Till Örebro universitet

In this article we examine the critical proposition that common versions of narratology do not provide an accurate description of narrative fiction and analyze why this critique has mostly been disregarded by narratology. The theoreticians we refer to-Sylvie Patron, Richard Walsh, and Lars-Ake Skalin-do not accept the notion that narrative fiction should be understood in terms of non-fictional narratives. We label their position a "difference approach" in contrast to a putative "sameness approach." We find their "difference" arguments convincing and therefore ask why they have had no apparent effect on narratology. As we discuss misreadings that the criticized approach to narrative fiction could be expected to generate and arguments that refute the existence of such misreadings, as well as suggested readings of narrative fiction by Liesbeth Korthals Altes, James Phelan, David Herman, and Gerard Genette, we make the claim, referring to Phelan's rhetorical narratology, that sameness narratology is often presented as a theory but in fact used and defended as a method or toolbox. Our suggestion is that it would be better to rework the theory of narrative fiction commonly adopted by narratologists so that the theoretical assertions become congruent with the analytical practice and with the intuitions about narrative fiction that the analytical practice implies. We thus support the difference approach.

Drömfakulteten (2006) is an experimental novel by the Swedish writer Sara Stridsberg portraying the life of political activist and writer Valerie Solanas. I read Drömfakulteten as a “literary fantasy” where the forms, the themes, and the atmosphere are foregrounded rather than the biography of Solanas, and suggest that it can be viewed as a deliberate work of art filled with affordances for the reader. Central to my analysis is the recurring idea of “fucking up” as a way of disobeying social, political, and literary (narrative) norms. In relation to narratology, I take on the novel with a Difference approach to fiction, guided by notions from Sylvie Patron, Lars-Åke Skalin, and Richard Walsh. In this approach, fiction is seen as functioning differently in a qualitative sense compared to natural narrative. The Difference approach leads to a reading that lies close to the intuitions of reviewers and highlights the strong literary potential of the novel.

If we are to use narratology as a "toolbox", as some scholars propose, we must test the value of the tools. In this paper I present an understanding of voice based on literary functions in Angela Carter’s "The Loves of Lady Purple", and then I evaluate three notions of voice in narratology. First out are the critical approaches of Sylvie Patron, who wants to abandon the term "voice" completely because of its many incongruent meanings, and Richard Walsh, who pragmatically reformulates the popular Genettean definitions according to his theory of the rhetoric of fictionality. Lastly I discuss how Genette himself would tamper with Carter’s short story. While Patron may be too harsh in her conclusion, Walsh and Genette seem to be able to accommodate voice in "Lady Purple" when they talk about ideology, at least partly. On the negative side, they both miss adequate notions of style.

In this talk, I compare four variants of a critique against narratology. They hold that narratology uses natural narrative as a model for understanding fiction, and that narratologists hereby risk making a "reductionist fallacy". This mistake will, at least in theory, lead to deviant readings of literary texts. Besides inquiring into the commonalities and differences of the critical approaches, I ask what kind of future research the critique suggests for the topic of narrative fiction. So as to pinpoint the object of the critique, the first concern of my presentation is the different understandings of the term "narratology". Then I take up unnatural narratology as the first adversary. I argue that this approach is postclassical and less radical than the other three because it normally finds ‘unnatural’ features only in what is regarded as otherwise natural narratives of fiction. The second approach I call linguistic, represented by critics such as Käte Hamburger, S.-Y. Kuroda, Ann Banfield, and Sylvie Patron; here, fictional language is "objective" and doesn’t refer to a real or fictional world. The alternative theory of fiction by Richard Walsh is presented third. It focuses on the meaning-making capabilities of fictionality as a rhetorical means of communication. Finally, I turn to Lars-Åke Skalin’s aesthetic theoretical approach, which is based on a distinction between narrative fiction as an act of poetic performance and natural narratives as informational acts of communication. As a consequence of this distinction, novels and short stories are to be analyzed in terms of forms and effects. My overarching argument is that the critique under discussion here generates new questions concerning narrative fiction and its unique connection to our real world. Assumably, narrative theory has something to gain by approaching such texts as having a particular type of functionality.

Mitt paper ger ett förslag på en betydelse av begreppet voice – berättarröst – i narrativ fiktion och använder två gotiska noveller för att exemplifiera hur denna betydelse kan stödja analysen av litterära motiv, sedda som meningsbärande komponenter i en konstnärlig helhet. Jag tar stöd i en ledande kritiker av narratologin, den engelske litteraturvetaren Richard Walsh, som menar att narratologins begrepp förvisso är användbara men behöver omdefinieras utifrån ett perspektiv där författaren ses som ansvarig för narrativet och dess mening i stället för en fiktiv, och ibland blott implicit, berättare som i retrospektiv återger något som hänt. Det rör sig alltså om en vilja att återinföra författaren i den narrativa teorin. Ett av de sätt voice fungerar på och som Walsh menar är giltigt under vad han kallar sitt pragmatiska synsätt, där författaren ligger bakom den fiktiva framställningen, är som interpellation. I marxistisk teori står ”interpellation” för praktiken att konstruera ett ideologiskt färgat subjekt. Men Walsh vidgar denna betydelse och låter begreppet också uttrycka det seende som en berättelse implicerar även när det inte är kopplat till ett språkligt subjekt. Om motiven i mina två utvalda gotiska noveller inte nödvändigtvis uttrycker en given subjektivitet går det kanske att säga att de åtminstone indikerar olika aspekter av verklighet(en): fysiskt, epistemologiskt och ideologiskt i Walshs vokabulär. Detta skulle kunna öppna för sätt att beskriva de verklighetsvisioner som alltid finns närvarande i litterära verk och som är knutna till olika perspektiv.

