Lars Bernaerts

The storied lives of non-human narrators

The essay examines the phenomenon of non-human storytelling. We take our departure from the paradoxical idea that readers are invited to reflect upon aspects of human life when reading the fictional life stories of non-human narrators, whether they are animals, objects, or indefinable entities. By giving voice to non-human things and animals such as a stuffed squirrel, a lump of coal, or a dog, these narratives may highlight and even challenge our conception of the human. In addition, they may confront us with our propensity to empathize with fictional autobiographical narrators and to narrativize our own lives in particular ways. On the level of meaning, there is a whole range of motifs, themes, and functions with which non-human narration may be associated in particular narratives. On the level of form and effects, however, there are interesting parallels between different non-human narrators. It will become clear that, even though the umbrella term “non-human narration” comprises a great variety of narrators, these character-narrators have something in common as a narrative device.

Interactions in Cuckoo's Nest: Elements of a Narrative Speech-Act Analysis

Something peculiar happens when Charlie Cheswick, one of the characters in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), asks the ward’s head nurse about his cigarettes. The nurse controls the supply of cigarettes, and Cheswick does not relish that idea. However, his intended speech act, a complaint as well as a request, is ignored. Expressing the collective thought of the patients, he stresses that “[w]e want something done about it” (149). As he notices that his request does not have the desired effect nor the presupposed backup, he first increases the intensity of his request—shouting “I want something done! Hear me!” (149) —and then flies into a rage. Whether he puts his speech act in a polite formula or in a very intensive exclamation, it is not accepted as a conventional act. The scene is symptomatic not only of Cheswick’s character development but also of the fictional interactions and textual dynamics in Kesey’s novel. Looking at the scene from this angle, we catch a glimpse of the way in which our understanding can improve by an analysis of the speech acts of characters and narrators. From its foundation in the work of J. L. Austin until today, the theory of speech acts has been living several lives, one of which is in the world of narrative studies. Many scholars, such as Seymour Chatman and Susan Lanser, have integrated aspects of the theory into narratology, and a number of them, such as Mary Louise Pratt, Michael Kearns and Reingard Nischik, have granted it a prominent and permanent position in their narratological models. They basically argue that what authors, narrators and characters do with words—i.e., the illocutionary force

Narrative across versions: narratology meets genetic criticism

What can narrative theory and analysis learn from the study of sketches, notes, and manuscripts? Leading narratologists, such as Dorrit Cohn, Gerard Genette, and Franz K. Stanzel, have visited the factory of the text, as Genette calls it, to corroborate an argument about the nature of narrative in general or the composition of a particular narrative. However, these excursions have not led to a principled dialogue between genetic criticism and narrative theory. By following major narratologists on their paths to versions of narratives, this essay investigates the possibilities of combining narrative theory and narratological analysis, on the one hand, with manuscript studies and genetic criticism, on the other hand. To specify our claims about this interdisciplinary combination of approaches—the study of narrative across versions—we analyze two works that challenge narrative conventions, “Lessness” and The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett. This two-part case study focuses on the levels of “narrative” and “narration,” respectively, and shows how, on the one hand, genetic criticism can provide data to corroborate a narratological analysis and how, on the other hand, narratology can serve as an aid to the genetic examination of the narrative’s development across versions.

Narratologie en tekstgenese: een terreinverkenning

Until recently, narratology and genetic criticism have not been considered as natural bedfellows. In fact, critique genetique emerged as a reaction to the structuralist paradigm (and its abstract-universalist tenets) in which French narratology originated. First, we take a closer look at the work done by some of the founding fathers and mothers of narratology and genetic criticism, which reveals a number of productive impulses and opportunities for cross-pollination. In addition, we make a case for the study of manuscripts by means of narratological concepts. This is illustrated by means of case studies devoted to texts by Robert Musil, Samuel Beckett and Ivo Michiels.

The blind tour : spatial abstraction in experimental fiction

On the one hand, this chapter contributes to recent efforts in narrative theory which aim at specifying the cognitive and interpretive challenge of experimental fiction. On the other hand, it focuses on the unconventional textualisation of space in narrative. Drawing on stylistics and narrative theory, it analyses spatial abstraction as an effect of stylistic features in Orchis Militaris, an experimental narrative by Ivo Michiels. The motif of blindness is prominent in the novel and will be directly linked to the reader’s processing attempts. In that respect, it echoes the analogy of blindness used by Catherine Emmott (1997) to refer to the experience of a reader who is monitoring fictional contexts. The reader of Orchis Militaris is like a blind person, but one who is not provided with sufficient clues to construct the contextual configuration of the people and settings around him or her. Particular attention will be paid to the stylistic features of spatial abstraction, the cognitive demands made on readers and the interpretive opportunities emerging from their cognitive disorientation.

