The Narrative Object
Juan José Saer
Implicitly or explicitly, the
notion of object occupies the centre of all philosophy. Implicitly or explicitly
(but mostly implicit), the commercial narrative fiction is related to philosophy.
Therefore, it is possible to say, implicitly or explicitly, the notion of
object occupies the centre of all fictional tales. This constant presence
assumes many different forms, but in my opinion what is the most important is
how it is related to the mode of being of narrative fiction, and we could even
say: to all narratives.
The verbal transmission of a fact
(it does not matter if it has occurred, and if we were to claim it did happen,
it does not matter what is the greater or lesser probability that grants us
this capacity to know) consists in a series of conventional signs that produce
an artificial equivalence of the fact. Whether the transmission is oral or
written, it does not matter: anecdote, chronicle, epic, report or novel, the
result is always a construction based on two different materials depended on
each other, like water requiring two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of
oxygen. These two elements form a
series of representation styled by the random signs of language and certain
numerical marks provided by the selected genre (anecdote, chronicle, epic,
etc.). All stories are constructions, not discourses. In a discourse, it is
rather a series of universalities [universales, world or universe] that took
place, insofar as the story parades an incessant procession of particular forms [figuraciones] – and whether it has in fact occurred, the particularities
remain unchanged. It is argued that, within some philosophical trends, universalities
are considered objects – as distinct entities of mere subjectivity – but if this
is so, the fact would only reinforce the point of view we have adopted.
If we take not a novel or an
epic, but a simple anecdote as the example, this view would seem clearer. The
film director Howard Hawks was waiting for Faulkner at the station, and it was
the first time they are meeting, when Faulkner got off the train, Hawks was
there: ‘Mr. Faulkner? I am Howard Hawks.’ And Faulkner replied, ‘I know. I saw
your name on the cheque.’ The stylization has reduced the situation into a few
phrases, excluding most of the
inextricable empirical complexity of the
encounter, the simultaneous perception of the two men, their respective stream
of consciousness, the particular mode of each and both of them within the
space-time continuum, etc. (we can continue listing infinitely, as much as we
want, but the limitations of language itself would oblige us, in this case, to
synthesize). On the other hand, when this short story functions as an anecdote,
certain invariants of the ‘anecdote’
genre are present in this short construction: the brevity, the unexpectedly
witty reply, and through the form of a particular personality, the dry humour
(although it is not always the case in anecdotes; allowing, within the genre,
to slide into some subgenres which are irrelevant now), less explicit to the
whole scene. The verbal stylization of facts combined with the fixed elements
of the genre constitutes the anecdote. However, these invariants in the story,
are not universalities [universales],
but serve as moulds for the particular elements which are evoked. In fact, for
the listeners, although we
like the anecdote, we
remain uncertain of its exact meaning: we might want to demonstrate the
light-heartedness of Faulkner (rather improbable on the other hand despite his
truly jovial reply), or perhaps how since he was always short of money, was
trying to thank Hawks for the advance payment in a discreet and modest way, but
we could also suppose he was alluding to the overly mercenary customs reigning
Hollywood, etc., etc. If a discourse presents itself as abstract, unique and
intelligible, the story, instead, is a simulacrum of the empirical, what is
already presented as a simple anecdote, or view with the prestige of the epic,
of the chronicle or of the novel (even though proclaimed as truthful or
fictitious) always have the tendency to be constituted as a kind of tender [sensible] construction. When the false is true, fiction fakes a
reality not a discourse, which is a concatenation of universalities [universales], but an object, or as a singular organization of
particular qualities.
What is valid for
an anecdote is also valid for a short story, novel or epic. The wrath of
Achilles, the web of sugary tales that Dinarzade and her sister weaved to
distract the minister, the only song from the harmonica of Mr. Helton, or the
agony of Rufian Melancolico, are from the order of particular things, similar
to a scene we witness on the street, and the significance, the interpretation according
to the point of view we adopted could vary infinitely.
If we take the
song of the Sirens as example, in the same way as for the different witnesses
of an incident on the street, for different readers the meaning could vary –
without making it loses its shine or fascination on the readers, turning the
opaque scene, uncertain and contradictory. Styled by the language and organized
in the moulds of the ‘epic’ genre (even though perhaps the fine thread we can
attribute to some subgenres which are often abundant within the epic), the
image of Ulysses tied to the mast of the nave has the factual objectivity configured
by the advancement from the outside, and the innumerable witnesses – both listeners
and readers – circulating various versions of the meaning. We could conceive
the scene as a metaphor of a compulsion stronger than will and duty has obliged
the individual who suffers its tyranny to impose physical obstacles in order
not to fall into the temptation of yielding to the fascinating danger because
of his fear of its destructive forces. By making the decision of being tied to
the mast and plugging his ears, Ulysses wants to be protected from the
sorcerer’s song – this would remind us of the alcoholic who locked up the
drinks or the gambler who demands the officials from the Ministry of Interior to
bar him from entering the casinos. According to Suetonio, for the sophists of
Rhodes island, the content of the song of the Sirens, the same as the name
Achilles adopted when hidden amongst the women, were all pointless questions which (due
to the impossibility of obtaining a precise answer) should be left to
students to discuss during rhetoric class. For Adorno and Horkheimer, in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, the scene is
an unconscious description of the alienating division of labour because while
the leader (Ulysses) weighs, according to his class logic, the threat of a
tragic end, if captured by the Sirens, but for the the oarsmen, the anonymous masses –
insensitive and indifferent to the song, or even worse, without a tragic importance
if they were to fall victims to the destructive influence – they must keep rowing. For
Kafka, the song of the Sirens is without doubt dangerous, but much less
dangerous than their silence:
But they have a weapon more terrible than
their song: their silence. Although it has never happened, maybe it is
imaginable that someone was saved from the song, but of the silence certainly
not.
