by Mark Turner
These identity connections are assumed rather than reported. Consequently, narrative imagining operates with a huge assumed background. It operates with an immense unstated framework of whatever goes without saying. Narration typically reports changes in causal structure, event shape, role relations, or, in general, information that is not immediately established through identity con- nectors. It does not “interrupt” itself to report that Shahrazad is still Shahrazad, still the vizier’s daughter, still lovely and intelligent. When a bit of information is reported that we assumed to have been provided through identity connectors, we often take it as a signal that the narrator means for that information to count
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as something extra; for if building that information into a new space were the narrator’s sole purpose, he would not have reported it.
We think of a story as unitary, and of various mental spaces that are defined relative to different spatial and temporal viewpoints as simply different “perspec- tives” on that story, naturally belonging to a whole. There are some very inter- esting consequences of this thinking. Consider again that something in one of these spaces can be described by giving the description that belongs to its coun- terpart in another space. For example, if you are in the dark and are asked what you are looking for, you may say, “The red ball.” Of course, within the spatiotem— poral space of speaking, the ball cannot appear to be red because there is no light. “Red” is not a possible descriptor of the ball in this spatiotemporal space of nar- ration. But that ball is connected, in imagination, to its counterparts in other spaces, and in those other spaces, “red” is a possible descriptor. The “red” of “red ball” spoken in darkness comes from a different mental space. When you are giving directions to someone over the telephone, you may say, “Go past the cafe’ on the right,” even though the café is not presently on your right and is not pres- ently on the right of the person you are speaking to and is indeed not universally “on the right” but is only “on the right” from the spatial viewpoint of someone driving down the street in the direction you have indicated. You and the person receiving directions can both imagine a mental space that is constructed with a certain spatial viewpoint on the street in an imagined story—namely, the story of someone making this particular journey in this particular way—and in that mental space, the café is on the right of the journeyer. Because of identity con- nectors, you may later say, “We are now sitting in the cafe on the right.”
The use of descriptions from one space for counterparts in other spaces is subtly demonstrated in the passage from Proust:
I was in my room at Mme de Saint—Loup’s, in the country: Good Heav- ens, it is at least ten o’clock, they must have finished dinner! I must have overslept myself in the little nap thatl always take when I come in from my walk with Mme de Saint—Loup, before dressing for the evening.
The temporal viewpoint of “Good Heavens, it is at least ten o’clock” is the moment of making this observation, a punctual moment. Much of the descrip- tion given from this temporal viewpoint is indeed possible for the mental space of this viewpoint: “Good Heavens, it is at least ten o’clock, they must have fin- ished dinner! I must have overslept myself. . . . ” But the phrase that describes his nap does not belong to the space of this temporally punctual viewpoint. It belongs instead to the larger remembered habitual temporal space of “life at Mme de Saint—Loup’s, in the country,” in its function as dreamed inclusive background
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of the dreamed event of waking after having overslept. “The little nap thatl always take when I come in from my walk with Mme de Saint—Loup, before dressing for the evening” is a description of the role map as it exists in that remembered and dreamed habitual temporal space. The role nap lies in this habitual tempo- ral space. The particular nap that fills that general role lies in the temporal space of having these thoughts in this dream of having awakened after oversleeping. The general role in one space and its particular filler in another are connected not by an identity connector but by a role connector. The descriptor Proust uses for the particular nap in a punctual temporal space can come only from its cor- responding general role in the habitual temporal space.
It is natural that the literary mind should be adept at such connections across spatial and temporal spaces. A small spatial story is always recognized or executed from a single viewpoint and with a single focus. Part of our most basic cognitive capacity is to consider the spatial story as a single unit despite evident and trans- forming shifts of viewpoint and focus. When we see someone startle as he looks in some direction with what we assume to be some focus, we must be able to look immediately not in the same direction and not with the same focus but in the corresponding direction from our location, and with the corresponding focus from our location, so as to see what he sees, even though we do not yet know what he sees but merely hope to find out what it is. To do this, we must be able to imagine his spatial viewpoint and then calculate backward to the appropriate bearing and distance from our own spatial location. We do this instantly, as a survival capacity. The case is the same with temporal focus and viewpoint: To learn small spatial stories in a way that allows us to recognize them or execute them, we must be able to recognize the entire story from the viewpoint of any particular temporal slice or frame; we therefore require the capacity to hold vari- ous things constant, through connectors, as we switch temporal viewpoint and temporal focus from mental space to mental space.
