifestation-of-the-Holy-Virgin type, or that Socrates stated he had seen Athena. This is the kind of reduction, or noncommittal wrapping, which I suggested regarding some passages of Les Mots. The notion of person is not for me ontologically fundamental: it divides into personification (personifying) and personified. The scheme which has been proposed in the preceding chapter does not establish a one-to-one correspondence between foci

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of experience and personified entities. If I had undertaken to write an essay on ethics, I should probably be less evasive, since personification is linked to the recognition of responsible agents and to the decision as to who is my neighbor. B u t , in the present analysis, it is enough to view personification as a semantic manoeuver and leave its application as free as possible. However, two things must be stressed. First, there can be no temporalization without personification. Second, the historical perspective can accommodate individual identity through discontinuity only as an exception. I n a fictional perspective, the status of the implicit is such t h a t the question is radically modified: the opposition between continuity and discontinuity becomes an esthetic problem of dosage. Some people would limit spirits to a fictional or legendary kind of existence. The question which interests me bears, on the contrary, on t h e possibility of granting a novelistic meaning to names of spirits which are historically established. The question raised about the Holy Virgin or Athena is roughly the same as the one about Rome or Athens. Here again, I postulate a reader who is ready to grant a historical status to "the Holy Virgin" and " A t h e n a " . B u t this does not necessarily mean a believer. If the unbeliever does not agree t h a t the Holy Virgin and Athena are personified entities capable of manifesting themselves in the historical field, he must acknowledge a t least the historical status of the Greek religion and of the R o m a n Catholic sect. All t h a t is needed for my purpose is the acceptance of certain names of spirits in the historical vocabulary. Sous le soleil de Satan is strewn with details which invite me to adopt a historical interpretation — dates: the year of grace 1849, 1690-1741; names of persons: P . J . Toulet, Blanqui, Lamennais, the Gracchi, Victor Hugo, Louis X I , Christopher Columbus, the Vicar of Ars, Jules Lemaitre, Goncourt, Renan, Peguy; geographical notations: Artois, Boulonnais, Norway,

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Irish, France, Le Plessis, Montreuil, Amiens, Paris, Montrouge, Tourcoing, the Canche, Valenciennes, Bresse, Etaples, Calais, Le Havre, Avranches, Boulogne, Nancy, Greece; names of institutions, Roman Catholic especially: the vicar, the archbishop, curate, mass, canon, bishop, archpriest, breviary, seminar, regular clergy, Holy Orders, parochial, diocese, deaconship, Marist, sacrament of penitence, the Trappe, Carmel, Carthusian, Benedictine, Sorbonne, Legion of Honor, French Academy, Our Lady of Lourdes. Add to this list the names of spirits which belong to the Roman Catholic repertory: Saint Vincent, Holy Ghost, God, Satan, the Lord, Our Lord, Saint Ignatius, the devil, the Redeemer, Lucifer,JesusChrist, Saint Theresa, Saint John of the Cross. The abundance of these items is striking. Furthermore, they are not simply sown in the midst of the text like a swarm of letters in an alphabet soup: they are linked together. Names of spirits crop up in the speeches of the characters. But they also appear on the basic level and alliances of words, as the following, assume the task of personifying: "This will of God exerted upon his poor soul" (p. 242); "His weapon which so many times Satan will turn over in his heart" (p. 148); and again, concerning the same Satan: "He has been seen lying on lips opening to dispense the true word" (p. 154). The psychology of the two main characters (Germaine and Donissan) smacks of possession. As a matter of fact, they seem to owe the rank of protagonist to their being possessed. Donissan is even entitled to an objective manifestation of the spirit named Satan, or Lucifer (pp. 167-184). These two peculiarities, possession and apparition, make the problem of interpretation more acute. For they contribute to the welding of items which I am inclined to view in a historical perspective and of elements which I am led to hold as fictional. The Pleiade edition labels the text an oeuvre romanesque. And the notes confirm the fictional status of the human characters of some importance, in particular Donissan, also called the "saint of Lumbres", and Saint-Marin, the author of Le Cierge

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pascal and a member of the Academy. W h a t perspective shall I adopt? As in Les Mots, narrative often gives way to commentary. Sententious asides are grafted: " F o r t h e rebellious doctrinarian, with whom time toys with a deep irony, begets only peaceful people" (p. 60). "The most stupid girl, in such crises, shows a lucid composure, which is probably nothing else t h a n the sublimity of instinct" (p. 61). "There, great souls spread out like wings" (p. 75). " F o r it is natural for man to hate his own suffering in t h e suffering of others" (p. 79). " R o b u s t middle age easily inspires blind t r u s t " (p. 80). "How many others before him have nourished the illusion of getting t h e better of a p r e t t y sixteen-year old girl, ready to fight ?" (p. 82). "People will call it chance. B u t chance looks like us. Let a fool marvel a t the sudden soaring of a long-repressed will" (p. 83). " F o r t h e root of vice grows deep and slowly in the heart, b u t the beautiful flower full of venom blooms a t its most vivid only one d a y " (p. 89). "Like so many fools who, a t a critical moment, always have something to say b u t realize it too late, he was ready to be discouraged by a simple and silent end to their quarrel" (p. 137). "Thus the vanquished hero dictates his Memorial to his friends" (p. 143). The abundance of the commentary suggests a way out of the dilemma between history and fiction. The tone of the commentary is more strongly oratorical t h a n in Les Mots. I n view of the vocabulary, we might be tempted to place the text in the category of formal sermons. The diction easily turns to exclamations and superlatives; thus: " A h ! poor little girl!" (p. 74); "Alas ! like a child . . ." (p. 85); "Alas, is not w h a t his master sees in him the remainder of gifts received and dissipated?" (p. 142); "Frightful words !" (p. 143); " W h a t ! I t is the book . . ." (p. 161); " W h a t ! Can t h e grace of God be thus made a d u p e ? " (p. 162); " W h a t ! Lord . . ." (p. 180); " W h a t ! N o t one action in his life . . ." (p. 206); "Nobody except the curate of Campagne, even with an equal lucidity, could have r e p r e s s e d . . . " (p. 173); "Who

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would not have heard with terror . . . Who a t least would not have doubted his reason?" (p. 186); "Never, no, n e v e r ! were the dead more violently pulled out of their d u s t " (p. 205). Also remarkable, f r o m the same point of view, is a propensity for epithets to designate characters: the man of science, t h e wretched child, his great soul, t h e clear and lucid genius, t h e f u t u r e vicar of Lumbres, the extraordinary man, the wretched priest, the man of God, the poor priest, t h e masterf u l analyst of souls, the f u t u r e saint of Lumbres, this supernatural man, the former professor of chemistry, the distinguished canon, the innocent victim, the f u t u r e canon, the vigilant colleague, the eminent philosopher, these horrible children, t h e man of the Cross, the illustrious old man, horrible nursling, the wretched girl, Saint Brigitte of Nothingness, the famous author of Le Cierge pascal, t h e eminent musician, t h e old comedian, this old Jew, the eminent master, the harmonious chatter-box. The interpretation of the text as a sermon would also be supported by such apostrophes and asides as the following: " 0 you who never knew anything of the world except colors and sounds without substance" (p. 153); " 0 madmen t h a t we a r e " (p. 162); "Indeed, our own nature is partially given to u s " (p. 188); "The sin t h a t devours us leaves so little substance to our life!" (p. 200); "Ah ! Sometimes God calls to us in so pressing and sweet a voice !" (p. 212). If the text could be interpreted as a sermon, the narrative p a r t would have the same status as examples in a basically analytic text. The distinction between history and fiction would be neutralized, and the dilemma would thus be resolved. B u t the narrative p a r t resists this reduction: it is too circumstantial, too cohesive. Besides, we are not dealing with an accepted legend, such as the one used in Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. Let us t r y a second kind of interpretation. I t would take into account both the resistance of the narrative p a r t and the stylistic peculiarities of the commentary: Sous le soleil de Satan

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would be a parody of hagiographies. Voltaire's Candide uses fictional characters to make f u n of providentialism. Sous le soleil de Satan would resort to fictional characters to make f u n of Lives of Saints. I t would use to this end several second-level characters, in particular " t h e saint of Lumbres", and one first-level character, the fictional hagiographer, rhetor and commentator. The stylistic features which have already been mentioned would suit this interpretation. A few more can be added. The hagiographer wants to place his saint of Lumbres, Donissan, on a pedestal, emphasizing how different he is from the other characters, in particular Saint-Marin, the esthete. Donissan's speech is said to be "always deliberately simple and unaffected" (p. 135). But, when the saint is rashly allowed to talk, he speaks in the same ludicrously pompous and hypocritical style as the hagiographer. Donissan is supposed to possess " t h e charity of great souls, their supernatural compassion" (p. 198). But, a t one point, he is made to exclaim: " I shall nail you in the center of my prayer like an owl" (p. 181). Saint-Marin is a "harmonious chatter-box who has never talked about anything except himself" (p. 297). But this would apply just as well to Donissan, such as the hagiographer is clumsy enough to present him. The inner life of Donissan is sketched as a drama with three characters: Donissan's ego and two foremost spirits, called Satan and God, among other names. To lend more significance to this internal struggle, the hagiographer suggests an ethical import. Not t h a t Donissan fights to liberate his ego from the spells cast by two superegos: the two preying spirits are identified with Evil and Good. Donissan's purpose is rather to liberate himself from one and abandon himself to the other. But, since the inner drama does not correspond to any ethicallv meaningful behavior, we seem to be dealing ¡with an estheticism. The Good and Evil at stake are hardly more related to ethics t h a n the Los Angeles R a m s to either zoology or angelology.

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The factor which would contribute most to an interpretation of t h e text as a satire of novelized biographies, sanctifying biographies in particular, is t h e discrepancy between the sources (documents, witnesses) which the hagiographer intimates he has a t his disposal and what it pleases him to narrate and infer. H e makes it a point to assert t h a t " t h e second p a r t " of his book is founded on "authentic documents and testimonies which nobody could question" (p. 232). B u t , assuming this is so, w h a t about the sources of the first p a r t ? At one point, he plays scrupulous: "This we shall not know" (p. 260). But, considering w h a t he says about his characters, especially Germaine Malorthy and Donissan, one is led to wonder what he is permitted not to 'know'. H e takes care to mention confidences of Donissan, for instance "so simple and moving a confession" (p. 159). But, if the hagiographer is to be judged honest, it must be supposed t h a t the confidences of the saint of Lumbres have swollen to the size of a complacent autobiography. The text ends with an oration printed in italics and beginning with " L o r d " . I t brings to mind the "ostentatious prayers" and "detestable chemistry of spiritual bouquets" (p. 162) for which t h e hagiographer has stressed his contempt. And the status of this final piece is established as follows: "Such was probably, on this earth, the supreme complaint of the vicar of Lumbres" (p. 308). " P r o b a b l y " is funny, especially if the vicar of Lumbres is considered as a fictional character. The insertion of fictional characters into a historical frame could be justified by interpreting the t e x t as a satire of novelized biographies. B u t this interpretation presupposes t h a t the hagiographer himself is situated as a fictional character. For it is on this basis t h a t a distinction could easily be made between a satirical work and a ridiculous narrator. The structure of Sous le soleil de Satan does not permit this disjunction. I n spite of the factors which have been enumerated, I am compelled to forsake the convenient strategy of a satirical perspective. Recent criticism has already abused t h e prin-