This shocking
Kafkaesque variant seems to interpret the myth of the Sirens as a
transcendental metonymical form, and also relate why the work of Kafka, with
his systematic application of incertitude, with regards to the meaning, could
be the clearest example of structural narration with an opaque autonomy of the
object, not the conceptual transparency of the discourse. The
indeterminacy of sense in story of first magnitude is comparable to the
universe. The multiple readings,
which I have just described in the example, give the narrative object an
indefinite number of possible interpretations as it occurs within the different
systems that attempted to explain the world: the hermeneutic attempt is always
speculative, and we can take this word in more than one sense.
The longevity of
certain stories which permits them to traverse centuries and cultures: who is
not saddened by the fate of Palinuro until today, who has not observed still,
with endless wonder, the manoeuvres of Buscón, who does not daydreamed of being
bandied through the sertao by the
incessant procession of the ghostly and rough heroes of Guimaraes Rosa. Tearing
apart the transparency and pragmatism of language, these lumps of verbs, thick
and atypical, in its own way, putting aside the universal concepts, organized as
unique concretions formed by particular elements that
continue to exist indefinitely as such. The constant flow of speech jammed in
this bloom denser than the utilitarian abstraction, and if the nominalists
consider the universals as flatus vocis,
without a higher existence than the tone of voice that utters in the instant of
utterance, the narrative object instead lives in the eternal present of the
story with the gross substance of particular things.
It is obvious
that the notion of the object is also related to the problem of representation,
i.e. whether if the particular that appears represented in the story exist
outside of it and came before it, or if it exist only superficially in the
literal sense of word, as a textual surface that, insofar as resulting in a
series of verbal combinations, constitutes not more than an appearance,
suspected on the other hand that it could also inspire us, if similar thing exists,
the extraverbal reality. The answer
to this dilemma in this sense or another, like how it has demonstrated
interminable discussions throughout the century, seems to constitute a simple
opinion: Reality-Came-Before-the-Text giving the impression of being the
essence like the First Cause with regards to the appearance of the world.
However, what stays clear in this debate is the existence of the narrative text,
which, because of these discussions precisely, has further affirmed its
autonomy.
The whole world
knows that, according to Flaubert, he was Madame Bovary, but fewer are aware
that he had also said ‘a Madame Bovary in each little town of France’. This
contradictory declaration encapsulates terms of dilemma proving that even for
Flaubert himself the problem remains unclear. By saying that he was Madame
Bovary, Flaubert signifies that the transposition of his romantic ideas into a
feminine character would eliminate from the text the fickleness of
documentation, giving it rather a virtual character. But with the declaration that
opposes the aim to exalt the representation of his middle-term (the heroine), it thereby gives rise to the categories
employed much later by various critics – with Georg Lukacs amongst them – to
describe the character types of realist novels of the 19th century.
The ‘Madame’ of the title leads us
into thinking that, despite his intimate projection in the character of Emma,
Flaubert also had the intention of introducing in his novels elements of satire and moral
criticism of society, because it is evident that Madame is ironic, and came to signify so more or less. Hence, this
book shows what is hidden in reality under the respectable title of Madame of many French towns, and the
scandal that promoted the appearance of the novel suggests how his aims were
achieved.
From how the
problem is approached from
different angles, all of the above
seem to suggest it has always clearly resulted
in considering narrative as an autonomous object, an end in itself whose sole
reality as object we would extract the whole meaning. The particular forms which
constitute – by being solely particular – the empirical sequence raise more
than just clear definitions or enigmas, and more questions than affirmative
concepts.
While it is a
verbal object, the story is also a mental object living in the memory and
imagination of the receiver free from verbal condition. For imaginary
recollection, the mental existence is no less problematic than the recollection
of what we call the real. But we can say how in a certain sense it is much more
verifiable than the latter, because, if it is a text, we can use it as often as
we need for verification. But this difference is not only puerile but also
illusionary, and superfluous and pretentious that the narrative, insofar as an
object, could give us more assurance of reality than the non-verbal objects
from what we called the ‘world’, mostly because the opposite seems less likely.