We have seen that the basic human story of spatial viewing is projected parabolically to the story of temporal “viewing.” Of course, these two stories com- bine into the basic human story of spatiotemporal viewing. But this story too is projected. It is projected to the schematic story of mentalviewing. There are vari- ous kinds of mental “viewpoint” and “focus” that arise from this parabolic pro- jection: Philosophical, political, and ideological viewpoints and foci are only some of the possibilities. Someone who inhabits a certain role in a story will have a mental “viewpoint” and “focus” appropriate to that role. In the projection of spatial stories of movement and manipulation onto stories of mental events, spatial locations and objects correspond to ideas, assertions, and thoughts. The mind “sees” or “views” ideas, assertions, and thoughts from a particular location and with a particular posture. The mind may then “move toward” an idea or “away”
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from a belief, “grasp” an idea or leave it “behind,” and so on. Locations can also be projected onto features or states. We may think of “true” ideas as located in one place, “false” in another, “crazy but perhaps suggestive” in another, “counter- factual” in another, “hypothetical” in another, and so on. We may say that we have been “looking in the wrong places for the ideas we need” or that we have “not been positioned properly until now to see the idea clearly.” We may “focus” on hypothetical reality from a particular political Wiewpoint.” We may “focus” on the economic story of California from the “viewpoint” of a potential investor or the alternative “viewpoint” of the governor of California.
Literary narratives are extraordinarily accomplished at indicating such mental viewpoints. The first words of The Thousand and One Night: read,
It is related—but Allah alone is wise and all— knowing—that long ago there lived in the lands oflndia and China a Sassanid king who com- manded great armies and had numerous courtiers, followers, and ser- vants. He left two sons. . . .
The narrator takes certain mental viewpoints. First, there is the space of what the narrator relates. There is only one thing in this space that he is certain of— namely, people do tell the story of the thousand and one nights (“it is related”). This space is a parent space; what people in this space relate belongs to a child space. The child space is viewed by the narrator as a space of possibility only; the narrator will not vouch for its certainty (“but Allah alone is wise and all— knowing”). The pare
nt space takes a temporal viewpoint on the child space: It is “long ago.”
Once we decide to pay attention to these parabolic viewpoints on story spaces, we see them everywhere, in almost every phrase of a literary work. One kind of mental viewpoint concerns viewing the story space as real, unreal, or indetermi- nate. Shahrazad imagines a predictive story in which she marries King Shahriyar; she and her father view it as a hypothetical space and therefore unreal. But it becomes, in their mental viewpoint as characters in the narrator’s story, real. The vizier imagines a predictive story space of the marriage; he and his daughter view it as hypothetical and unreal. He hopes it does not become real. In fact, part of it becomes (from his mental viewpoint as a character) real, the part it shares with Shahrazad’s hypothetical space: Shahrazad marries Shahriyar and spends the night with him. The rest of his predictive space does not become real: Shahriyar does not order her execution. Other kinds of spaces, such as spaces viewed as both counterfactual and past (“If Shahrazad had visited England”) are viewed as constrained to be permanently unreal if they are meant to correspond to conven- tional conceptions of reality. Of course, there are many cases of imaginative lit- erature in which these constraints are removed, so that in an alternative universe
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or a reengineered past or a world in which a time machine has appeared from the future, Shahrazad does visit England, for example.
A story space that is conditional upon another story space can be viewed as counterfactual because of the condition (“If Shahrazad had visited England . . . ”), as counterfactual because of the consequence (“If Shahrazad had not married Shahriyar, the kingdom would have fallen, but it didn’t fall, so I know she must have married him”), or as unreal but potentially real (“If Shahrazad marries Shahriyar, we will be saved”).
A mental viewpoint can be defined by a role. When we comment on the story of Shahrazad “from the viewpoint of ” Shahrazad, or the vizier, or Shahriyar, or Dinarzad, we are concerned not with their spatial or temporal viewpoints, but rather with their mental viewpoints, defined relative to their roles. Imagine the spatial and temporal viewpoint and focus on the wedding night that belong to the vizier, or Shahrazad, or Shahriyar, or Dinarzad. Now imagine, by contrast, the very different mental viewpoint and focus on the wedding night that belong to the vizier, or Shahrazad, or Shahriyar, or Dinarzad as they inhabit their roles. A given character in the story may shift mental viewpoint, so that, for example, Shahrazad may try to see the story she is engaged in “from the viewpoint” of King Shahriyar.
The Tbousana’ and One Night: explores as a continual and basic theme the influence of one’s relation to a story upon one’s mental viewpoint and focus on that story. My favorite such exploration is the tale of the barber’s fifth brother, Al—Ashar, who narrates (to himself) a daydream he imagines of his future pros- perity. While he is imagining the story, he is sitting on a corner with a basket of glassware to sell. He has invested his entire patrimony in this merchandise. He imagines that he sells all his glassware and with the profit buys twice as much. In his elaborate and absorbing daydream, it does not take him long to become very rich. By the middle of the daydream, he is marrying the lovely daughter of the vizier. Throughout the entire daydream, he imagines himself not as sitting at a crossroads, but as lordly. In the daydream, the vizier bows to him, and Al—Ashar conducts himself with the greatest magnificence and generosity, like a king. His new wife wants his love, but his pride keeps him aloof:
“I will neither speak to her nor even look at her. Presently the bride’s mother will come in, kissing my head and hand, and saying: ‘My lord, look upon your slave—girl, who yearns for your favour; speak to her and heal her broken spirit.’ I will make no answer. She will throw herself down at my feet, kissing them again and again, and saying: ‘Your slave is a beautiful virgin and she has seen no man but you. On my knees I
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beg you to cease humbling her, or her heart will break!’ Then the bride’s mother will rise, and, filling a cup with wine, will give it to her daugh- ter, who will offer it to me with all submission. But I, leaning idly upon my elbow among the gold—embroidered cushions, will take no notice of her. With a trembling voice she will say: ‘I beg you, my lord, to take this cup from the hand of your slave and servant.’ But I will maintain my dignified silence. She will raise the cup to my mouth, pressing me to drink from it. Then I will wave it away with my hand, and spurn her with my foot, thus—”
So saying, Al—Ashar kicked against the basket of glassware, knock- ing over the contents and crashing them in fragments to the ground.
