0312421729 by Letters to a Young Novelist (Picador 2003)

Author:Letters to a Young Novelist (Picador, 2003)
Format: epub
Published: 2015-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

Fondly, and until next time,

Levels of Reality

Dear Friend,

I very much appreciate your quick response, and I’m pleased you want us to continue exploring the anatomy of the novel. It’s good to know, too, that you don’t have too many objections to my presentation of the spatial and temporal points of view.

I’m afraid, however, that the point of view we’re about to explore won’t be so easily explained, though it is just as important as the ones we’ve already discussed; we are venturing now into a much more nebulous realm than that of space or time. But let’s not waste time on introductory remarks.

To begin with what is easiest—a general definition—let’s say that the point of view in terms of level of reality is the relationship between the level, or plane, of reality on which the narrator situates himself to narrate the novel and the plane of reality on which the story takes place. As with space and time, the planes occupied by the narrator and by the story may coincide or they may be different, and it is their relationship that determines the kind of fiction that is produced.

I can imagine your first objection. “It may be easy to establish the three possible spatial points of view—the narrator within the narrative, outside of it, or in an uncertain location—and the temporal points of view, too, given the conventional division of time into present, past, and future, but aren’t we faced with a boundless infinity when we consider reality?” That may be true. In theory, reality can be divided and subdivided into a boundless number of planes, giving rise to infinite points of view in fictional realities. But, my friend, don’t let yourself be overwhelmed by that dizzying possibility. Fortunately, when we move from theory to practice (here, too, is an example of two sharply distinct planes), we find that fiction only really negotiates a limited number of levels and that, as a result, we may identify the most common expressions of the point of view in terms of level of reality (I don’t like this formulation either, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything better) without presuming to cover all of them.

Perhaps the most distinct and clearly opposed of the options are the “real” world and the “fantastic” world. (I use quotation marks to emphasize the relativity of these concepts, though without such terms we wouldn’t be able to understand one another, and perhaps wouldn’t even be able to use language.) I’m sure that although you may not like it much (I don’t either), you’ll agree that we should call real or realist (as opposed to fantastic) all persons, things, or occurrences that we are able to recognize and define through our own experience of the world, and call everything else fantastic. The notion of the fantastic, then, covers a whole range of levels: the magic, the miraculous, the legendary, the mythical, et cetera.

Now that we are provisionally in agreement, I can tell you that this juxtaposition

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