In the beginning,
we have affirmed that all narratives, fiction or not, are constituted by a
series of particular forms framed by a variable number of conventional elements
belonging to different generes, just as in the anecdote of Faulkner. For others,
insofar as it is art, all narratives tend be divided naturally by the
invariants of the construction and the genre. By its distance, ostensible or
not, with these marks, each narrative is a singular being, and the
individuation (singularity) is produced thanks to the proliferation in the
interior of the particular elements detrimental to the invariants of construction
and genre. In a reverse case, these invariants impoverish the texture of
particular forms (someday we should write the history of the evolution of
details in realist fiction, through the path opened by Mimesis, the seminar work of Erich Auerbach) and transformed the
story into a type of industrial product. The novels of Chandler, during his
time, with his inclusion of new particular forms, is remote from the detective
genre – although conserving some of the invariants, such series of murders,
puzzle that is only resolved at the end, etc. The result was the thriller that,
in turn, after sometime was converted into a genre more rigid than the old
detective novel – similar, with its repetitive mode, like the industrial
objects, all identical to each other, in order to meet the demand of the
market, delivered from the same pack. The tyranny of the genre alienates both
the reader and the novelist, but all the more for the latter who is obliged to
please the market demand of the production circuit, annihilating his conscious
of free creation.
Inversely, we can
give examples of certain narratives that started off with the same constructive
elements, with its abundant inclusion of particular forms, obtaining the status
of an object that is unique to the work of art, of narrative object that is
sufficient to itself and which, inside the limits that were imposed by the
principles of sovereign construction, its own world, a cosmic truth within the
other. If we were to consider comparatively three novels from the 20th
century written in the span of a decade,
from 1954, 1955 and 1964 respectively, with the same language and from the same
continent, Farewells by Juan Carlos
Onetti, Pedro Páramo by Juan Ruflo,
and The Silencer by Antonio Di Benedetto, what is immediately evident
is that, from the same point of departure, and principles of construction, each
have reached extreme singularity of
distinction (and to say again, it does not matter if the object that represent
exists outside our subjectivity or is a pure mental object).
The principle of
construction that divides these three stories is the first-person narrative,
the invariant element of many other. And amongst these precise examples, each
has fallen into a different mode. The structuralist generality contains much of
the specific story as the skeleton of Clodia Lesbia, being desirable and cruel,
fanned by each night of passion and the suffering of Catulo. The living
material of the three novels constitutes an immediate refutation of these
generalisations. In Farewells, the
narrator is external to the facts, in way it suffers from what we would call the
poverty of empiricism that resorts to imagination and, as a consequence, in
certain parts we are told about what did not occur but only imagined by the
narrator, etc. In Pedro Páramo, the
first person of the story goes crumbling towards fragments of second and third
person, each time it recurs in more fluid, elliptic, and fragmentary manner;
and as for The Silencer, the narrator
tells us the story indifferently, of what has happened outside, pacing out what
has been revealed to us. But it seems to realise the scope by narrating in an
ambiguous and non-affirmative way – which is perhaps the dementia of truth
stretched by his approach.
These three
distinct texts, which began with a common procedure, could be described as a
story told in first person, where the possibility of the narrator’s own
knowledge is ambiguous, contradictory, and limited, thus producing, as
deployed, its conditions of singularity – although to be recognised as stories,
it must be produced under certain invariants of the genre, and in this case,
the genre of ‘novel’. Besides the obvious (but necessary) stylistic
individuality, many other factors of differentiation would intervene each of
the texts, even though we have found three texts, particularly in relation to
representation, some coincidences that reflect the preoccupation of the epoch,
such as the possibilities of narrative form, the number of difference is
greater than those which resemble. The concurrences result in a general semantic
indeterminacy of the stories which debunks the only certainty that Sartre was
vehemently opposed to: the ubiquity abused by the omnipresent narrator, the
empirical modesty of the story told in the first person. Deliberately proposed
or not, it hardly matters if we were to admit that the meaning of the story is
in the story itself. For these three novels, the empirical modesty of the first
person presents very little assurance of veracity, unlike the omniscience of
the third.
This indeterminacy of meaning,
however, would not tarnish the relevance, nor reduce its efficacy to nothing. On
the contrary, the confused images, unfinished narratives, its enigmatic
allusions, the sudden transitions, the constantly disrupted linearity of the
events, or, on the contrary, misleading regularity engendered by a logic that
escapes us, the world shattered, the singular existence of its resulting
characters, confront our actual human experience, as much more plausible than
the many discourses, allegedly rational, political, economical, scientific,
religious, philosophical which deals mysteriously with the oppression, and attributed
its authority (of course, to those who are supported by it) the advantage of certainty.
Refusing to deal with the general,
emancipated, thanks to its own logic, by the supposedly ineluctable external
imperatives, the ideological, moral, religious obligations that are estranged
from its essence, separated as far as possible by the stifling rules and
conditions imposed by the repetitive routine of the genre, these narratives,
rooted in the murky and swampy waters of the particular, have acquired the unique
and non-reproducible taste. Gaining the same autonomy as the rest of the
objects in the world, with some of them, larger, more patient, and more fearless,
it is not only limited to reflecting the world: it includes (and also believes)
staying there where – besides the postulation of an supposedly authoritarian
universe endowed with this or that unequivocal sense – there was really
nothing.
Translated by Justin Loke
29. 04 .2014
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