Al—Ashar narrates his daydream from the viewpoint of one who wishes to inhabit the central role of its story. But the story of Al—Ashar’s internal narra- tion is being told by Al—Ashar’s brother, the barber, as one of the stories about his brothers that he tells in the court of the caliph, to impress the caliph with the wisdom the barber displays as an actor in each story the barber relates and also with his ability as a wise storyteller.
But, one step up in this nesting, this story of the barber’s telling stories to the caliph is being told by someone—the barber again!—at a dinner party, so that he may impress the dinner guests. He is telling a story of himself telling stories. At this dinner party, the barber is attempting to discredit the lame young man who has just told a devastating story about the barber’s garrulousness, fraud, and incompetence and has left in a huff, refusing to stay in the same room as the barber. So the barber’s role at the dinner party gives him a certain outlook on the story he is now narrating of his earlier narration.
The entire narrative space within which the barber does all his storytelling at the dinner party is being related by the tailor in the court of the king. The tailor has reason to tell a very long story, the longest story he can imagine, and he does this by finding a way to include as an embedded story the tale of what he comes to call the “exceptionally garrulous” barber who considers himself fabu- lously smart when in fact everyone else thinks he is a charlatan and a blatherer. The barber, relating at the dinner party the story of his narration of several sto- ries to the caliph, views that story from the “mental position” of one who thinks well of the central character, himself. But the tailor, telling the story of the bar- ber doing the telling of his previous telling, does so in such a way that anyone with a different “mental position” must see that the barber is “exceptionally gar- rulous.” The barber, in the tailor’s narration, is made to condemn himself out of his own mouth:
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When he had heard the tale of my sixth brother (continued the barber to the guests), the Caliph Al—Muntasir Billah burst out laughing and said: “I can well see, my silent friend, that you are a man of few words, who knows neither curiosity nor indiscretion. Yeti must ask you to leave this city at once and go to live elsewhere.”
Thus, for no conceivable reason, the Caliph banished me from
Baghdad.
By making the barber ridiculous but funny, the tailor makes the tedium of the barber’s protracted stories hilarious. This is extraordinarily amusing to the king to whom the tailor is relating the long story, and a good thing, too, because the tailor has been brought to the king from the gallows at the moment of his hanging. At the moment of the tailor’s narrating, the tailor and everyone else involved believe that the tailor killed a hunchback and is to hang for it. Everyone involved in the story of this hunchback’s death has been brought before the king to explain to the king how it is that the governor has condemned and then par- doned in a row first the Christian, then the king’s steward, then the Jewish doc- tor, before condemning the tailor for the murder of the hunchback. The tailor is telling these stories of stories of stories in order to stay alive! His narration pro- vides, in the character of the caliph, a model of a reasonable kingly judge who maintains all civility, loves humor, has a good sense of satire, and punishes by banishing, not hanging. The tailor is pro
viding this model in the hope that the king, who is hearing the tailor’s story, will conform to it and spare the tailor.
The king to whom the tailor is telling the story is extraordinarily wonderful and cultivated andjust. He marvels greatly at stories and admires them. Before the tailor begins speaking, the king hears the story of all the condemnations and the pardons; he gives “orders that the story be inscribed on parchment in letters of gold. The king asked those who were present: ‘Have you ever heard a story more marvellous than that of the hunchback?” It is this question that gives the tailor his opening to tell the longest story of stories of stories of stories you ever heard, and so to distract the king and put him into a better humor.
It certainly works. At the end of the nearly interminable story, “the King of Basrah was much amused by the tailor’s story, and said: ‘The young man’s adventure with the Barber certainly surpasses in wonder the story of the hunch- back.’” The king then orders both the barber and the corpse of the hunchback brought before him. When the king sees the barber, he bursts into a fit of laugh- ter and says, “Silent One, we wish to hear some of your stories.”
But then something very interesting, and perhaps unexpected, happens. The barber does indeed speak with great reserve and brevity. He asks to be told why the hunchback is lying dead before him. He listens to the entire explanatory story