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ciple t h a t anything can be justified by saying t h a t it is ironical. My two attempts to eliminate the dilemma between history and fiction have failed. The difficulty has even grown worse in the process: for it is now seen t h a t it also bears on the status of the narrator and commentator. I cannot make a historical person out of a hagiographer who says he has collected the testimonies of individuals whom I hold to be fictional. And yet, perhaps even more than the fictional characters already admitted, he is linked to items which I am inclined to view in a historical perspective: places, individuals, institutions. Consider also the question raised by the spirits, especially the one called "God" (Dieu). With feigned seriousness, some critics have wondered whether this or t h a t character of Bernanos could be considered as 'saved', in the religious sense of the term. Saved by whom ? By a socio-historical god, or by a fictional god? Let us try the historical version first. We would be dealing with the god of the Christians, more precisely the Roman Catholic god. To believe t h a t this god is interested in the fate of a fictional character's soul is, to say the least, heretical. This god, or one of the divine spirits, is supposed to have incarnated himself as a historical, not fictional, individual. Besides, to the best of my knowledge, the church of Rome has never canonized, or beatified, an individual whom it held to be fictional. I t follows from these considerations that the god mentioned in Sous le soleil de Satan cannot be the god of the Roman Catholic sect, and I fail to see which other sociohistorical god would be better suited. Let us now try a fictional god. I n order to do this, we have to shift to a fictional perspective the mentions of other spirits and religious institutions, and even places and dates. This is an uncommonly heavy mass to transplant. Furthermore, if these various elements are to take root in fictional soil and distinguish themselves from their historical homonyms, details should be given in the text, which would differ from the historical

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specifications which are known to the reader, that is, to me. But very few details are given in Sous le soleil de Satan. And none is given which would allow a distinction between a fictional religion from the historical religion whose vocabulary it would share. On the sole basis of the text, how, for inst nee, can I establish relations between the entities called "Holy Ghost", "God", "the Redeemer", "the Lord", "Our L o r d " , "Jesus Christ", without having recourse to a kind of information which is not purely lexical, but encyclopaedic, in n a t u r e ? The status of these more or less proper names differs, in this respect, from t h a t of more common terms. Concerning t h latter, a narrative fiction may draw its material from t h implicit understanding of the terms without being obliged explicitly to mark the difference with historical applications of the same terms. The alternative thus appears to be as follows: either I use what I know about the Roman Catholic religion and I cannot create a fictional religion out of this; or I leave aside this information and a good p a r t of the text becomes unintelligible. Sous le soleil de Satan contrasts, in this respect, with such works as Beckett's play, En attendant Godot. To understand this play, it is not only possible, b u t necessary, to confine the conception of Godot, a second-level character, to what the first-level characters (Vladimir, Estragon and the messenger, or messengers) say about him. The discussion which I have pursued concerning Sous le soleil de Satan shows the connection between decisions about nature and decisions about value. To decide whether someone pronounces the word "nation" correctly, we must first determine whether he is trying to speak English or French. And it would be inappropriate to reproach a good bicycle for being a bad wheelbarrow. However, the connection between semantic nature and value is not such t h a t classifying a text under one of the categories which have been distinguished in the introduction is enough to judge it good: a purely novelistic narration can be judged mediocre. Furthermore, modal purity

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is not even a necessary condition: some alloys may provide a unified perspective. Thus satire can easily accommodate both fictional and historical items. Regarding the use of spirits in Sous le soleil de Satan, my criticism was not aimed at this device itself. After all, discontinuous manifestation is the normal condition of fictional individuals. In the historical field, we postulate t h a t things, animals and men are continuous processes, in spite of our meager knowledge. In a fictional field, individuals are inscribed as events and processes only to the extent t h a t the narrative talks about them. The conception of fictional characters can thus be likened to t h a t of spirits. My criticism rather amounts to this: if spirits of a superhuman type are to fulfill an important function in a novelistic creation (as distinct, for instance, from a satirical montage), it is important that they should be created to the same degree as other characters. Avoiding the proper names used by historical religions would] be, in this respect, a good precaution. Possible confusions would thus be eliminated. And the author would be more conscious of the choices he has to take regarding what should be said and what should not be said about these spirits. The interplay between the explicit and the implicit is fundamental to the arts of language. As a rule, detective novels distinguish between the events of the investigation and the events which are investigated. The former are laid down without ambiguity by a basic narration. The latter crystallize only at the end: the solution given by the investigator is axiomatic. The investigator may be designated in the first person. Normally, the recounting of his actions is axiomatic. This is what happens in The Red Right Hand, but this becomes clear only at the end. 3 When I read it for the first time, various devices led me to suspend my judgment. I wondered about 3 John Townsley Rogers, The Red Right Hand (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945).

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what could count as external fact or only as entertained thought. And if an item had to be interpreted only as thought by the narrating character, I still had to decide whether he was mistaken or lying, lying to himself in particular. The investigator who is presented in the first person is not the official investigator. According to his own words, he is a witness whose testimony must be held as suspicious by the official investigators (p. 3). His own investigation is purely mental: except for the last pages, the text looks like an interior monologue. The presumed events are not told in chronological order. We are dealing with a rumination which mingles direct testimony and hearsay (reports about what the other witnesses said). The chronology is vague. The topography is vague too: the text is not accompanied by a map. The moment of the mental investigation is not distinct from the moment the crimes are committed: everything takes place during one evening and the night which follows; the threat still lingers. Besides the acknowledged participation of the narrator in the events which are investigated, coincidences accumulate. The fiancée of a presumed victim works for a man who has the same name as the narrator and who might be his cousin. The narrator and the girl are neighbors, without, apparently, being acquainted (p. 21). They go to the same bank (p. 88). The name of the narrator, Harry Riddle, resembles t h a t of a local individual: " I thought maybe you were a member of the old Ridder family who used to live around here. This place used to belong to old Henry Ridder, the father of young Harry Ridder that killed all his family with an ax seven years ago, and then disappeared" (p. 147). Because of a resemblance in the voice, the fiancée, at first, mistakes the narrator for the presumed killer (p. 18). The latter wore a hat which the narrator recognizes as having been his (p. 97). They are of about the same size (p. 71). They must have in their pockets the same number of bills of the same denomination (p. 160). The narrator says he is a surgeon and one of the corpses is found with a hand severed by a surgical instrument.

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T h e presumed killer is described as carrying a knife; and the narrator says t h a t someone has died under his " k n i f e " (p. 57). Of course, in t h e case of the killer, the knife is a kitchen knife. I n this particular case, resemblance excludes identity. B u t , in this monologue, it is the superimposition of images, t h e coincidences of words and themes, which matter, since, a p a r t perhaps f r o m the quotations of the official interrogation, consigned in questions a n d answers in a notebook, everything remains images in suspension and, on first reading, it cannot be decided for sure which ones should be precipitated into facts. The same goes for another coincidence: the presumed killer must have had the lobe of an ear cut off and the narrator say his ear has been cut in an accident (p. 91). As I read it for t h e first time, t h e monologue gave me the impression t h a t t h e narrator was fascinated by t h e coincidences which his rumination stirred up and fought against the suspicion t h a t he might be the murderer. Several times he mentions a s t u d y of criminal psychology: "One of the most interesting chapters in Horn. Psych, was the one called "JekyllHyde, M. D.", in which he had gathered together t h e case histories of murderers who had all happened to be doctors. I'll admit t h a t he had plenty there. B u t it d i d n ' t mean t h a t , just because I was a doctor, he would find a murderer in me, of course . . ." (p. 106). The threat of a double personality also emerges f r o m other passages; t h u s : "The anesthetist, I think, would have liked to have come along with me. She hinted a t it. I wonder, if she had, whether she would be dead now, t o o " (p. 88). A dog chases him: " I t ' s often said t h a t dogs, children, and lunatics have an infallible instinct for character. If t h a t big, savage b r u t e had anything to say about it, I was J a c k t h e R i p p e r " (p. 139). Regarding the presumed killer, there is this ambiguous remark: " I have gone all over it in m y own mind. I know t h e look of him better t h a n I know my own f a c e " (p. 170). Speaking of another character, t h e narrator says: " I d o n ' t think he thought I was lying. N o t t h a t I was consciously and deliberately lying, and for a purpose.

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He looked as if he were just trying to figure out whether it had been a living man or an apparition I had seen. Or maybe if I was a living man or an apparition myself" (p. 116). The solution is quite 'improbable'. In detective novels, it often happens that the murderer has a double identity; in The Red Right Hand, he had to assume four social roles. But it is a fitting solution: the ruminative monologue has kept the characters, including the narrator, in the condition of blurred and fluid ghosts, floating upon one another. In a sense, the purpose of the investigation was to find the best way of making the images crystallize around proper names. The final result gives us three proper names for one entity; and one of these names also designates another character. The Red Right Hand does not break the conventions of the genre; but it stretches them to the limit. It thus has the virtue of a revealing parody: it shows what suspense consists of basically. Images and names are kept in suspension before they are allowed to coalesce into events posited by an axiomatic narration. As far as esthetic appreciation is concerned, it is the second reading which counts, when the reader remembers the end. Many detective novels lose some interest on being read for the second time, because the suspense is not stylized enough and does not draw enough of its appeal from the esthetic resources of language. The second reading relates the beginning to the end as well as the end to the beginning. Within the fictional frame, the investigator is a historian at work. From a reader's standpoint, the investigation is a genesis of part of the novel within the novel. The Red Right Hand is built in such a way that, barring the last pages, this part coincides with the whole. As we read it for the second time, we can appreciate throughout, and not just at the end, the relations between monologue and narration, between the mental adventure and the physical adventure. As a whole, we are dealing with a narrative fiction, rather than with a dramatic monologue, since the mental investigation is situated spatially and tempor-

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ally through the elements which are projected out of it into axioms. The second reading enables us clearly to interpret the words on two levels: a primary level (basic narration) and a secondary level (quoted words or entertained thoughts).

Le Bavard offers a narrative and a commentary, both in the first person.4 Coincidences with my historical repertory are rare: "French language", "Breton", "Magnificat". These few details are easily dissolved in the bulk of the text. But, if the narrator-commentator designated by " I " is not for me a historical person, he does not establish himself as a properly novelistic character either. Besides " I " , the text uses the pronoun "you" as equivalent to "reader", or "readers". But, as I read the text, I cannot understand "you" or "reader" as referring to historical persons (myself, for instance). For I cannot adopt the same procedure as withies Mots: I cannot hold the narrator-commentator himself to be a historical person. And what goes for " I " also goes for "you": someone has to be a historical entity (voice, person) in order to be able to address a historical entity. The narrator-commentator is not a properly novelistic character either. He presents himself as writing: " I make a face as I am writing this" (p. 7). He comments in the present tense and narrates in the past. But, outside this difference in tenses, the temporal relation between narrated events and the event of writing is not specified. And the spatial relation between the former and the latter is not indicated at all. These lacunae make it difficult to naturalize the commentary as a novelistic entity, that is to say, to interpret it as words uttered or written at a certain time in a certain place in the 4 Louis-René des Forêts, Le Bavard, in the 10-18 edition (Paris: Union générale d'éditions, 1963). L'Innommable, by Samuel Beckett, disintegrates the narrative part into incoherent snatches. And the same treatment is applied to the commentary. The text as a whole assumes the air of an anti-Cartesian rumination.