This article aims to characterize a commonly misunderstood and neglected critique of narratology and insists that the critique could advance the narratological discussions if taken more seriously. I describe the notions of three individual critics and one group of critics and their suggested alternatives to what they hold to be the dominating description of narrative fiction in narratology. In turn, I take up Sylvie Patron’s linguistic approach, Lars-Åke Skalin’s aesthetic approach, and Richard Walsh’s pragmatic approach, as well as unnatural narratology (which is less radical), and suggest that they have a Difference approach to narrative fiction. The critique is contrasted with what I refer to as a Sameness approach, guiding the dominating description of narrative fiction in narratology. The Sameness approach relates novels and short stories to a notion of a default mode of “narrative” which is based on situated speech about something that has happened. This is, according to the critics, a mistake. The main thrust of the critics, although with some exceptions, is instead that narrative fiction needs to be approached as sui generis in order to be described effectively. Yet how this should be done is still open for debate.

The aim of this thesis is to advance the critical examination of narratology, or the study of storytelling. I analyze four versions of a critique of the dominant theory of narrative fiction in narratology and discuss this critique’s methodological implications. The critics, Sylvie Patron, Lars-Åke Skalin, Richard Walsh, and the proponents of unnatural narratology have, I suggest, similar understandings of narratology’s handling of works like novels and short stories as well as similar alternative approaches. I situate the critique among relevant theories of fiction and salient aspects of narratology, and conclude that the most radical critics have a difference approach to narrative fiction. This means treating this literary practice as following another rule system for creating meaning than other kinds of storytelling. These critics seem to base their reasoning on their readerly intuitions about how novels and short stories function; yet their approach also lends itself to, for instance, discussions on how such works afford life visions or worldviews. In contrast to this approach, I describe narratology, in the critics’ view, as having a sameness approach that treats narrative fiction as a subtype of “narrative” in the sense of the communication of events by a narrator.

The three opening articles of the thesis comprise a metadiscussion of the critique. I here describe, in part with Greger Andersson, the critics’ ideas, characterize the critique as a whole, and speculate about why it has had no apparent effect on narratology. The two latter articles utilize the difference approach in analyses of Angela Carter’s “The Loves of Lady Purple” and Sara Stridsberg’s Drömfakulteten (The Faculty of Dreams) while discussing narratological concepts and issues. Future studies might continue this discussion or inquire further about, for example, the relations between different narrative practices or what role different intuitions about narrative fiction play in descriptions and analyses.

Den svarta solen (The Black Sun, 2009) by the Swedish writer Lotta Lotass consists of three hundred and forty disarranged paragraphs, which in a monotone, adjective-laden, impersonal way describe the interiors of corridors and rooms in a wartime mansion. No meaning or unity is ascribed to the encountered objects, and when human characters show up in the field of vision they are presented in the same style as everything else. It actually seems that language itself is at the center of the text, rather than human experiences. Each paragraph ends with a numbered arrow or several arrows pointing to other paragraphs, making the novel a hypertext where the reader slithers her way through a labyrinth. That “The Black Sun” in the title is an occult symbol, often associated with nazism, makes one wonder if the labyrinth is indeed shaped after that symbol. To make the novel even more intriguing, a paratext says that it is based on the critique of judgment by Immanuel Kant. It thus has contact points with the philosopher’s notion of disinterestedness. Kant’s concept could perhaps be said to be a part of the structuring principle of Den svarta solen by way of the novel’s decontextualized descriptions. Now, in this paper I am not per se interested in making a complete interpretation of Lotass’ text. Instead I will discuss the value of narrative, as defined by for example Gerald Prince (2003), as a point of comparison when analyzing texts like this. The discussion can be said to concern narratology from the perspective of comparative literature. From this perspective, I hold, one may either argue how a text resembles a certain structure (e.g. Frye 1957) or how particular works skid in relation to that structure (e.g. Genette 1980). Since even texts like Den svarta solen can be understood by being related to some sort of structure, I suggest that it can be of value not to adopt narrative as a self-evident point of comparison in the analysis of novels. Lotass’ work is more than – or perhaps not at all – narrative, and more than – or perhaps not at all – a traditional novel. Perhaps it does something completely else than “telling a story,” for example fulfills a conceptual idea. An adequate point of comparison would then be conceptual art.