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the same time, rather than begin ab ovo and retread familiar ground, Fludernik
sensibly decides to leave certain historical periods, authors, and text types
un(der)represented because their features and effects have been treated in recent
studies. Thus there are few citations from Woolf, Joyce, and Dos Passos; and what
many theorists consider to be the standard case (if not the entire extent) of free
indirect discourse - third-person, past tense, free indirect thought - is also presumed to
have been accounted for. This focus on variety and avoidance of well-trodden paths is
an indication of Fludernik's pronounced anti-essentialist stance, which directly
opposes any system of hermetically sealed "standard" or "ideal" categories (73).
In presenting her evidence, Fludernik does more than what could reasonably be
considered her homework. She adduces literary cases of free indirect discourse in
English from some 280 titles, ranging from The Canterbury Tales to postmodernist
fiction. To these are added conversational examples culled from UCL's Survey of
English Usage corpus, excerpts of journalistic prose from the New York Review of
Books, a considerable number of literary and nonliterary German and French citations,
and there are even occasional excursions into Russian and Japanese. Whenever a topic
requires it, the author reviews the relevant philosophical, linguistic, narratological,
and stylistic literature. Perhaps the most graphic indication of her erudition and
thoroughness is the number of references in the comprehensive "criticism"
bibliography, which contains no fewer than 1250 titles, remarkable by anybody's
standards. Yet not once does one have the feeling that the sheer scale of information
management overtaxes the author.
Fludernik documents free indirect discourse for first and third-person texts (carefully
differentiating authorial and "reflector mode" texts), but, for good measure, she also
throws in some cases of second person free indirect discourse. Free indirect discourse
is analyzed in its past and present tense realizations in English, its imparfait guise in
French, and its preterite and "free subjunctive" forms in German. The technique varies
in its representation of observable and nonobservable objects (spoken
utterances/written texts vs. thoughts/perceptions) and allows grading according to
degrees of "expressivity" (266) and "reflectivity" (378). To some extent, it expresses
the reporter's concordant (empathetic), discordant (ironical), or neutral attitude.
Various attractions and restrictions show up under this fine-grained featural grid. For
instance, early (i.e., 18th century) German cases split up in a sort of complementary
distribution, in which the plain free indirect forms represent thought, and the free
subjunctive forms represent speech (96-7, 148). In contrast, English free indirect
discourse between the Renaissance and Aphra Behn is exclusively used for the
representation of speech (96). Unlike the English form, German free indirect
discourse apparently cannot integrate so-called discourse parentheticals; thus a close
(i.e., device-preserving) translation of Where were her paints, she wondered? is
apparently impossible (196). (Wo waren ihre Farben, fragte sie sich reduces the scope
of the question, transforming the discourse parenthetical into a narrative
parenthetical). Free indirect discourse goes well with discordant narratorial irony, but
representations of observables do not seem to co-occur with a concordant narratorial
attitude (312).
This very cursory list of attractions, exclusions, parallels and nonparallels naturally
suggests a systematic combinatorial table of feature collocations - one immediately
envisions a feature matrix filled with pluses, minuses, and zeroes. Admittedly, the
resultant combinatorial explosion would probably be unmanageable; and on the whole
one is grateful that Fludernik never asks such burning questions as whether
nineteenth-century present-tense German discordant authorial third-person free
indirect discourse does or does not exist (and if not, why not). Of course, no-one can
say whether this or some other hitherto wholly unremarkable combination may not
one day turn out to be an important catalyst, change a paradigm, make an ideal type,
or falsify a hypothesis. However, there is some consolation in the thought that, if all
else fails, one can always fall back on the combinatorial game to generate more grist
for the mills of future dissertations.
2. Imaginary and perceived discourse. An area which does deserve more immediate
and detailed attention, but, unfortunately, is only touched on in passing by Fludernik,
is that of representational embedding, especially in that intriguing guise of perceived
discourse. Although the German term erlebte Rede has often been acknowledged to be
an awkward misnomer (Pascal 1977, 30; Fger 1993, 49), it is worth remembering
that one of its original objective correlatives is heard (experienced, perceived) speech
(von Roncador 1988, 238). Fludernik is generally aware of "perception
interpretations" (203, 255, 268-9, 312); she even has a whole chapter (5.5) on
"narrated perception." Unfortunately, this does not deal with heard speech at all.
Elsewhere, heard speech is usually only mentioned when Fludernik criticizes Banfield
for using it as an excuse to evade the issue of non-literary, conversational free indirect
discourse (381). By way of refutation, Fludernik presents many examples of
reportative (quotational) free indirect speech, especially from her conversational
corpus. However, letting the matter rest there effectively sidesteps the issue. The main
problem is that, unlike "ordinary" free indirect discourse, perceived discourse does not
conform to a quotational or reportative framework. As Banfield notes, and Fludernik
duly acknowledges (140-41), free indirect heard speech often uses referential
expressions where plain free indirect discourse requires pronouns. Heard speech
challenges the partitioning of a text into narration-of-speech and narration-of-events.