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field of fictional events. But we are not dealing here with a confrontation between story and commentary. For the narrative part itself is not fundamental: several devices make it clear t h a t the primary level belongs to the commentary. The text attracts attention to matters of style and attitude. For instance: "This last sentence should not be taken too seriously" (p. 13); and again: "You noticed the however ardently I aspire to sincerity" (p. 45). I n this way, what is posited as object is the narration rather than what is narrated. Furthermore, the coquettishness of the narrator-commentator goes as far as suggesting that what he presented as memory is only imagination: "Suppose t h a t all my chatter were only lies" (p. 144). Actually, since the text is not interpreted in a historical perspective, and since, on the other hand, there is no final solution as in the case of a detective story, the effect of this device is rather to deny an axiomatic status to the narrative part as a whole and thus to prevent the adoption of a novelistic perspective. Concerning Sous le soleil de Satan, I had vainly attempted to give a satisfactory solution to two dualities: t h a t between history and fiction and that between narration and commentary. In the case of Les Mots and The Red Right Hand, I was able to make the commentary, or the monologue, rest on the narrative, in a historical perspective for Les Mots, in a novelistic perspective for The Red Right Hand. The opposite manoeu ver is indicated in the case of Le Bavard: the narrative part is, so to speak, to be placed within quotation marks. What is narrated reduces to the narrating and the narrating itself is not situated as an event or process in a fictional field, nor in the historical field. I n this respect, the semantic conditions are the same as in the case of an essay. In an essay, the narrative passages serve only the function of introducing examples. The remarks which, in Le Bavard, bear on stylistic matters offer some analogy with the reflections which an essay applies to its own analytic procedures, and the exchanges between " I " and "you" with

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a philosophical use of these pronouns to incorporate objections. But, in Le Bavard, the content and tone are such t h a t the dialectic at work is much less philosophical than theatrical: we are dealing with a dramatic monologue. 5 The interventions of the pronouns " y o u " and " I " go with dramatic poses rather than with philosophical positions. And the set of poses in the first person composes a fairly consistent role. The basic semantic mode in Le Bavard is gestural. The size of the narrative p a r t and certain themes in the commentary give a satirical aspect to the text. I was compelled to forsake a satirical interpretation of Sous le soleil de Satan. I feel in a much better position to adopt it with Le Bavard. The role which is performed is ridiculous. The satire is directed, in part at least, at those narrators and commentators who, in many texts bearing the label 'novel', operate as if they had one foot in history and one foot in fiction. This is a fairly traditional kind of satire. Le Bavard pushes it further, in particular by having suggestions of lying accompany the traditional protestations of veracity. This feature invites us to realize that, if a fictional character can lie to another fictional character, he can neither lie nor tell the t r u t h to a historical person. The satirical thrust of a text such as Le Bavard can thus extend to the theory of literary fiction as illusion. If something deserves to be called illusion in this matter, it might be the theory itself.

5

I do not use 'dramatic' in the same sense as Joseph Warren Beach in The Twentieth Century Novel (New York: Appleton-Century, 1932): "The dramatic method is the method of direct presentation, and aims to give the reader the sense of being present, here and now, in the scene of action" (p. 181). The dramatic method would appear to reject commentary (analysis), but to cover a vivid narrative as well as monologues and dialogues. In m y sense, the dramatic, or gestural, mode of meaning is distinct from the poetic, analytic AND narrative modes. 'Gestural' is given here a narrower range than 'gesture' in Richard P. Blackmur's Language as Gesture (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, n. d.).

IV

FROM P R E S E N T TO P E R F E C T

The difference between historical and novelistic designations can be observed in the way they make use of the temporal form. Two versions of this form must be distinguished. The neutral (or disengaged) version is content to order what is narrated according to the relation of succession and simultaneity. The differentiated (or engaged) version superimposes the past-present-future triad upon this relation. The future covers the moments posterior to the present moment. The past covers the anterior moments. One might say that the neutral version gives positive numbers to the moments, whereas the differentiated version uses positive and negative numbers, the present being the zero moment. Of course, I am simplifying: normally, a narration does not articulate the described processes so schematically. 1 I can historicize only if I historicize myself. A cognitive temporalization reflects itself as an event among the events it posits. This event belongs to the present: the present moment is determined as the moment in which the temporalization reflects itself. According to the size which is desired, the pre1

"Neutral version" and "differentiated version" correspond to " B series" and "A series" in the philosophy of Mae Taggart (The Nature of Existence: Cambridge University Press, 1927). Most of the difficulties and paradoxes regarding Time are centered on the question of the relations between the two versions. Some consider that the differentiated version is fundamental: thus Broad and the existentialists. Others, Kussell for instance, take the contrary view. For a summary of discussions on this subject, see Richard M. Gale, The Philosophy of Time (New York: Doubleday, 1967). My own presentation grants logical priority to the neutral version, epistemological primacy to the differentiated version.

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sent moment spreads around this anchoring event; thus: nowadays as against formerly; today as against tomorrow; now as against a moment ago; "On your mark ! Get set! Go !". On the contrary, in the case of narrative fiction, the temporalizing act (reading, writing) does not temporalize itself as an event among the events it posits. In a fictional field, there is no present which is not arbitrary; and the same goes for past and future. From the standpoint of the historical reader, it is the neutral version of the temporal form which orders a fictional field. The past-present-future triad must not be confused with the system of verb tenses which can be found in English, French and other languages. Correspondences between this triad and this system are not automatic. Thus, it is grammatical to say "He will arrive tomorrow", or "He is arriving tomorrow". A historian is allowed to shift from the preterit to the present tense as he describes events prior to the time of his writing. In the same historical narrative, the present moment may change in size. Thus, I may recount in a past tense events which occurred the day before and add that, "in our time", it is scandalous t h a t such things still happen: the described events do not belong to the present moment understood as today; but they belong to the present moment understood as "in our time". Finally, a contemporary event which a historian describes in the present tense may be considered, as past by the reader: the reader's historical present is the moment to which his reading belongs. For its part, a novelistic narration may indicate events in a present, past or future tense, though, from the reader's standpoint, the temporal form remains neutral. The tenses used may be present and past, or present and future, to establish a before-after relation: thus, when a fictional narrator is posited in the present tense as telling what happened before or what will happen after (if he predicts, prophesies). We must guard, in this case especially, against confusing the level of the basic narration (what signifies) and the level of the fictional

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narrator (primary level of the significatum), even if the basic narration corresponds exactly to the words of the narrating character. Failing this distinction, we would be led to mistake the arbitrary present of the fictional character for the historical present of the reader. Two readings of the same passage may yield two historical presents, but only one fictional 'present'. 2 Generally speaking, whether there is a fictional narrator or not, the use of verb tenses in a novelistic narrative fills the same functions as the use of personal pronouns. I t is convenient: an opposition between present and past tenses may be enough to distinguish between moments, in the same way t h a t an opposition between " m e " and "him" may be used to distinguish between characters. Besides, once they are freed from their cognitive tasks, verb tenses are enabled to develop tonal values. A gain in resonance may compensate for a loss in reference. Two examples will illustrate the esthetic use of verb tenses. The last stanza of Apollinaire's poem entitled "Marie" will show a properly poetic conversion: not only historicizing, b u t temporalizing itself disappears. 3 Moderato Cantabile, by Marguerite Duras, will illustrate the novelistic way. 4 The conversion may not be flawless in the latter case but the example it furnishes is striking. I quote Apollinaire's stanza in the original, the better to emphasize the difference between poetry and prose: 2

My Genre romanesque (Monaco: R e g a i n , 1963) fails clearly t o separate t h e historical present of t h e reading from a n arbitrary fictional present. I n Time and the Novel (London, 1952), A . A . Mendilow speaks o f fictional e v e n t s as if t h e y were historical: " T h e reader of a n o v e l occupies an e x t e n d e d p o s i t i o n in t i m e , and w i t h i n t h i s falls t h e d a t e of reading t h e n o v e l . This d a t e m a y n o t correspond closely w i t h t h e d a t e of t h e e v e n t s h e is reading a b o u t " (p. 86). 3 Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), p. 81. 4 Marguerite Duras, Moderato Cantabile, in t h e 10—18 edition (Paris: U n i o n générale d'éditons, 1962).

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Je passais au bord de la Seine Un livre ancien sous le bras Le fleuve est pareil à ma peine Il s'écoule et ne tarit pas Quand donc finira la semaine The imperfect je passais has not been prepared in the previous stanzas. In narrative prose, it could indicate either habit or a state of affairs. I n the first case, one would expect some kind of specification, such as " I used to walk by the Seine every morning". In the second case, a construction such as the following would make the meaning clear: " I was walking by the Seine when the storm broke out". What follows in the stanza does not help to decide between the two meanings of the imperfect. And it would be inappropriate to try. The two meanings are compatible as tonalities. And the context does not even allow us to establish a relation of succession between what is said in the imperfect and what is said in the present tense. The third line should not be translated as "Now the river is like my grief". Nor are we dealing with a present which would be equivalent to an imperfect. We are not allowed to translate this way: "At the time I was walking along the Seine, the river was like my grief; it flowed past and did not stop flowing." Let us turn to the future in the last line: "When will the week ever be over". This question can be asked in a practical situation: in the gestural mode, I then let it be understood t h a t I am looking forward to the end of the week. But, in the context of the stanza, what week are we dealing with ? This question cannot be answered. Like the line of Villon about the snows of yesteryear, the line of Apollinaire is both question and answer, or neither: the interrogative adverb quand donc is the poetic name of the end of the week. Apollinaire's tactics will be set in sharper relief if we translate, or betray, the whole stanza into narrative prose; thus: " I was passing along the Seine, with an old book under my

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arm, and I was thinking then, as I am thinking now, t h a t the river is like my grief, that it flows by and does not stop. And I was wondering then, as I am wondering now: 'When will this week ever be over?'" Two things may be noted. First, the translation chooses to place the thoughts of a character named " I " both in the present and in the past. The poetic text would just as well permit them to occur either in the earlier or in the later moment. Second, the relations of succession and simultaneity which the translation establishes need the support of added items: " I was thinking", " I am wondering now." Translating into narrative prose thus helps to show t h a t what the stanza says cannot be interpreted as events, either historical or fictional. But it would be misleading to assume t h a t the stanza projects what it means into an intemporal field of essences. No doubt, the present tense in the third and fourth lines can be interpreted as gnomic. But the difference with a philosophical conversion will clearly appear through a commentary such as the following: "Suppose I am grieving as I walk along a river, the Seine for instance. I may project what I feel into the spectacle of the water which flows past and never dries up. For, as Amiel puts it, a landscape is a mood or, in Sartre's woi%s, man is always outside, from the sky to the earth. And I may express my despair, or my weariness, or my impatience, by wondering when the week will be over, an absurd question in itself, since I know very well when it is supposed to end." The two paraphrases show how the poetic use of tenses differs from prosaic uses: the stanza does not map out a process, nor does it give an example. Apollinaire's text varies the tenses to bring out their tonal values. This device also contributes to shifts of approach in the various lines and thus helps to make the stanza revolve, unlike a paragraph of prose. Finally, it should be noted that, in this particular example, the choice of words sharpens the effect. Finir belongs to the temporal vocabulary, passer and s'écouler to the traditional imagery of Time. Add to this anden and semaine. The vocabu-

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PERFECT

lary makes it felt t h a t it is the temporal form itself, and its imagery, which are poetically converted. Out of the eight chapters of Moderato Cantabile, only one, the seventh, uses the present as basic tense; the others are faithful to the preterit. Yet this does not mean that the events described in the eighth and last chapter happen before those described in the seventh: on the contrary, it is clear that they happen after. The opposition between the present of the seventh chapter and the preterit of the others is accompanied by two other devices. First, in the seventh chapter, past and future tenses appear beside the present in the basic narration. Second, here and there in the other chapters, the use of the preterit, or of the past anterior, is strikingly extended to clauses in which the imperfect or pluperfect, or at least a different formulation, would be more normal. This disposition of tenses helps to contrast two groups of events. The seventh chapter places the central character, Anne Desbaresdes, in her social milieu. The others place her outside, as she takes her son to piano lessons and meets an outside character named Chauvin. These meetings are only a clearing in her life. The categorical futures of the seventh chapter can be interpreted, in this respect, as presaging what will be said in the eighth: Anne will not escape. In any case, her adventure with Chauvin was of a contemplative, vicarious kind. A man has killed his mistress in a café. Aniie returns to this café several times, asking Chauvin to imagine the story of the couple, explain the murder, in short turn the lovers into legendary figures. And Chauvin hesitatingly plays again and again the part of a bard or troubadour, as the child reluctantly plays again and again his sonatina. I n the last chapter, Anne puts an end to the adventure with a symbolic 'death'. Thus, within the fiction, the past-present-future triad of the tenses in the seventh chapter appears to suggest historical and practical time, whereas the preterit of the other chapters is reserved for an evocation of playing time. The child repeats

