Unlikely stories: causality and the nature of modern narrative

Abstract

Brian Richardson. Unlikely Stories: Causality and Nature of Modem Narrative. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997.219 pp. $30.00 cloth. In field of narrative theory, new publications are a common occurrence, but not so for new approaches. This is not to say that recent narrative theorists do not have their own insights or observations regarding narration, or that their critical work is not valuable, but much of what has been published in last twenty years, from Todorov's Introduction to Poetics through seemingly endless introductions to narrative that have followed in Todorov's wake, has consisted primarily of (usually uncredited) rewordings of Gerard Genette's Figures (especially section published in English as Narrative Discourse) that often do little more than offer more illustrations of Genette's theory, or argue over terminology or small 'errors' Genette made in expressing certain concepts. Yet while it may be argued that at this stage of narrative theory's development it is unlikely that a theoretical work as significant as Narrative Discourse or Bakhtin's Dialogic Imagination will be forthcoming, there is still a great deal of work to be done in this field. In Unlikely Stories: Causality and Nature of Modern Narrative, Brian Richardson succeeds in arguing that causality, the single most undertheorized aspect of narrative transaction, is important feature of narration and should be examined further by narrative theorists and critics (182). His book provides excellent starting place for such examinations. Richardson states that subject of his book is the connection between multiple story lines, interpretation of text, sequencing of episodes, and casual system governing world of fiction (13). The text is divided into two sections, first of which is concerned with Richardson's theoretical approach to literary narrative. In these chapters Richardson attempts to clarify and reconceptualize varied strands of causality in literature; discusses causal settings and four types of probability that govern fictional world; and moves his discussion into narrative segments, which in turn leads to longer critical chapters. In second section, Richardson applies his theories to a large number of literary works. He notes that an all too common failure of literary history is a sweeping theory based ona paucity of examples (63). This charge can certainly not be made against Richardson himself, who makes no sweeping claims, and yet gives us impressive number of examples. In his first chapter, Richardson defines cause as condition that occasions change in events. He adds that just as modernist and postmodernist narratives interrogate boundary of fact and fiction, readers must use their own acumen to determine existence and direction of causal connections (43-44). Of particular interest is his discussion of monistic fallacy: characters' behavior that rests on metaphysical assumptions that support a specific ideology (52). In fact, he says, free will is distinct from ontological issues. As Richardson is obviously interested in determinism and in narratology, it is perhaps curious that he does not cite Bakhtin (here or elsewhere), but despite this omission, his argument for cause and free will of characters, and his arguments against dogma in criticism, are convincing and useful (60). In important second chapter, we find Richardson's four types of probability settings that govern fiction: 1. supernatural; 2. Naturalistic, which includes recognizable and repeatable actions with plausible consequences; 3. chance worlds, in which more unlikely events, more evident author is; 4. authorial excursions into fictional worlds (metafictions) in which characters can take control from author (a section that would profit from a discussion of Bakhtin's dialogism). …

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