In true test-case fashion, it also undermines Fludernik's basic assumption that the
perspectival orientation of represented speech tokens is "necessarily outside" (136) clearly, things can be heard in the mind in the absence of any observable signal. By
contrast, treating perceived discourse as systematically independent would not only
allow a non-reductive approach to the phenomenon itself, it would also create a
significant stepping stone towards an analysis of imaginary speech and thought,
which, so-far, has been woefully neglected.
3. The deictic centre. This is Fludernik's basic term to refer to a linguistic reference
point (going back to Bhler's origo) for elements such as pronouns, proximal and
distal adverbs (here, there, now, then), modals (presumably), and tenses. In a more
general sense, a deictic centre also serves as an anchoring point for subjective
expressions and constructions, in which function it is usually identified as a subject of
consciousness, a self (Banfield), a focalizer, a reflector, a narrator, or simply a being
capable of having and expressing a point of view (450).
The bulk of the linguistic evidence on free indirect discourse and related techniques of
speech and thought representation appears in Fludernik's chapters 2, 3, and 4. Chapter
2 provides an introductory "guidebook on free indirect discourse" (82). Chapter 3
analyzes the "shifted" character of indirect and free indirect discourse, and documents
much validity as the original hypothesis, and this is never a good thing. Whatever one
may think of Banfield's views, her radical claim that free indirect discourse cannot
support subjective expressions attributable to different "selves" actually seems to rest
on a better foundation than the dual voice hypothesis.
The voice metaphor is additionally complicated by the contention that textual
polyphony only works in "a silent register" (quoted McHale 1978, 282). The point is
echoed by Rimmon-Kenan (1983, 15), who, precariously sticking her neck out,
suggests that "[i]t is perhaps because of the difficulty a speaker would experience in
trying to perform orally the co-presence of voices characteristic of FID that the
phenomenon seems more congenial to the silent register of writing." Here the
metaphor comes full circle, welcoming in its own tail end. Of course, McHale (1978,
282) and Fludernik point out that free indirect discourse is not rare in oral discourse,
which is not a silent register. Moreover, it is clearly a standard trick in oral discourse
to imitate another person's voice without wholly suppressing one's own (in fact, only a
professional imitator can presumably suppress all features of her/his own voice). The
resultant real dual voice effect is possible precisely because the register of oral
discourse is not silent, because there are idiosyncratic features such as gender, pitch,
volume, stress, and intonation that, suitably combined, can be suggestive of more than
one voice. This indeed tallies with Fludernik's view, put forward in her discussion of
Bakhtinian alterity, that a dual voice effect is most likely to occur in texts which
imitate an oral discourse situation, such as skaz. Although this view does not deny
dual voice in principle, it does subvert dual voice in ordinary textual free indirect
discourse: "If one compares these strategies of double voicing in Russian skaz with
the nineteenth century 'realist' English novel, one notices immediately how
monologous [my emphasis, M.J.] in Bakhtin's sense Victorian novels still are: they
propagate a superior, frequently ironic, narratorial viewpoint which looks down on a
fictional world, on characters riddled with moral, intellectual and linguistic foibles"
(331). As for the test case of ironical free indirect discourse (351-54), Fludernik
eventually concludes that speaking "of a narrator's voice intermingling with the
figural idiom - or even juxtaposed to it within the free indirect discourse - is clearly
incorrect" (354).[3]
Despite all these reservations, Fludernik does not trash the concepts of voice, dual
voice, or textual polyphony. Indeed, she argues, there is one important reason for
"recuperating" these concepts, and that is because they are needed in an analysis of
"the reader's intuitive perception of discourse" (350). In an important elaboration of
this claim, Fludernik adds: "Readers do in fact construct a narrator's (or author's)
voice as a default value and, given sufficient linguistic evidence, experience an
evocation of figural voices on that background" (350).
Deictic centres and voices are thus assigned to different levels of analysis - one
linguistic, one cognitive/pragmatic. This is the move by which Fludernik achieves her
almost miraculous synthesis of Banfield's (one self, no voice) and Pascal's (two
voices) accounts. Briefly, on the level of linguistic forms, there are only deictic
centres, but no voices. On a first level of cognitive processing, the reader constructs
one voice, the narrator's (or the narration's, in the absence of a personalized narrator).