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his reading of the musical piece, Anne and Chauvin repeat their reading of the lovers' destiny, as we can repeat the reading of their adventure. Other stylistic devices are to be noted in the café episodes. Closer to a poetic conversion, they are not found in the basic narration, but in the words spoken by the characters. Thus Chauvin: Then the time came when, as he looked at her, sometimes, he no longer saw her as he had seen her before. She ceased to be beautiful, ugly, young, old, comparable to anyone, even to herself. He was afraid. It was during the last holidays. Winter came. You are going to return home on Boulevard de la Mer. It will be the eighth night (p. 86). Wavering between play and legend, Chauvin's words mix the evocation of the lovers with the evocation of Anne. In a passage without punctuation, Anne herself says: It would be good to live in a town without trees the trees scream when it is windy here it is always windy always except two days each year in your place you see I'll go away I won't stay all the birds almost are sea birds which you find dead after the storm and when the storm stops and the trees don't scream any more you can hear them scream on the beach as if they were slaughtered and the children can't sleep no really I'll go away (p. 59). The first two appearances of the future are ungrammatical and thus attract the reader's attention (too violently in the translation: the difference with the conditional is slighter in written French and may even disappear in spoken French). The future suggests a shift in reference from Chauvin to Anne which is confirmed at the end of the passage. But, conversely, the meaning of the final future is affected by the first two: we are dealing with a vaguely entertained wish, not with a prediction. And the context is such that the designative value of the first person is not only confused, but tends to be erased. The tonal value of these futures in thus enhanced. The future tense is also used in the seventh chapter, but on the basic narrative level: it posits events axiomatically. On

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the other hand, it must be acknowledged that some of the past tenses in the same chapter do not fit into my global interpretation. In conjunction with the switch to the present, the occasional use of the compound past should have been enough to maintain the opposition with the other chapters, which are based on the preterit. But, in the seventh chapter, preterits are used as well as compound pasts. Some of them are even emphasized. Taking them one by one, we might perhaps manage to grant them a tonal value. But this type of justification would leave unsolved the problem of their function in the narrative as a whole. I t has been said that reading a novel is like a waking dream. W A K I N G should be stressed. On the one hand, I coincide with the basic narration: I posit the narrated events in a fictional field. On the other hand, I temporalize myself historically: it is six in the evening, I have reached page twenty of the copy I am holding in my hands. Of course, this historical perspective must not become obtrusive. But it must not disappear either: otherwise, the esthetic perspective could not isolate its proper domain. I also adopt a dual perspective with dual temporalization if I read an imaginary dialogue or attend the performance of a drama. I n this case, however, my esthetic attention focuses more on the magic dialectic of speeches, attitudes and roles, than on an interplay of times and places. There is a dual perspective again, b u t only one temporalization, namely my historical inscription, if I read an analysis or recite a poem. Finally, reading a historical narrative requires only one perspective. Vigilance in this case consists in maintaining the distinction between my present and the moments whose contents are narrated, and in remembering t h a t a cognitive text can be neither axiomatic nor complete. The boasts of Romantic historians should be taken with a grain of salt. Past events are not to be 'resurrected'; and the reader is not to be 'transported' to the time of Julius Caesar.

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A distinction must also be made between the historical sequence of one reading and the sequence of narrated events, either historical or fictional. No doubt, there is a certain amount of correspondence between the two orders. Thus the sequence of clauses in the narration of a game in progress by a reporter. In the case of printed narratives, the typographical disposition, helped by punctuation, defines, to some extent, both a reading order and the order of the narrated events; thus: " I came, I saw, I won". But this correspondence between the two orders is only partial. An event described on page twenty may be prior to an event described on page ten. Or take the following sentence: " I remember I was still on the bridge when the storm broke out". Consider the three events: the occurrence of the recollection, being on the bridge, the storm breaking out. The temporal order of reading does not correspond to the temporal order of the described events. Besides, this reading order is only official. It is the order to which allusion is made in an essay with such formulas as "the preceding chapter", "the following sentence". There is no danger of confusion in this case, because the basic structure of a conceptual field is not spatio-temporal. But, since narratives are my topic, it may not be superfluous to stress how misleading the idea of a set reading order can be. After reading page fifty, you may return to page twenty to bring something back to mind. Furthermore, two readings or more are needed to appreciate a text properly. And the second reading of the first page is a historical event which is posterior to the first reading of the last page. Literary works, in particular narratives, are often talked about as if they were to be read only once, and in the official sequence. But, in order to bear on the various details, comprehension and appreciation must be able to encompass the whole.5 6 The overestimation of the official reading order can be observed in particular in this passage from Jean Ricardou, Problèmes du nouveau

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Unlike a historical report, a novelistic narrative is axiomatic and complete. The status of what remains implicit is thus radically altered. This is one of the differences between the historical and the novelistic meanings of words. In another chapter, we shall see how the application of causality is affected. In the paragraphs which follow, I shall confine myself to remarks about temporality. Suppose that a biography jumps from March to May. The reader will nonetheless assume that there was a month of April in that particular year and t h a t the narrated person did not cease to exist during April. During this month, there happened events which, though they are not known, belong at least in principle to the knowable category. Suppose now t h a t the same narration is read in a novelistic perspective. This time, there are no events which would not be known, yet knowable. We cannot decide that there was, 'in fact', a month of April and t h a t the narrated character continued to exist during April. But neither are we entitled to say that April does not belong to the fictional world in any respect whatever. The meaning of the words "March" and "May" does involve April. But April is not implicit in the same way as in a biography. I t is part of the semantic thickness of "March" and "May". I t contributes to ordering the events which take place in March and May. However, since it remains irreducibly implicit, it cannot be granted the status of a moment, of a temporal interval, which could, in theory, be furnished with events. roman (Paris: L e Seuil, 1967): " T h e absence of fictional c h r o n o l o g y reveals all t h e v a l u e of another chronology, t h a t of t h e narration, w h i c h is strictly m a i n t a i n e d . I t is t h e order of words, paragraphs, chapters, w h i c h d e t e r m i n e s t h e t e m p o r a l a x i s a l o n g w h i c h t h e r a c e a g a i n s t m e a n i n g t a k e s p l a c e " (p. 110). N o t e also t h a t , if t h e t e x t t o w h i c h t h i s passage alludes does n o t b e s t o w a spatio-temporal s t r u c t u r e o n w h a t is signified, t h e n t h i s t e x t is n o t a narration, or a t least n o t o n e narration. I f t h a t is t h e case, s a y i n g t h a t t h e chronology o f t h e "narration" is strictly m a i n t a i n e d a m o u n t s t o asserting t h a t t h e g r a m m a r , p u n c t u a t i o n a n d t y p o g r a p h y are normal.

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The literary critic as such is not entitled to make the implicit crystallize into moments and events. But he may criticize the dosage and judge that, in view of the context, a little more, or a little less, implicitness in a particular spot would have improved the whole. Let us consider again the topic of the observer. Narrative fiction does not need a fictional narrator: all it needs is a situated observer who polarizes, orients and orders the events as objects of perception, memory, foresight. In the absence of other indications, a third-person observer will be recognized as the perceiving pole of the described events, whatever the tense of the verb may be. And the same goes for an observer posited in the first person, if the events are described in the present tense. But suppose a narration which describes events in the first person of a past or future tense and which fails to indicate the time and place of an occurrence of memory or foresight.6 The context may be such that there is only a difference in tonality between this first person and a third person. The reader may also be incited to view the text as something else than a novelistic narration: thus my interpretation of Le Bavard as a dramatic monologue. If, however, these interpretations do not fit, I shall miss an axiom explicitly situating an event of memory or foresight among the narrated events. The resonances of a novelistic narration have a critical aspect. It depends on the text; it also depends on the reader: on his temperament, on the vicissitudes of his life, on his culture, on his momentary mood. In this theoretical study, I am interested in the significance of the novelistic perspective in general. It can be used for a philosophical critique of the historical perspective, by showing the relativity of the latter. But it also has a representative value. 6 These remarks about the first person would also apply to a secondperson narrative. See, for instance, Michel Butor, La Modification (Paris: Minuit, 1957).

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With or without words, I historicize the materials of my life. And this historical perspective is also a practical perspective. B u t some of these materials may also be assumed by a perspective of play, in a more or less contemplative or active fashion. Reading a narrative fiction can be likened to experiences which give rise to a dual temporalization, engaged and disengaged. I am not alluding to a legendary aspect of life, which would rest on a confusion between the two ways of temporalizing. I also eliminate experiences in which the perspective of play does not basically rely on a temporalization, on an interplay between moments and places. Such experiences would find better representatives in philosophical, poetic, or dramatic art. Finally, I p u t aside readings of narrative fiction, since 1 am looking for experiences which are not verbal and in which the events of our own life are taken in charge by a dual temporalization, neutral and differentiated. My personification as player differs from my personification as practical agent. If the spirit of the game permits, it can be likened to adopting the point of view of the fictional observer in a reading of narrative fiction. A practical perspective stresses the oppositions between self and not-self, myself and others; a perspective of play tends to free the quality of 'mineness'. Practical finality and esthetic, or playful, finality could also be contrasted. This question will be dealt with in the last chapter. I n what follows, I shall limit myself to the topic of the dual temporalization. Take the example of a soccer game. I t begins at 2 p. m. on December 12, 1957, on a geographically situated field. At 2 : 21 p.m., the ball is kicked into one of the nets. Intermission is from 2 : 50 to 3. The second half ends at 3 : 51. This is the historical perspective. The perspective of play does not draw its material from different events; and it does not establish a different temporal order. But, like the events which a novelistic narrative posits explicitly, the events which belong to the game are the only ones to be included. The playing field is not,

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as such, geographically situated. The ball is not kicked into the net at 2 : 21 p.m. on December 12, 1957; but there may be a goal scored in the twentieth minute of play. What happens during the intermission and while playing stops does not count. Before the start of the game and after the end, there is nothing. Memory can supply another example. The historicizing intention interprets a recollection as follows: right now I am imagining what happened to me ten years ago. But certain features may allow the recollected events to be viewed also in a neutral perspective: lack of practical interest, resonances and consonance. In this perspective, the pictured events are not situated in relation to me here and now, but emerge as a configuration against an implicit background. Paramnesia may also be mentioned. It consists in the attempt to interpret a perception as being also a memory, and in a failure precisely to locate the object of the supposed memory in the historical past. What thus fails to be situated in the past is the object of a neutral temporalization. Think also of the following experience: a television camera focuses on you and you see your motions on the screen of a receiving set. The privileged experiences which Proust describes in his novelized analysis appear to combine paramnesia with a memory in dual perspective. In one of his commentaries, the analyst speaks of "recovering bygone days", then of "something which, common to both past and present, is much more essential than either". The experience enables him to isolate " a little unadulterated time". But, further on, it is said that "the permanent and usually hidden essence of things is liberated". And finally: "A minute freed from the order of time has recreated in us, so that we may feel it, man freed from the order of time". 7 '

Marcel Proust, A la recherche

1954), III, 871-873.

