Style 32 (4), Winter 1998, pp 691-93

Brian Richardson. Unlikely Stories : Causality and the Nature of Modern

Narrative. Newark : University of Delaware Press, 1997. 219 pp. $30.00 cloth.

In the 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 the last twenty years, from Todorov's Introduction to Poetics through the seemingly endless "introductions" to narrative that have followed in Todorov's wake, has consisted primarily of (usually uncredited) rewordings of G6rard Genette's Figures (especially the 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 the Nature of Modern Narrative, Brian Richardson succeeds in arguing that causality, "the single most undertheorized aspect of the narrative transaction," is an important feature of narration and should be examined further by narrative theorists and critics (182). His book provides an excellent starting place for such examinations.

Richardson states that the subject of his book is "the connection between multiple story lines, the interpretation of the text, the sequencing of episodes, and the casual system governing the world of fiction" (13). The text is divided into two sections, the 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 the longer critical chapters. In the 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 on a paucity of examples" (63). This charge can certainly not be made against Richardson himself, who makes no sweeping claims, and yet gives us an impressive number of examples.

In his first chapter, Richardson defines cause as the condition that occasions change in events. He adds that just as modernist and postmodernist narratives interrogate the boundary of fact and fiction, readers must use their own acumen to determine the existence and direction of causal connections (43-44). Of particular interest is his discussion of the "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 the free will of characters, and his arguments against dogma in criticism, are convincing and useful (60).

In the important second chapter, we find Richardson 's four types of probability settings that govern fiction:

I . the supernatural;

2. the Naturalistic, which includes recognizable and repeatable actions with plausible consequences;

3. chance worlds, in which the more unlikely the events, the more evident the authoris;

4. authorial excursions into fictional worlds (metafictions) in which the characters can take control from the author (a section that would profit from a discussion of Bakhtin's dialogism).

Richardson successfully defends metafiction against its attackers, particularly Henry James, whom Richardson notes is clearly a more metafictional writer than Trollope. Richardson adds that James is always talking about form, composition, art, and selection. What he objects to I is not so much that Trollope made such an admission [of his novel being "make believe"], as that he did it within the fiction rather than in a preface. (83)

"One must wonder," Richardson adds, "how the prejudice against metafiction could ever arise." The answer, he believes, is related to causal systems: metafiction undermines the internal consistency of the natural world. But he adds that

a metafictional transgression of the naturalistic provides a work with a new dialectic that can operate like the interpretive tension between the supernatural and the naturalistic in a tale of the fantastic. (84)

The third chapter, while far from uninteresting, does include some material that some may find problematic. It is laudable for Richardson to want to move beyond the theories of Genette, but one may wonder how a discussion of what leading theorists have defined as narrative can fail to include him (92). His discussion of Harold Pinter's Landscape includes an examination of the play that assumes what is happening on the stage (two people talking) is literally happening the way the audience sees it (i.e., that the characters are together and responding to each other), which seems to be contrary to Pinter's intentions (100-04). Finally, one may wonder if the atypical Mrs. Dalloway is the most satisfactory example of how narratives of more than one story are connected (105).

Far more convincing is Richardson 's contention that we must step back from the oversimplifications of our definitions of narrative. Richardson responds to some of the more reductionist definitions of narrative that have emerged in the recent past, arguing that two events, though necessary to constitute a minimal narrative, are not in themselves sufficient conditions of narrativity. "John looked hard at Mary; she returned his stare [ ... ]" does not strike me as being a narrative, even though the events are causally connected and contain a temporal progression. Something more is certainly needed. (106-07)

 One may hope that Richardson's book will help lead the way to something more: to narrative theory and criticism that is more concerned with examining actual literary narratives than in the pseudolinguistic examinations of 'typical utterances' such as the one which he illustrates above. The second half of Richardson's book attempts to do just that, as he examines such topics as necessity, chance, and death; the limits of causality (in Beckett's Molloy); non-Western beliefs in modern Asian, postcolonial, and U.S. ethnic narratives; and probability and coincidence. While these critical chapters may ultimately prove of interest primarily to those concerned with the individual authors they discuss (although it should be noted that he tends to give overviews of many works rather than detailed examinations), Richardson is revealing through these chapters that his theoretical ideas are not mere sweeping generalities, and are indeed applicable to actual literary texts.

A good example of Richardson 's critical applications is his chapter discussing Molloy, the most in-depth critical examination in his book. He shows the conspicuous gaps in the novel between intention and result, cause and effect, and words and objects (128). He then compares the two narrators, and shows one difference between them to be that Moran is a willing component of a larger totality (he wants to eliminate the random and depreciate the inexplicable), while Molloy is the personification of Humean skepticism, finding no connections in the episodes of his life and refusing to believe that any sequence of events is causally connected (129-3 1). Ultimately, Beckett challenges our conception of narrative:

if Moran finds Molloy, or if he becomes Molloy-then the work [in our concept of narrative] is a novel. If on the other hand the Moran section is distinct, merely another version of the Molloy tale in the same general way that Malone Dies is another version, [ ... ] then the text contains two narratives disguised as one. (134)

It is inevitable that theoretical works of this kind are going to have certain omissions that individual readers would find valuable additions to the discussion, and, as we have seen above, Richardson 's book is no exception. But those criticisms aside, his book has (like James Phelan's Narrative as Rhetoric) brought together a coherent set of theoretical ideas and critical essays that add up to a genuine contribution to the theoretical study of literary narrative. Unlikely Stories is an important addition to the discussion of narrative theory.

Michael Flaherty

Northern Illinois University

Home Page