On yet another level, that of pragmatic-cognitive modelling, the reader "perceives" the
voice of a character. However, these voices do not mingle, as is claimed in the dual
voice hypothesis. The narrator's voice, albeit in overall control, is "backgrounded"
(116), while at the same time the character's voice is "assimilated" to "the reporting
text" (115). In free indirect discourse, the narrative voice constitutes the controlling
background against which a reader experiences a character's expressive voice.
7. A rhetoric of subjective expressions. Fludernik's final resolution of the linguistic
evidence is presented in her chapter 8, in which she attempts to determine the extent
to which the representation of other persons' language and thought relies on schematic
or "typicalized" subjective expressions. Fludernik presents an exhaustive, or nearexhaustive, tabulation of subjective forms, demonstrating that these forms are not
freely generative. Moreover, analyses of real-life conversational and journalistic texts
suggest that subjective expressions are often used rhetorically and evocatively rather
than strictly mimetically. Indeed their primary function often is to act as "enquotation
devices" (419); they flag something as a representation of a speech or thought act,
they signal a transition to the character's code, without actually engaging in (or
guaranteeing) a facsimilar, verbatim quote. If one adds up Sternberg's (1982), Short's
(1991) and now Fludernik's evidence, the very concept of facsimilar, mimetic
quotation practically amounts to a fallacy.
To gauge the practical import of this conclusion, briefly reconsider the hackneyed She
was tired. Although devoid of any obvious subjectivity markers, given a suitable
context this would be interpretable as a free indirect discourse representation of a
character's utterance or thought. Naturally, the sentence can also be loaded with
expressive forms, say an interjection and an inversion - Oh, was she tired! In this case,
and supposing that the narrator is not currently him/herself given to using expressive
language of this kind - a possibility not in principle to be ruled out - the narrator
would utilize "a schematic indication of alterity" (437) with the subjectivity markers
mainly acting as conventional rhetorical cues. The inversion and the exclamation are
rhetorical triggers affirming (suggesting, evoking) the deictic anchoring of a linguistic
or semi-linguistic activity. The rest - attribution to a character's voice - will be
supplied by the properly conditioned reader.
8. Functions and Frames. In order to inquire into the cognitive and pragmatic
contribution of co-operative readers, Fludernik draws on the "frame" and "script"
theories developed in artificial intelligence and cognitive research (Minsky 1979,
Schank/Abelson 1977). Acting on cues given in the textual surface, the reader selects
a cognitive model, script or frame, which is usually already loaded with "normal case"
or "default" assumptions. In a reader's processing of a narrative text, scripts help to
anticipate and understand the story line, bridge gaps, flesh out characterization, and
attribute voices, attitudes and judgments to the narrator and the characters. As noted
above, it is crucially important to keep apart the level of the linguistic data and the
level (or levels) created by the reader's constructive contributions. On this premise,
voices as well as narrators and narratees are fictions, cognitive constructs rather than
empirical objects. It is the reader's cognitive activity which, from the proverbial marks
on the page, creates the narrator and his/her voice, as well as the characters, the action
and the characters' voices - this is how the "Fictions of Language" in Fludernik's title
are related to the "Languages of Fiction" (2, 463).
Fludernik next turns to a frame-theoretical discussion of "the theoretical apparatus of
narratology" (449). Following Pratt (1977), she addresses the question to what extent
the frame of oral storytelling - a frame in which the teller is visible and audible,
speaking in the presence of his/her audience (441) - also underlies narratological and
cognitive models of literary narrative. Surveying the main models of narrative
communication, Fludernik argues that these have always been heavily influenced by
"natural" conditions; indeed she claims that "one can . . . explain the entire
communication analysis of fiction as an (illicit) transferral of the frame of real-life
conversational narrative onto literary personae and constructed entities" (448).
"Speakers" and "voices," for example, are plain instances of concepts that originate in
the oral storytelling frame. The oral frame also clearly underlies presuppositional
reasoning like "if there is a story, somebody must needs tell it" (448). On a more
subliminal level, its influence can be detected in various narratological
anthropomorphizations like "covert narrators," "arrangers," "show-ers," "implied
authors," and so forth.
Fludernik's economical (if slightly confusing) way of covering all of these instances
as an "(illicit) transferral" naturally raises the question of a frame's adequacy. Some
"fictions" created by applying the oral script are perfectly acceptable; this is why
narrators and voices are valid concepts. Anybody who did not use the "narrator script"
would not only fail to understand a great many literary narratives, but would indeed
step outside a large interpretive community. The point here is that this particular
transferral is not at all "illicit," but virtually necessary. On the other hand, there are, of
course, cases where the script of oral narrative does not apply equally well. For
example, Fludernik rightly notes that reflector mode narratives "are structured around
the script of experiencing or viewing rather than telling" (449). Moreover, it is one
thing to be able to explain why theorists find it tempting to construct implied authors
and "show-ers" (Chatman 1990, 113), but it is quite a different question whether these
are at all helpful (443; see also Nnning 1993). Obviously, the history of narratology
is full of dubious naturalizations based on truly illicit transferrals.