du temps perdu

(Paris: Gallimard,

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I t is clear that we are not dealing here with an essence in the sense I have adopted for this term, but with a felt quality. On the other hand, we do not seem to be dealing with an ecstasy: historical temporalizing appears to be holding fast. The question is rather to decide whether there is also a temporalization in the other perspective. Does the felt resonance radiate from two distinct events in neutral time, or from a detemporalized image-and-perception ? In the first case, there is a rapprochement to be made with a novelistic perspective, in the second with a poetic perspective. Does "a little unadulterated time" allude to a neutral temporalization ? Probably not. I t appears rather t h a t the analyst recognizes only the historical type of temporalization: past and present. On the sole basis of the quoted passages, the second interpretation is thus to be preferred. There is some affinity between grammatical categories and the various modes of meaning. The infinitive would go with the poetic; verbal or adjectival nouns with analysis; the imperative and interjections with the gestural mode. Historical temporalization is centered on the present. The present is the zero moment. However, resorting to the terminology of grammar must not result in identifying grammatical category with semantic mode. A poem had better not be a cascade of infinitives. A historical narrative need not use any present tense explicitly; if it uses the present, the events which are posited in this way do not belong necessarily to the zero moment of the reader. The notion of perfect can be used for neutral temporalization. The danger of confusion is negligible in this case, since no tense is given this name in English grammar: the closest would be the present perfect. The perfect is a personal and indicative modality of the verb. I t is used to posit singular events: it can thus be distinguished from the intemporal, or gnomic, present. Besides, it tends to deny the distinction between past and present which

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the present perfect allows. I t is thus better suited than other grammatical categories to suggest neutral temporalization. I t suggests this temporalization more precisely in the case of a memory in dual perspective. The perfect is the accomplished. Words like 'accomplished' or 'achieved' bring to mind the connection between process and goal. This topic will be taken up in the last chapter. Let us, for the moment, limit ourselves to the purely temporal aspect. Life and death are correlative. I shall die one day. But, historically, I cannot consider my life as accomplished, since I am not dead yet. To adopt a historical perspective, I have to project my death into the future. 8 In a perspective of play, the correlation between life and death is different: as I play, I die my life. I do not mean t h a t playing is living one's last moments. The phrase I proposed tries to suggest a paradigmatic perfect. If I play badly, if I am bored as I play, I am content to kill time.

8

A survival a f t e r d e a t h m a y b e conceived historically. Most o f t e n , h o w e v e r , it is s i t u a t e d in a legendary perspective: it is supposed t o t a k e place a f t e r t h i s life a n d y e t n o t a f t e r . " A n o t h e r life" c a n also be c o n c e i v e d in neutral t i m e . B u t , in t h i s case, it c a n n o t be said t o t a k e place 'after' m y historical life; a n d i t c a n n o t include m y s e l f a s a historical person. T h i s o t h e r life could b e an after-life o n l y if it were l i v e d historically as well, h e n c e in a dual perspective.

y DETERMINANT AND D E T E R M I N E D

Acts happen: they produce themselves, they determine themselves. Contingency is the basic ontological necessity. To the extent that the power of what happens is felt as mine, has the quality of 'mineness', freedom is experienced. And the freedom that matters is the freedom which is felt. In the domain of what is conceived, either temporally or intemporally, various echoes are to be found. There are free wheels and fixed wheels, free admissions and free rides. An animal is free or in a cage; a man is free, or a slave, or in jail. I was free a moment ago, now I am busy. I am told "Make up your mind: you are free", and I feel caught in a dilemma. What signifies is transtemporal, what is signified is temporal or intemporal. What signifies determines what is signified: according to the ontological scheme which I have adopted, determination reduces to signification. To the extent t h a t what signifies is felt as mine, freedom is experienced. I t is felt in the coincidence between the determinant and the quality of mineness, not in the comparative indetermination in which the determinant leaves an individual referred to as myself. However, if the reflexivity of meaning is taken into account , the relation between determinant and what is determined can be extended within the intemporal and temporal domains. I t is in this way that the elements of what is signified can cohere: they appear to determine one another. Let us enumerate the main types of determination. In the transtemporal domain, there is self-determination; call primary determination the determination of the temporal or intemporal by the transtemporal; call secondary determina-

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tion the reflection of primary determination within the temporal and intemporal domains. The disjunction between essences and processes yields four types of secondary determinations: of the intemporal by the temporal (inductive generalization); of the temporal by the intemporal (application of laws); of the temporal by the temporal (genetic coherence); of the intemporal by the intemporal (analytic coherence). The controversy about determinism concerns the determination of what is historically temporalized: philosophical tradition does not pay much attention to fictional worlds. And yet the determinists have a tendency to reason on the basis of neutral temporalization. From my standpoint, this amounts to turning history into fiction. The anti-determinists, on the contrary, stress differentiated temporalization. This is quite appropriate, since the historical world is the topic. But, besides a tendency to identify comparative indetermination (or lack of precision) with freedom, they overestimate the ontological import of the differentiated version by contrasting a determined, or determinate, past with an undertermined, or indeterminate, future. This opposition breaks the temporal form into pieces. From a logical point of view, it must be asserted on the contrary t h a t what will be will be. I do not know on what date I shall die; but it will be on a determinate date. We must guard against a confusion between the future and the possible. Events to come are just as singular as past events. Unacceptable from a logical point of view, the opposition between a determinate past and an indeterminate future draws some support from the conditions of knowledge. No doubt, I shall die on a certain date, but this date, at the present moment, is not certain. On the contrary, I was born on a certain date and this date, at the present moment, is certain. So the argument might run. And it must be acknowledged t h a t retrodictions are more numerous and are more often held to be certain than predictions. But it is not an opposition between all and nothing.

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Clairvoyance, in particular clairvoyance bearing on the future, is apparently an underdeveloped faculty. But there is no reason to deny a priori the possibility of its development. Intuitive memory is a species of clairvoyance. Besides, as regards the immediate future, what is imagined announces what is going to be perceived with a fair amount of success. Otherwise, any sustained kind of planned behavior would be impossible. Knowledge of the past is incomplete: I remember where I was on the sixth of September 1944 at dawn, but not on the next day at the same hour. Knowledge of the past is not always more precise than knowledge of the future: eclipses are predicted with more accuracy than the birth of Jesus Christ can be dated. Finally, regarding certainty, any cognitive statement, even if it is directly derived from a memory, is subject to revision. And statements about the past imply statements about the future: namely t h a t the statement about the past will be corroborated, or at least will not be disconfirmed. To sum up, though the referent is logically something determinate, cognition can determine it only in a more or less probable, imprecise, incomplete manner, whether the intended referent is placed in the future, the present or the past. Let us turn to secondary determinations. Two types are relevant to my topic: determination of the temporal by the intemporal (application of general laws to determine singular events); determination of the temporal by the temporal within a singular process (determination of event by event). The two types are often confused under the name of causality. I shall limit the appellation of causality to the first type; the second type will be labelled destiny. An event appears to determine another if it is conceived as trace, recall, omen, presage. Basically it is what signifies that determines the events as such. B u t there may be relays: the signifier determines a primary significatum and, through it, a secondary significatum. In the description of a memory, the event of the memory is the primary significatum, what is

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remembered the secondary signiiîcatum. Thé determination of event by event works in both temporal directions. The extreme case of such determination could be put as follows: the anterior can appear as the necessary and sufficient condition of the posterior only if the posterior appears as the sufficient and necessary condition of the anterior. Predestination and post-destination are two equivalent ways of conceiving coherence in a temporal milieu. But, taken apart from the other, each of them is misleading. These preliminary remarks have been mainly concerned with historical determination. The two texts which I am going to discuss will provide the opportunity to consider novelistic determination as well. And it is in the latter kind t h a t the last chapter will be mostly interested. The first text is an article by Jean-Paul Sartre which criticizes La Fin de la nuit, by François Mauriac, in the name of the 'freedom' of fictional characters. The second text is Jacques le fataliste, by Denis Diderot. Sartre's article links ignorance and freedom as follows: "What Rogojin is going to do, neither he nor I know; I know t h a t he is going to see his guilty mistress again and yet I cannot guess if he will remain master of himself or if the excess of his anger will lead him to murder: he is free". 1 I do not know at what time the sun will rise tomorrow. An astronomer believes he knows it. Is the sun free for me, not free for the astronomer? I foresee that Frazier will win the championship bout. Is Frazier free for me if he loses, not free if he wins ? I predict that you will kill your mistress. You do not predict anything in the matter. Are you free in your own eyes, not free in mine? You decide to kill your mistress, hence you foresee t h a t you will kill her. No doubt, this forecast, like all historical deter 1 Jean-Paul Sartre, "M. François Mauriac et la liberté", in Situations I (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), p. 37.

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minations, is subject to revision. B u t are you free in your own eyes to the extent t h a t you are conscious of the uncertainty of your forecast ? Would you be better aware of your freedom if you said, for instance, "Of course, I decide and, as I decide, I foresee. B u t a lot of things may happen in the meantime. One hour from now, I may be dead"? Reading a novel for the first time, I wonder whether the character is going to kill his mistress. As I read it for the second time, I remember the whole text. Is the character free for me the first time, not free the second ? I n a novel, it is written on page twenty t h a t a character is vaguely thinking of killing his mistress. On page twenty-five, it is written t h a t he kills her. I n another narrative, it is written on page twenty t h a t a character kills his mistress and, on page twenty-six, a flash-back shows the hesitations of the character before the murder. Supposing in both cases a first reading in the official order, is the first character free in my eyes, unlike the second character? These examples show that we must avoid linking the impression of freedom regarding a character or a person to ignorance or error about his behavior. Narration determines the narrated events, whatever they may be. Historical determination is greatly limited by the uncertainties, the lack of precision and the incompleteness of cognition. Novelistic determination is, on the contrary, axiomatic and complete. And it is to be noted that Sartre's article draws its example from a novel of Dostoyevski. The passage I have quoted throws us off the scent. The article as a whole suggests a better lead. I t links the impression of freedom to t h a t of autonomy. But in regard to what must the character appear autonomous? Here again, some of the suggestions of the article should be discarded. This one for instance: "If it is true t h a t a novel is made with free consciousnesses and duration, as a picture is made with pigments and oil, La Fin de la nuit is not a novel" (p. 56). In this comparison, the discrepancy is deliberate. B u t

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that does not make it less objectionable. Mallarmé is reputed to have said to Degas t h a t a sonnet is made with words. The same goes for a narrative, even if it is historical. In order to be more specific, one would simply have to mention the substitution of temporal form for prosody. Basically, what is autonomous in a narrative is the fundamental narration itself, at least a novelistic narration. The impression of freedom which may accompany the reading is tied to this autonomy, to the extent t h a t this autonomy is felt as mine, to the extent, in other words, that the narrative as read, or better, reread, is a well-played game. But what about the autonomy of the character ? How can this impression of freedom concern him ? The autonomy of the narration is reflected in what is narrated as a whole. The coherence of this whole is a condition for the game to be well-played. The impression of freedom thus depends on the impression of destiny. True, it may concentrate on certain details: a landscape, the gracefulness of a described animal. But, above all, we must remember the function of the fictional observer. No doubt, he is situated, thus determined. But, since he polarizes the perspective, the autonomy of the whole is his own. Thus he can appear to destine himself. And the impression of freedom, if any, will be polarized in him. Sartre's article could be interpreted as a fuzzy approach to this conclusion. Technically, the requirement of a "free consciousness" amounts to demanding that the events be organized through an observer situated in the field, so that the autonomy of the fictional world may be insured. Thus, according to the article, the actions of the hero should not appear to be determined by "heredity, social influences or some other mechanism" (p. 37). These words do not allude to the determination of what is narrated by the narration, nor to the impression that the narrated events destine one another, but to causality, or a pseudo-causality. Heredity, social influences, mechanisms — these words suggest general laws, rules of the

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game of nature, the determination of the temporal by the intemporal. Likewise, when the article speaks of destin and destinée (pp. 40-41), as detrimental to an impression of freedom, I still pick up allusions to causality, or a pseudo-causality, rather than to destiny, in the sense I have adopted for these terms. Stylistically, the intemporal, or the general, intervenes in the midst of a narration through the use of commentaries which are not situated. In Sartre's article, the following sentence appears to be aimed at such interventions: "The object is not to define, still less to explain" (p. 37). These commentaries are like chinks in the autonomy of the narrated world. Placed under their sway, events turn into illustrations, and narrative fiction into apologue. From La Fin de la nuit Sartre's article draws examples of comments inserted into the narrative. We have already encountered this phenomenon in Sous le soleil de Satan, by Bernanos, also in Les Mots, by Sartre. In the latter case, however, the interpretation of the text as autobiography enables the reader to integrate the commentary: the commentator is situated in the field of events. In La Fin de la nuit, here are the comments I have noted: "This vague disarray, this whiff of extravagance which betrays ageing women who no longer have anyone to give them advice"; 2 "On her everything looked strange, without her knowledge" (p. 14); " I t is awful to have wanted to kill someone when you are afraid of death yourself" (p. 15); "This woman cautiously in despair" (p. 17); "No love is quite disinterested" (p. 32); "Before death no solitude is final" (p. 100); "We have trouble understanding that love often cares nothing about appearances" (p. 137); " I t is always the mystery of a soul that passion, even guilty, reveals to us" (p. 138); "A stinking beast betrays itself at the start" (p. 183); "Awful obscure little actions, done in solitude and deep security, define us better than great crimes" (p. 251). 2

François Mauriac, La Fin de la nuit (Paris: Grasset, 1935), p. 13.