Playful, Experimental, and Unnamable Fiction: Unnatural Narrative and Its Allies

In its new synthesis of the key discussions, Brian Richardsons essay reminds us of the important achievements of unnatural narrative theory over the years. The theory has enriched the general theory and interpretation of narrative through a welcome critical evaluation of mimeticism in narrative studies, illuminating readings, and the introduction of a challenging literary corpus. A valuable paradox lies at the heart of unnatural narrative theory and its ambition in the sense that it attempts to describe the indescribable. As a narrative theory, it aims to discern and describe aspects of narrative in a more or less internally coherent and systematic fashion in order to improve our understanding of the broad range of narrative practice. The idea of range is vital here. Without the complement of unnatural narratology, Richardson emphasizes, narrative theory runs the risk of excluding a number of highly significant literary practices (techniques, traditions, individual works). The exclusion does not only lie in scholarly neglect as such (e.g., of a device such as hypothetical second-person narrative) but also in reductive reinterpretation. Subsumed under the latter are readerly acts of naturalization (a concept Richardson himself considers as unhelpful) or mechanisms of integration in Tamar Yacobis terms (Authorial Rhetoric). Someone who reduces the strangeness of Samuel Becketts Not I to an expression of psychological trauma, for example, would not do justice to its unnatural dimension. As a theorist of the unnatural, Richardson seeks--almost by definition--to categorize what cannot be categorized, to systematically describe what resists and rejects systematic description, or, to allude to the theorys core example: it names what wishes to remain unnamable and what, to a certain extent, cannot be named. At least in part, the unnatural is exciting, amusing, and meaningful because it escapes easy labeling. As a corollary, it is mainly described in terms of what it is not. Thus, in the essay as well as in this branch of narratology in general, negative terms abound: antimimetic, anti-realistic, unusual, unnatural, impossible, and so on. There are many ideas in the essay that elicit further reflection and endorsement from my own perspective and there are some points on which I disagree, but for the remainder of my response, I wish to expand on this issue of negative description and on possible alternatives. The broader question is: How can we further unnatural narrative theory by deploying related frameworks and discriminating the unnatural from related concepts? In my view, the concepts of negativity, play, and experiment, which are present but dormant in the theory, are appropriate lenses for understanding epistemological and ideological aspects of the unnatural. The negative description of unnatural works is a strength but can also become a pitfall of unnatural narratology. On the one hand, it is a strength because in that way Richardson acknowledges the negative potential of unnatural narratives. To a great extent, the power and appeal of the unnatural lie in its gestures of resistance and rejection. Although there is an obvious correlation and a perceived connection with ideology, there is no one-to-one relationship between unnatural narrative techniques and radical politics, as Richardson explains. Still, the ideology of individual unnatural narratives is worth considering, especially from the vantage point of their negativity. The negative description itself, which is abundant in unnatural narratology, can then become a conceptual springboard for further reflection upon the ideology and the epistemology of unnatural narratives. To explain what I mean by this, I refer to Theodor Adornos aesthetic theory. In Adornos view, true art operates through negativity. In resisting familiar models of reality (which for Adorno are deceptive because they conceal skewed socioeconomic relations), art becomes radically critical and it can produce insights that would otherwise remain hidden. …

Hermeneutiek in veelvoud

Analyse (structuur) Conceptualisering (taal) CLW2011.3.book Page 34 Wednesday, October 12, 2011 4:05 PM

Naar een autonome kijktekst. Ivo Michiels' Met Dieric Bouts en Een tuin tussen hond en wolf als experimentele filmliteratuur

In het oeuvre van Ivo Michiels zijn tal van verwijzingen naar het filmmedium te vinden, maar enkele teksten doen veel meer dan refereren. In deze bijdrage wordt het experimentele en intermediale karakter van Met Dieric Bouts (1975) en Een tuin tussen hond en wolf (1977) besproken. Beide zijn het product van een intensieve samenwerking met regisseur Andre Delvaux en bijzondere vormen van filmliteratuur. Het filmproject Met Dieric Bouts is een combinatie van artistieke documentaire en zelfreflectie vanwege de makers ervan. In Michiels’ tekst en Delvauxs film wordt het creatieve proces dat naar de film leidde, geintegreerd. Het experiment van de scenarioroman Een tuin tussen hond en wolf is van een andere orde. Hier haalt Ivo Michiels via narratieve strategieen de esthetiek en pragmatiek van de film in de tekst binnen. In de bijdrage wordt de tekstuele eigenheid van de interactie tussen film en tekst in Met Dieric Bouts en Een tuin tussen hond en wolf nader onderzocht.