9. Work in progress. Here Fludernik breaks off this extremely pertinent
narratological discussion and tantalizingly refers the reader to her next book-length
study, already "in preparation," entitled Towards a 'Natural' Narratology. This book, it
is promised, will provide a more extensive "presentation of the frame-theoretical
model in its application to the theoretical apparatus of narratology" (449). Judging
from Fludernik's past and present interests, this will presumably be an effort to ascend
Pratt's (1977) ladder, utilizing the script of natural narrative as a paradigm script of
literary narratology.
However, a word of caution appears to be in order. First of all, it will be prudent to
recall the comments made by Culler (1988) in his critique of Pratt (1977), especially
his objections to the supposed primacy of oral narratives, as well as to the
"tendentiousness" of the term natural (1988, 211-12). If oral stories are called natural,
Culler notes, the suggestion is that novels are somehow unnatural (1988, 214). It is
true that Fludernik carefully scarequotes the word, but this will, of course, only raise
the justified complaint that using terms under protest is not a good foundation for
anything. Clearly a theory that aims to be radical - a key notion in all of Fludernik's
endeavours - must proceed on (and if necessary, invent) its own termes justes.
Two other objections suggest themselves, and Fludernik would do well to be aware of
them from the beginning. One is that of reductionism: the natural frames might prove
too simple for literary narratives. The second is the one identified in her own phrase
of potential "illicit transferral": the natural frames might be the wrong frames. On the
grounds of Fludernik's past and present performance - her analysis of the historical
present (Fludernik 1992), second person narratives (Fludernik 1993a), and now of
speech and thought representation (Fludernik 1993b) - it is unlikely that the first
objection will have a case. So far, the natural frames found by Fludernik have never
been simplistic or obvious; in fact, her simple categories are usually more complex
than other theorists' complex categories. Thus there is every reason to suppose that
narratology stands to gain in sophistication and differentiation by the extraliterary
analogies. The best indication of this is the present study itself, whose very
convincing achievement it is to leave the well-trodden paths and widen the horizons
of traditional narratological inquiry.
The second objection addresses a more real danger. Here one must hope that (as in her
assessment of reflector mode narratives) Fludernik will not forget that frames
sometimes fail to fit, that some frames may be suitable points of departure, but less
suitable points of arrival, and that, very generally speaking, new situations require
new frames. One also hopes that the natural frames will not lead to the recuperation of
too many traditional metaphors. One can see why it might be an advantage to
recuperate "voices," but one certainly does not want to recuperate authors who do
their own narrating, implied authors doubling up as self-fulfilling interpretations, or
reflectors acting as narrators. Throwing away these ladders may not be enough - there
are too many traditionalists around who want to put them up again.
Notes
1. In fact, "Oh, she simply hated her daughter!" is a sentence of narrative report in
Nabokov's Lolita (New York: Van Rees, 1955), p. 82. "She was tired," the third
sentence in Joyce's "Eveline," is variously read as free indirect discourse, narrated
perception, or ambiguous (see Chatman 1978, 204-5; Fger 1993, 50-52).
2. Despite the popularity of scales in literary theory, literary theorists are usually
unaware of the very functional scale concepts that, since the 1940's, have been part of
measurement theory in the behavioral sciences. See Siegel (1956, 21-30) for a
standard introduction. Whether the concepts of partly ordered scales (Coombs et al.
1954), fuzzy sets (McNeill and Freiberger 1993), or preference rule systems
(Jackendoff 1983) could equally be appropriated to literary theory cannot be readily
answered here; but the question is certainly worth persuing.
3. There is one isolated lapse of precision in Fludernik's discussion of irony. This is
her suggestion that one should make a distinction between "narratorial irony," in
which a "textual speaker . . . utilizes contradictions on whatever level," and "authorial
irony," in which "the contradictions are recognized only by the reader and the ironic
intent is hence attributed to the (implied) author rather than the narrative voice" (352).
As far as I can see, these are unproductive and unnecessarily confusing definitions.
For one thing, as Fludernik well knows (because she draws attention it herself),
"contradictions" do not capture the pragmatic character of irony (352). Second, one
must object to the way the implied author - who, usually, has no function whatsoever
in Fludernik's approach - manages to insinuate itself here. More importantly, the term
authorial irony conflicts with the term authorial narrator - according to Fludernik, an
authorial narrator's irony is narratorial irony, not authorial irony. The one example