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This list includes two doubtful cases: the last two judgments might be attributed to characters in the field. The rest are clearly non-situated comments which compromise the autonomy of the story as such. But I should not go so far as to claim that these comments appear to determine the described events, in particular the heroine's behavior. First it is to be noted that we could obey the directives of the comments and yet devise stories which would differ deeply both in the letter and in the spirit. Thus, which "passion, even guilty", shall we select? Guilty in the eyes of society? Which type of society ? According to ethics ? Whose ethics ? We could describe "obscure little actions" which would be "awful" according to a society and generous according to our ethics. And if we are of opinion that, unlike other species, all humans are "stinking beasts", choosing a character of the human type will be enough to satisfy the condition of the stinking beast. Furthermore, in La Fin de la nuit, the heroine's behavior does not supply anything definite. It consists mostly of trivial external and internal chatting. Rather than stinking, the heroine is insipid. Neither her behavior, nor the story as a whole, appear to illustrate some general law. But that is not due to the narrative asserting its own strength. The reason is rather the global mediocrity of the text. The content of Jacques le fataliste may be roughly distributed on three levels. 3 On the first level there are three characters: an author, a reader, a publisher. They belong to the dramatic kind: they talk, they are not situated. Through the words of the character of the author, the text furnishes the content of the second level: on this level, the characters of Jacques and his master are to be found. These second-level characters are basically novelistic: they are situated. They are made to tell anecdotes about themselves. But they also talk about characD e n i s D i d e r o t , Jacques 1953).

3

le fataliste

(Paris: C l u b français d u livre,

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ters who are not situated on the second level. These characters belong to a third level. Here and there, we encounter a coquettish pretence of confusing these levels; thus: "You see, reader, how obliging I am; it would depend only on me to give the whip to the horses" (p. 79). And again, "Suppose I too laid my head down on a pillow, while waiting for Jacques and his master to wake up, what would you think about i t ? " (p. 123). On the second level, the narrative pretends to confuse different moments. Thus, Jacques stops recounting his adventure with Denise in order to take a swallow from his gourd: "This was to make Denise come to, and to help him get over the pain which the surgeon had caused him in his knee. Once Denise had revived, and he had been comforted, he went o n " (p. 365). In the speeches of the character of the author (first level) and Jacques (second level), two themes are to be noted. On the first level, the theme of possibility: commenting on his story, the character of the author mentions the possibility of choosing to say this or that. At other times, instead of unambiguous narrative axioms, he is content to propose hypotheses or alternatives: the character of the reader will choose what he pleases. He also inserts a few facetious professions of veracity: it is out of respect for 'truth' t h a t he has decided to tell his story in this way. On the second level, Jacques often recurs to his favorite theme: namely t h a t what happens (on the second and third levels) is written "up there". What does this 'fatalism' mean? The character of the author ties it to Spinozism and says: "According to this system, one might believe t h a t Jacques did not rejoice, or lament, over anything; yet this was not the case. He behaved more or less like you and me" (p. 234). Actually, in order to be called a fatalist, Jacques has only to adopt the thesis of fatalism: the label does not necessarily involve any particular type of conduct outside this verbal behavior. A fatalist could say that, if Jacques resorts to rejoicing and lamenting "like you and me", it is not because he is not a fatalist, but because he is deter-

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mined to behave like you and me, with this difference that 'we' are determined not to profess fatalism. What determines? The text which is "written up there". Since it has to determine each and every singular event, this text must be a narration, and not simply a list of the laws of nature. Consequently, the fatalism we are dealing with is not a causalism in the sense I have given to the word 'causality'. Besides, regarding this text, we must not posit an event of writing which would take place before the events which are narrated. Some comments of Jacques would make it appear that the text "up there" has A L R E A D Y been written; thus: " I t would be written on the great roll: 'Jacques will break his neck on such a day', and Jacques would not break his neck?" (p. 15). But another passage inverts this temporal order: "And let this be written up there, added the magistrate" (p. 37). Actually, the text which is "written up there" cannot be situated as an event of writing in the same space-time as that of the events in the life of Jacques. Let us go back one level. The events on the second level are determined by the words of the author on the first level. These words recount the adventures and speeches of Jacques in a past tense. This is ironical. What Jacques does would be determined after the fact by the words of the character of the author. But, from the standpoint of this character, Jacques is a fictional being. Consequently, his adventures cannot take place before, during or after the spoken words which create them and which constitute in themselves the content of the first level. We can go one step further. The character of the author and his words belong themselves to what is signified. The fundamental signifier is the text entitled Jacques le fataliste. A signifying act, this text, as read, determines the significata on the three levels I have distinguished. I n Spinozistic terms, it functions as natura naturans and the content as natura naturata: the text "written up there" is none other than Jacques le fataliste.

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Understanding the text is a transtemporal act — neither before, nor during, nor after what is understood. No doubt, this act can be projected into various events: thus Denis Diderot writing on a certain day, or myself reading his work at another time. Even so, however, there is still no temporal relation between these historical events and the fictional events which are narrated, nor between these historical persons and the dramatic characters on the first level. The fundamental text determines the role of the character of the author as well as the adventures of Jacques. Hence an irony bearing on the passages in which the character of the author is made to say t h a t it would depend only on him to tell his story otherwise. For the text determines what he is and what he says: it would depend only on him, but he depends only on the text. And even though he receives the honorary degree of author, the way the work is built does not even allow him to radiate through the whole in the way of novelistic characters who polarize the perspective. Except nominally, he has a much smaller share in the autonomy of the whole. Consider also the passages in which the character of the author proposes conjectures or alternatives regarding Jacques and his master. In a historical perspective, there are events to be known. Conjecture ("She may have been in Paris") and alternative ("She was in Paris or in London") imply t h a t there is a state of affairs to be given verbal determination. I n a novelistic perspective, on the contrary, no event is to be presumed outside those which the narration establishes without equivocation. Conjecture and alternative then are limited to being events in themselves: a situated character formulates or entertains them at a certain time in a certain place. I n Jacques le fataliste, the words of the 'author' do not even enjoy this status. For this character is not situated. Viewed in another way, the passages on possibility ("It would depend only on me"), conjectures and alternatives show that the application of the laws of nature, t h a t is to say, of the semantic rules of French, does not allow one to deduce

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the adventures of Jacques and his master from a given situation. And the same kind of comment might be brought to bear on the considerations of Jacques regarding necessity. He orders a gang of scoundrels to go to bed. To the question of his master " W h a t if they had refused?", he replies t h a t this was impossible, since they did obey (p. 11). As a matter of fact, the event of their obeying appears necessary to us, in the sense t h a t the text of Jacques le fataliste posits it axiomatically. The necessity which is involved is based on the brute constraint of contingency, on the constraining gratuitousness of what signifies. On the other hand, no causal necessity is involved. For the sentence "If there is a command, then there is obedience to this command" is not a law of nature; and it does not formulate a semantic rule of either French or English in Diderot's time or our own. I n the context of Jacques le fataliste, conjectures and alternatives have also the interest of attracting attention to the lack of destiny, that is to say, of a properly narrative coherence. The first level is not even novelistic; and, on the second level, the characters, though situated, are mostly talkers. Furthermore, the anecdotes which they tell are so varied that, to the extent t h a t they may give an impression of destiny, this impression is scattered among them instead of cementing the whole. The character of the author makes fun of 'novelmakers'. As a novel-maker himself, he caricatures their devices: protestations of veracity, abuse of heavy-handed coincidences. From the standpoint of my study, what is to be learnt from the themes of possibility and necessity as they are treated in Jacques le fataliste can be summed up as follows. Undermined by the comments on possibility and by the coquettish whimsicality of the whole, the theme of necessity reduces to the proposition that what signifies determines what is signified. And this undermining also shows the difficulties specific of the narrative art, t h a t is to say, the difficulties attendant upon the composition of a process which is to produce an impression of coherence in its singularity.

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The preceding chapter has labelled 'destiny' the coherence specific of singular processes. The art of narration is thus centered on the art of destining. The object of this last chapter is to analyze the factors conducive to an impression of dastiny. To begin, the topic of implicit meaning will be taken up again, in order to bring into relief the distinction between causality and destiny. If you are told that it is raining in the street , you will infer that the pavement is wet. Fruits on a tree in summer indicate that the same tree was in bloom in the spring. If a biography jumps from the child to the adult, you suppose nonetheless that the subject was an adolescent in between. And if only the face of a man is described, you take it for granted that the face is part of a body. Thus do we supply the historical field with facts. From a few details held to be true we infer many other details. This is the procedure even with our personal past: intuitively, memory provides only snatches. We infer singular events by applying the general laws of physical and psychological nature as we receive and accept them. These rules are put to work in the implicit meaning of the words we use to narrate. Thus, the inferences which have just served as examples rely on the understanding of such words as "rain", "fruit", "child", "adult", "man", "face". If comprehending the terms is enough univocally to determine events, states of affairs, which the narration does not posit explicitly, we apply causality. Otherwise, we try to make do with probability. Causality is the limit of probability.

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Let us now transfer the examples which have been given to a novelistic perspective. Adding that the pavement is wet would no longer be a cognitive inference: it would be an esthetic modification. And it would also be an esthetic modification to add t h a t the pavement is not wet. If the context says nothing about it, we cannot specify t h a t the tree covered with fruits had blossomed, nor that it had not. The novelistic use does not reduce the scope of the meaning of " f r u i t " : an intimation of blossoming is still part of it. But the status of the implicit meaning has changed: we are not entitled to project as event what is intimated. No doubt, a critic may comment at length upon what remains implicit in a narrative fiction. But his own attempts at making things more explicit must resort to the analytic mode, not to the narrative: his job is not to add fictional events to the story by appealing to causality or probability. 1 As it is most often upheld, determinism confuses destiny and causality. And yet they diverge basically. To the extent t h a t a process coheres in its singularity, it is not a collection of examples of causal laws. Out of two games of chess, both correct in their application of the rules, one may have an attractive development, the other may be mediocre. I n its own way, the disjunction between destiny and causality shows the gap between temporal and intemporal. In order to have some narrative coherence, a historical narrative must impose on its topic, a human life for instance, a certain original consistency. B u t this involves simplifications, arrangements, which hardly agree with cognitive honesty. Besides, a large number of events, even among those which are posited explicitly, are introduced through inference. 1

T h e use of inferences a l l o w s historical narratives t o p o s i t e v e n t s w i t h o u t direct witnesses. I n a n o v e l i s t i c p e r s p e c t i v e , on t h e o t h e r h a n d , introductions such a s t h e f o l l o w i n g are ludicrous: " A k e e n observer w h o w o u l d h a v e chanced t o p a s s b y could h a v e n o t i c e d . . . " W h y resort t o a historical license w h e n y o u are a t liberty t o p o s i t in t h e indicative all t h e fictional observers y o u need ?

