(4 ) Now You See it – Now You Don’t

 It is said that when Queen Victoria was travelling by train, huge screens would be erected by the track in Birmingham to prevent her from having to see the unseemly, unruly smoky parts of her royal domain.  I quite like this image (even if entirely untrue) because that is exactly what we do as story tellers.  Laying down smoke screens in the form of narrators’ characters and choosing deliberately what you are allowed to see of our unseemly, unruly, smoky fantasy without really revealing the parts of us and our stories that we want to keep hidden. Or couldn’t be bothered to invent. Even though we profess ourselves to be entirely open and honest, listen to our stories and you, indeed have become part of the Matrix without the aid of either a red or blue pill.

So, am I now going to draw back the curtains that surround the magic box of fantasy and let you see what is beyond? Abracadabra!

As well you know, art is all about choice.  And even the most random and apparently chaotic forms of art are the result of choices that somebody has made.  The finished artwork then fills a gap in the universe that nobody knew existed before hand. Sometimes the piece will be very like something you have seen before and provides a sense of warm familiarity. Sometimes it is wild and free and you shake your heads at its exotic weirdness.

But you are a stranger in this place.  It is up to me to point out the details.  The things that might pique your curiosity and excite your interest. And to aid this I am using the narrator as a lens. But as with Ishmael’s telescope this is foggy and blurred with salt spray. I’m Urging you to see the story from one point of view and distracting you from elements that I do not want you to see. I focus your perceptions through that of the narrator. You may believe you are seeing everything but you are sadly deluded in that trust. I remember being taught in school about a phenomenon in literature called the “unreliable narrator”.  Let me allow you into a little secret.  All narrators are unreliable.  I wouldn’t lend any of them more than ten pence.  Not if you ever want it back again.  Doesn’t it seem fitting somehow that many politicians start out as journalists and finish as novelists?

I construct a narrator who can be as hazy on detail as I like without you noticing you’re missing out on something important. And if you challenge me for getting something wrong I can answer by telling you that my narrator was drunk or coshed over the head by the mafia. Thus, I can leave out huge amounts of detail I can’t be bothered to look up. The unreliable narrator is always the fault of the unreliable writer.  But the unreliable reader lets me get away with murder.

The fact is that I am exploiting the capacity of your brilliant human brain to interpret detail from generalities.  You only need to see a stripey tail sticking out of a bush to extrapolate the presence of a tiger.  Your perceptions are made up transitions between light and dark that you interpret in your brains as the solid things you already have in your cranial library. Look at it like that and you could say that you construct the story in your head thus relieving me of the tedious task of sorting out every tiny detail myself.

And it is with the aid of such a flaky device that you are thus misdirected as with a magicians assistant waving feathers and fireworks distracting you from my sleight of hand.  And thus I create a secret world that is not there at all.

 One of the things that has always drawn me to fairy tales is their sense of secrecy.  Many of the resonant tales for me are about secrets and silences and hidden truths  - Sara Maitland

As I was talking about Jane Austen previously, I’ll continue with her particular brand of villainy. Jane is particularly good at this wilful misdirection.  Ostensibly she shows you a series of events and encounters that are exactly as Lizzie Bennet sees them.  And because you take Jane Austen the Narrator on trust we believe that is the only version of events. But don’t forget that this Jane Austen is an invented character herself. She is no more to be trusted than of the rest of her ilk. How much better, more honest, Pride and Prejudice would be if you knew what was going on in Mr Darcy’s heart from the get go? That he was a jolly, generous sort of fellow, shy and tongue-tied, just trying to keep his aged aunt happy by concealing his real feelings from the girl he secretly fancies… But strangely, Ms Austen’s wilful misdirection improves the story for many of you readers.  It is, apparently, the very point of the story and she has kept it from you merely to make things more exciting. And to spin out the yarn to book length. If she had been more honest we could be done and dusted in a couple of paragraphs.

Dennis potter’s character Phillip Marlow says in The Singing Detective that fiction should be "all clues and no solutions"

The adept story teller uses the narrator to focus on this or that part of a scene, on this or that detail, to overhear this or that conversation.  It is as though they guide you to peer down a well to see a tiny fragment of the world reflected in the water far below and make you believe that this is all there is to see.  You are not made aware of this specification but piece by piece the narrator waves tiny details that prove to be little clues that add up over the course of the story and you are made to feel  pleased with yourselves for having followed the trail so conveniently laid out for you.  So very Plato and his cave.

All right, let’s be honest, it is this concealment and revelation which makes stories so worthwhile and enjoyable. From both sides.  In fact, if I spilt the whole can of beans at the beginning, there would be no point in us embarking on the journey at all. I would instantly become bored and go and do something more worthwhile. If I was any good with my hands I would go and build furniture or decorate the living room or something.  As it is, it is the prospect of laying down such a trail of mischief that amuses me. It is the construction of the whole wobbly edifice of fantasy that excites me. Unfettered by the rules of nature and common sense that otherwise keep us earthbound I am obliged to string you along as long as possible. 

I can go even further than this by choosing the setting and tone of where and how I tell you the story.  I draw you in as closely as possible.  I lower my voice, actually and metaphorically.  Not too many big CAPS or fireworks at a time.  I am closing down the reality we are sharing at this moment so that only the cosy world of the narration exists.  Consider how much the vision of MR James sitting in his rooms in Oxford telling ghost stories at Christmas effect the impact of the stories themselves.

And if, I have done my work well, you hang on my every word, curious about when I’m going to get round to answering any of those questions I set out at the beginning.  Perhaps the answers will come in the next part : “Shakespeare”. He’s bound to have something to say on the subject.