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Novelistie narrations are in a much better position to neutralize the application of causality and increase, in exchange, the impression of destiny. Let us brush aside the interventions of fantasy. K a f k a ' s Die Verwandlung composes a hybrid character which spurns zoological models. I n L'Ecume des jours, by Boris Vian, one can find, among other things, a disease and an apartment which medicine and physics would not recognize as their offspring. Such devices are not necessarily without purpose or merit. B u t they do not concern the art of narration as such. If you break a semantic rule, you attract attention to the rules. An impression of gratuitousness and facility threatens fantasy: if this rule is broken, why not t h a t one? If it is broken here, why not there? Justifications can be provided by a satirical, rather than purely novelistie, interpretation. The strategy of narrative art does not consist in developing what would be held as fantastic, improbable, impossible, in a cognitive perspective. The negative object is rather, through cutting and assembling, to dispose the explicit and implicit in such a way as to discourage inferences of events on the basis of causality and probability, or improbability, for that matter. The fructification of a fictional plant indicates neither a previous flowering nor an absence of flowering. But florality nonetheless continues to be part of its semantic thickness. A novelistie decoupage exploits what would appear as simplifications, or shortcuts, in a historical narrative. Through the limitation of explicit description, it can discourage, not only cognitive inferences, but also the application of cultural stereotypes. Among these cliches, psychoanalytic and mythical models, and even those which a literary tradition has consecrated, should be mentioned. 2 2

So far, the structural analysis of narratives has mainly consisted in bringing out such cultural stereotypes. See Claude Bremond, "Le Message narratif", in Communications, 4 (1964), 4-32. As I read Tzvetan Todorov, La Orammaire du Décaméron (The Hague: Mouton, 1969), I also noticed that the structural patterns left out the distinction be-

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The commentators who remain faithful to a 'realistic', or 'naturalistic', ideology are prone to complain t h a t the behavior of a character is lacking in motivation. I n certain instances, there is some merit to this kind of criticism: considering the whole, it would have been better if the text had been more explicit on this point. But, applied systematically, it is inappropriate. What makes it inappropriate is not so much t h a t the explanatory models which the commentator would like to see illustrated are stereotypes whose cognitive value is, to say the least, doubtful. I t should rather be noted t h a t narrative autonomy is compromised if the reader has the impression t h a t the narrated events are dictated by accepted general models. More positively, the change in the status of the implicit should enable the text to gain in resonance what is lost in referential value. This subject has already been touched upon with regard to verb tenses. We should now think, more broadly, of the substitution of echoes for causal inferences. Thus, the florality which is implicit in the plant covered with fruit may echo the flowering of another fictional being, which does not even have to be a plant. The same word, or the same phrase, may contribute to the description of various phenomena, in such a way t h a t what is implicit in one case becomes explicit in another. This exploitation of polysemy or, in rhetorical terms, of antanaclasis, must be distinguished from a symbolic coding derived from a conventional system (Christian, occultist, or Freudian, for instance). And it must also be distinguished from the dead metaphors which are used in the application of cognitive models: thus the word "current" for electric, as well as hydraulic, phenomena; also the word "wave". The text may, however, revive such metaphors esthetically, by tween novelistic and dramatic modes. With a different orientation, structural analysis should be able to take this bifurcation into account. But I do not see how history can be contrasted with fiction, without resorting to epistemological and ontological considerations.

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going deeper, or extending the range. From a cognitive standpoint, echoes arranged in this way would appear as 'mere coincidences', or as puns. But this does not exclude the bare possibility that one day, with the progress of knowledge and changes in the cognitive vocabulary, one of these puns will assume the air of an 'intuition of genius'. As they avoid illustrating general models, connections through echoes may help produce an impression of consonance proper to the particular narrative. But what has just been said hardly shows how the coherence of a narrative is not simply the cohesiveness of a poem in prose. To produce an impression of destiny, the narrated process must compose an action. Sometimes, we judge 'absurd' a process which illustrates no accepted model. We then deplore its singularity. But we may also judge t h a t a process, or a narrative, is 'senseless', because it does not compose an action. We then score its lack of singular coherence. I n the transtemporal domain, acts determine themselves, finalize themselves: the end cannot be distinguished from the means. An action reflects the finality of an act on the temporal plane. More precisely, the means are objectified as events, and, as means, the events reflect the end. The end remains transcendent to the process: it is not the result. And if we speak of intentions, the intention must not be identified with the first moment. Staying on the side of what signifies, the end gives a coherent meaning to the signified process: the process appears as a coherent sequence of means. The means are to be conceived, the end is to be felt. " I feel that the soporific is beginning to act". This sentence applies a causal model. I t may also suggest a felt power, an experienced finality.3 The end is not to be conceived, hence 3

In his Monadologie, Leibniz writes: "The two reigns, that of efficient oauses and that of final causes, correspond". The connection which I see between destiny and finality could be likened to this correspondence. B u t the notion of efficient cause does not distinguish between

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not to be known: finality does not supply science with a principle of explanation. Philosophically, we can manage to intimate the transcendent character of the end by defining an ideal through incompatible properties. As regards narrative art, what has just been said about finality may be developed into directives. I shall distinguish three. The action must take hold of what is signified as a whole. I t has to make it coherent as an object of narration, that is to say, as a process. And the end itself must remain transcendent. I n some philosophies, finality does not stretch beyond the human domain. In others, it extends to life, or even to nature. Current uses of the words "action" and "acting" also go beyond the human domain: a brake may fail to act. We may speak of the action of a novel. And drama commentators used to worry about the unity of action. I n order t h a t an impression of destiny may arise, the action has to pervade the various events, and not just the behavior of a particular character. The two coincide if one character polarizes the perspective. This is the simplest and probably the most effective strategy. What has been said concerning affectivity should be extended to the volitive aspect. Conflicts between the wills of human characters are better suited to the dialectic of drama than to an interplay of times and places. Of course, a novelistic character may very well formulate plans and express desires. But, from the standpoint of narrative art, the speeches of a character are events without privilege. I n order t h a t an action may permeate a narrated world, no special element must destiny and causality. Besides, the impression of destiny and finality is to arise from play or fiction rather than from history. Forgetting their own incarnation, metaphysicians were prone to adopt a divine point of view. And a non-incarnated god could not tell history from fiction even if his life depended on it. The point is, his life does not depend on it.

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monopolize the volitive aspect. And it must be somewhat subdued. Let us consider, in this regard, La Naissance de l'Odyssée,4 The abundance and sometimes the violence of the metaphors are a striking feature of this text. The various natural domains supply one another with subjects and predicates: meteoric, mineral, vegetable, animal, mental, divine; thus: "The bloodless flesh of this e a r t h " , " t h e cunning waters", "the hard jaw of t h e rocks", "his legs like algae", "despair started gnawing a t his liver", "he heard the light trotting of his memories", "Cybele . . . the sounding lead of heaven", " t h e yawning mouth of t h e woods", " t h e prow of the moon", " t h e blue wings of evening were flapping", "the red glance of the hearth", "fear flowed f r o m him down to t h e grass", "anxiety was flowing in the middle like an A u t u m n spring", " t h e wave crashed lovingly against it, recognizing the chest of Poseidon", " t h e explosion of Pallas made the darkness bloom". The global effect of such metaphors is to minimize t h e difference between w h a t is personified and w h a t is not, and the precedence of subject over predicate. Their criss-crossing imparts 'life' to w h a t is imagined and tends to make t h e various domains reduce to t h e biological. Some kind of finality is thus suggested. B u t is it the finality of an action which would be felt through a narrated process ? A f t e r years of roving, Ulysses returns to Ithaca to regain possession of f a r m and wife. One night a t an inn, without giving his name, he invents t h e fabulous adventures of a Ulysses worthy of Homer. As a m a t t e r of fact, a blind b a r d is listening. H e makes t h e material his own; and others in his wake, so t h a t Ulysses, travelling incognito, finds he is preceded on his way by his own winged legend. Among other things, it strikes the young Antinous with terror and sends him swiftly to his death. I n the f r a m e of this plot, the metaphors help give us t h e 4

J e a n Giono, La Naissance

de l'Odyssée

(Paris: K r a , 1930).

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idea of a mentality which is exemplified in the creation of the legend and in the magic effect of this legend on the behavior of the characters. In their very overabundance and lack of measure, they function as a kind of ironical explanation. They can thus be justified; but they have to be viewed as a device for characterizing a mentality, rather than arranging a singular process. From the standpoint of narrative art, my reaction is mixed. These metaphors do manage to stir up some echoes between events. But, considered in this respect, the way the device is used in La Naissance de l'Odyssée would appear garish, often decorative and superfluous, forced rather than strong. By mixing the vocabularies specific of the various natural domains, the play of metaphors does produce an impression of homogeneity. But, in this regard, its effect is to evoke a bubbling universal life, rather than making us feel the impact of a finality peculiar to the story. Each reading may be considered as an action, whether the text is narrative or not. I n an essay, allusions may be made to the official reading sequence and present its events as means. A text may be viewed as an undertaking: "The object of this essay is to show . . ."; "The purpose of the pamphleteer was to expose . . . " I am not concerned with such matters: I am interested in the action which pervades, not the historical process of reading or writing, b u t what is narrated. U p to a point, the sequence of narrative sentences corresponds to the sequence of narrated events. B u t I have already stressed divergences. Thus a detective story will develop jointly the events of the investigation and the events which are investigated. Above all, more than one reading is required to appreciate a text properly. Effects of suspense and surprise are not to be spurned. B u t what matters is what becomes of suspense and surprise on the second reading, when the reader has the whole at his disposal to judge the details. This does not mean t h a t the order and manner of presentation are indifferent. Importance,

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echoes j tonality — the value of an event varies according to whether it is posited without a break, in retrospect, through an event of remembrance or foresight, and according to whether it is described once or more than once, as the object of a prophecy and as the object of a perception for instance. These options belong to the second dimension of narrative art. The physiognomy of the game depends also on the use of the basic dimension, that is to say, on the spatio-temporal placement of the events, in whatever way they may be objectified. Various soccer games may end on the same score of three to two. But, to select this one factor among others, the meaning of the goals varies according to the order in which they are scored. Compare this sequence: one-nothing, two-nothing, three-nothing, three-one, three-two; with another, say: onenothing, one all, one-two, two all, three-two. Practically, the result is the same: it does not matter which way you add up. Esthetically, the action is not the same: the goals call forth and recall one another differently. Likewise, the genetic physiognomy of the adventure matters in a story. Narrative art plays hide-and-seek with general models. To assert its autonomy, the narrated process as a whole must not look like an illustration of causal laws and cultural stereotypes. On the other hand, however, the way in which the events are arranged must be drawn from the meaning of the words, in so far as this meaning includes general possibilities of links and echoes. The impression of finality, or destiny, arises from a convergence in the exploitation of such connections, a convergence which the application of general models could not produce by itself. We speak sometimes of 'dramatic irony', or 'poetic justice'. As concerns narrative art, we might say that, if there is a basic irony, it is directed at the models: linking is managed where, on the sole support of these models, only chance could be ascribed. The finality at work in a narrative must be such t h a t its manifestation requires a narrated process. Finality is tem-

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poralized as destiny: the end haunts and orients the events, orders them as means. The word "end" means the goal, the ideal; it may also name the closure of a process, the terminal horizon; and again it may designate the last events, the ending, the resulting state of affairs. This is an interesting spectrum: it shows the affinity between finality and temporality, the way in which we try to conceive what is felt and project onto the temporal axis the transcendent relation between means and end. But this projection can only give us a reflection, a shadow. The end which designs the process as a whole must not be confused with the last state of affairs, not even with the terminal horizon, represented by the words "the end" printed on the last page. No doubt, there is, in this case, a suggestion of transcendence: "the end" does not name an event. But its position incites us to confuse the reading process with the fictional adventure and to posit a state of affairs which somehow would take place 'after' the last of the narrated events. The impression of destiny works in both temporal directions. One should beware of the traditional interpretation of 'destiny', or 'fate', as predestination. It is the original state of affairs which is then unduly privileged, in so far as it marks a decision whose efficacy the remainder of the process would simply be required to display. The myths of Creation exhibit the same kind of ambiguity as the words "the end" printed on the last page. On the one hand, they place the act of decision outside the process: "With time, but not in time", said Augustine of the divine creation. On the other hand, they suggest a legendary state of affairs which would occur 'before' the first historical stage. Speaking of a "continued creation" minimizes the privilege of a first moment, either historical or legendary. But an ambiguity still persists: strictly speaking, it is what is created, not creation, not the creating, which is continued. These remarks show the difficulties attendant upon speaking or thinking about finality. The end has a transtemporal

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status: it is to be felt. But, as we try to conceive what is felt, we are led to objectify it temporally or as an essence. In the latter case, we run the risk of confusing finality with causality, in the sense I have adopted for this term: note the relationship between 'idea' and 'ideal'. All that can be done to warn against the inevitable imperfections of language and thought is to adopt negative tactics: make the privileges of origin and result cancel each other; say that the end is the horizon of the process as a whole, and rely on the resonances of 'horizon'. Or we may frankly resort to images: the polar star directs your steps, but you will not reach it, not even get closer. Concerning activities of play, I had already tried to deflate the privilege of the last moment and break the spell of a legendary moment which would be after and not after the last moment, by substituting the idea of dying one's life for that of death. But practical activities themselves, even if they are successful, do not quite cancel the transcendence of the end. No doubt, a practical activity needs a practical goal, that is to say, a goal which may be achieved at the last stage of the process: the purpose is not to play well, but to win. Practical goals are indispensable ito moral activities; otherwise, the moral outlook becomes perverted and shifts to an estheticism. But the principle nonetheless persists that the achieved goal can have a meaning only to the extent that it reflects a transcendent end. A panoramic glance ranging over practical activities cut off from a moral ideal deprives them of meaning. We are then reduced to considering them, either as processes which illustrate biological, psychological and sociological models, or as activities of play. 5 The moral purpose is not to play well. But practical goals derive their moral meaning from an inaccessible ideal which Converting practical activity into play is a traditional strategy with the moralistes. On the whole, they tend to adopt a dramatic, rather than novelistic, perspective. Montaigne sums up the human comedy: " A l l our activities are farcical". Le Mythe de Sisyphe, b y Albert Camus, develops the following argument: since our condition is tragic, let us play tragedy.

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demands t h a t each sentient life be lived under pure conditions of play. Moral activities would lose their objectives if every instance of suffering were only experienced like a false note. This suffices to show the lack of measure between the moral ideal and practical goals. Let us return to the art of narration. We are concerned with an esthetic finality. In order to appear well or badly played, the narrative must be viewed as play. If reading the narrative is to be lived in a spirit of play, then the narrated process itself must not be considered as an action of the practical variety. I have already touched upon this subject when I spoke of the conversion of the volitive and affective aspect. Declarations of intention may be inscribed as events among events, but without privilege. And the narrative must avoid making the last state of affairs appear as a practical success or failure. This last stage too must be integrated and help produce echoes. The aspect of success, if there is one, must be mirrored by an aspect of failure, and vice versa. What would be conflict or contradiction in a practical perspective must be converted into contrast. These remarks concern in particular novels of education, stories of quest and inquiry. Many texts more or less novelistic in nature appear to be bent on satirizing aspects of the historical and practical perspective. Sterne's Tristram Shandy makes f u n of autobiographies; K a f k a ' s Das Schloss gives an ironical view of practical finality conceived in the spirit of instrumentalism (problems to solve). For my purpose, the interest of such texts is that they comically exploit the irrelevance of practical finality in a novelistic milieu. I n order to make itself felt throughout the narrated world, the end must remain atmospheric. I t is not a hidden goal which, according to some code, an apparent goal would symbolize. If I hold, for instance, that a psychoanalytical or theological commentary explains a text satisfactorily, I thereby make an unfavorable esthetic judgment, which may or may not be deserved.

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From a narrative whole, an analysis draws what it pleases. I t may find in the narrated process a paradigmatic value, formulate the philosophical bearing of certain resonances. I t may endeavor to pinpoint some good and bad qualities. I t may also try to project the atmosphere into an essence defined by properties, and the genetic physiognomy into a structural pattern. But a conceived essence is not a felt atmosphere; and a structural model is not a sequence of narrated events. Commentaries may help appreciate a text. The diversity of interpretations shows its wealth, or its lack of convergence. But, even if the commentary is aimed at the narrative as such, its perspective is not that of a reading or rereading of the narrative: it is a reflection on the perspective of the read narrative. The analysis has its own atmosphere. The atmospheric status of the end does not prevent certain narrated moments from appearing more revealing than others: the sky may clear, or become overcast. But such moments, or events, though they enjoy a comparative privilege, must not leave the impression of giving away the end. These 'epiphanies' 6 had better not be presented in the following manner: "She then realized t h a t the true meaning of this adventure was . . . " If there is only one epiphanic moment, it had better come neither last nor first. And the privilege had better be distributed between several epiphanies, of a sufficiently different cast. The relativity of the privilege must be stressed: in theory, each state of affairs should be, in its own way, more or less revealing in relation to the whole. These various requirements concern pure narration. The idea of a pure narration is, in a sense, a boundary concept. A story draws its material from the same lexicon and syntax as an analysis or a poem. And it shares this material with other 6

' E p i p h a n y ' is t h e m o s t current t e r m in recent literary criticism. I n Le Genre romanesque, I h a d tried 'totalization'. B u t this word h a d b e t t e r b e l e f t t o t h e H e g e l i a n tradition.

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stories. The more one reads, the more analogies are collected. B u t the appreciation of differences is sharpened cor relatively. Whether the text is narrative or not, one cannot reasonably ask each detail to be justified to the exclusion of any other possibility. Only variants which would improve the whole can bring support to an unfavorable judgment. On the other hand, one should beware of the spell of exegetic mania. With some training and ingenuity, you can discover structures in anything. And the objective, without your realizing it, quickly becomes making a mediocre text appear as a masterpiece of organization. My considerations on narrative art have relied on novelistic possibilities. I n order to have some amount of beauty, a historical narrative must embellish its subject. Think how messy the honest chronicle of one hour in a human life would have to be. Well-played games would appear to supply good subjects. But the chronicle has to historicize the game. Fusing historical and novelistic time, it turns into legend. Most often, the shift to legend proceeds in the other direction: the story tries to bestow a novelistic or dramatic organization and closure on practical activities. From an esthetic standpoint, the historical mass appears hopeless in many respects. What is said cannot be axiomatic: the 'facts' may be false, in particular those which are inferred by appealing to probability. What is said is internally incomplete: some events are unknown; others have to be left aside. What is said is externally incomplete: the closure of the subject is arbitrary; the narration is connected with other narrations; what is told is related to the present of the reader. Considered historically, activities are practical. To bring out a practical finality, the historian must forsake making his field homogeneous from an affective and volitive standpoint. He has to oppose the inert to the practical, activity to passivity, animal practice to properly human practice. This means that a practical finality cannot pervade and organize what is narrated as a whole. In any case, in the texts which commonly

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receive the label of history, the part of the commentary (explanations, judgments) is as great as t h a t of the narrative. The narrative p a r t thus tends to function as example: described or summed up, the activities are designed to illustrate sociological or psychological models. This means t h a t finality is abandoned for causality, in the sense I have adopted. True, the historian may try to superimpose a finalistic point of view by composing patterns of intentions and reasons which would fit the narrated activities in their singularity. More precisely, he may cut the process into stages selected in such a way as to permit a dialectical arrangement. But the topics which can yield to this kind of treatment without too much protest must be scarce. 7 Besides, in order to view an activity as practical, the historian must contrast failure with success. And the failure of an activity is the failure of the practical finality to which the process is entrusted. Since practical activities are in conflict, what is gained on one side is lost on the other. Lastly, if practical activities are to be considered in the light of a specifically human finality, the moral standpoint must be brought into play. And, in order to do this, it is not enough to characterize the ethos of an individual or a group; for this does not go beyond the explanation of activities with the help of psycho-social models. The moral point of view can manifest itself only if the historian does not hesitate to judge the narrated activities from this standpoint: historicization is based on me here and now, and I grant an activity a properly human status if I appraise its moral orientation as well as its efficacy. B u t most activities which professional historians use as material are, to my mind at least, morally absurd. Thus the historical narrative finds itself in the position of having to 7

F o r recent v i e w s o n t h e description a n d comprehension of h u m a n activities, see N o r m a n Care and Charles L a n d e s m a n , Readings in the Theory of Action ( I n d i a n a U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1968). F o r a n e x a m p l e o f dialectical arrangement, see J e a n - P a u l Sartre, Saint Genet comédien et martyr (Paris: Gallimard, 1952).

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look for justification in a moral criticism. Think of a writer who would perpetrate a bad novel so as to be able to 'demolish' it in a good commentary. Actually, the very existence of narrative fiction, whatever its content, is an indictment of history on esthetic and moral grounds. More generally and more loosely: the very existence of art is critical of nature as we know it and fail to comprehend it. When the question is asked whether history, or life, has a meaning, the use of the singular appears to matter. The question implicitly discards an answer which would point out that there are many kinds of meanings, of sundry shapes and colors, and that, correlatively, there is a multiplicity of lacks of meaning. The question is turned toward an answer which would formulate one and only one meaning. What type of meaning? If history and each individual life are viewed temporally, the meaning which is sought is a meaning of action, a finality. A positive answer, whatever it may be, presupposes that the imperfections of knowledge are passed over. The answer must pretend to enjoy the same position as the commentary of an axiomatic and complete narrative. And yet there is more in a drop of the experience of a mouse than some Hegelian mountain labelled 'absolute knowledge' could conceive. A positive answer must also erase the distinction between practical activity and activity of play. Otherwise, we would have two types of finality, two types of meaning. Lastly, a positive answer must both assert and deny the meaning of the activities which are chosen as atomic units. I t must recognize this meaning: otherwise, it would not catch anything. But it denies this meaning through some kind of Hegelian Aufhebung: the meaning which is peculiar to the absorbed activity is destroyed. Apart from those which are supposed to be oriented 'in the direction of history', as the historian is pleased to choose it, atomic activities are absorbed like a rabbit in the direction of the snake's digestion. The ideal of moral activities is that each sentient life, human

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or not, be lived under pure conditions of play. I n their way, eschatological myths which turn history into a closed totality testify to this ideal. False witnesses, they do as if the indefinite, disparate, unlimited historical welter were a cleverly arranged novelistic or dramatic world. More honestly, they give as a practical end to historical agency the end of the historical and practical perspective. I t is in this way that an apocalypse can be revealing.

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