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TWO BOOK REVIEWS

The book is divided into three main chapters: a theory chapter which discusses questions of ordering, tempo and continuity; a chapter discussing four case-studies of sequential dynamics, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Natsume Sseki’s The Gate, Ahmadou Kourouma’s Les Soleils des Indépendances and Graham Swift’s Waterland; and a final long chapter which provides a history of sequential dynamics by way of summarizing prominent features of major novels from Lazarillo de Tormes to a selection of Joseph Conrad’s fictional oeuvre.

Ireland’s study is to be particularly commended for its comparative orientation and its extensive coverage of German contributions to narrative theory. I was also pleasantly houses these days. (There are, however, a few minor typos and some funny line divisions like ‘Barbara Herr-nstein Smith’—p. 51; or ‘Knoep-flmacher’—p. 90.) Moreover, the book generally presents an in-depth discussion of previous criticism which is both generous and inclusive, unearthing a number of studies that have unjustifiably fallen into oblivion.

In this review, I want to concentrate of the first, theory, chapter. The analyses provided in chapters 2 and 3 are too formalistic for my taste; I would have preferred a full 30-page chapter on each of the four novels, with clear diagrams outlining the distribution of sequential feature. In particular, the history chapter is much too dense and provides stages of developments without clearly documenting how these stages come together in large-scale narrative developments except in the (to be expected) spatialization of narrative towards Modernism.

Ireland’s key title concept, sequential dynamics, belies what he is actually focusing on in the book—a revised version of the Genettean temporal system of anachronies, speed and frequency. The decisive advance over Genette comes from both closer and more context-dependent analysis of the novels, and from a discussion of their functional relevance.

Ireland’s section on ordering significantly extends Genette’s concept of order and his distinction between analepses and prolepses. By inquiring into the purpose of reordering, Ireland’s formal analysis gains interpretative depth and proposes useful patterns for the discussion of individual texts. For instance, in reference to Arnold Bennett’s The Old Wives’ Tale (1908), Ireland suggests that the reshuffling of the sequence ‘departure of newlyweds—honeymoon in Paris—trip to Versailles’ from its chronological A-B-C to the rearranged A-C-B ordering serves to mark ‘the Versailles trip … as the highpoint of the honeymoon, before disillusion and humiliation intrude’ (p. 54). Ireland proceeds to discuss even more complex rearrangements such as backward narration (he calls this ‘progressive reverse’ –E-D-C-B-A), with a variety of delay patterns and so called ‘semi-returns’ when one analeptic section is continued after an interval: C-B1-A-B2. This particular schema is useful not only for the analysis of novels; in fact, it could be applied with equal profit to modern drama. Thus, Tom Stoppard’s Artist Descending A Staircase (1973) has a loop structure and employs progressive reverse followed by a progression of semi-returns: F1-E1-C1-B1-A-B2-C2-D2-E2-F2. Pinter’s Betrayal (1978) is another play that might be analyzed by means of Ireland’s terminology. What I found particularly fascinating were Ireland’s speculations about the relationship between initial, medial or final reverses and the creation of suspense. Thus, a sequence of delayed final reverse B-E-C-D-A, which Ireland illustrates by Caryl Churchill’s play Top Girls (1982), serves to uncover facts that will help the reader (or viewer in this case) significantly reinterpret what has gone before.

Ireland’s second section of his theory chapter deals with the issue of tempo. Starting out from Genette’s four categories of descriptive pause, scene, summary and ellipsis, Ireland adds Chatman’s stretch as a fifth category. In what follows Ireland is most interested in the tactics of speeding up or slowing down in so far as these can be produced by dialogue passages or spatial shifts. Thus, an example like Turgenev’s ending of chapter 4 of Virgin Soil (1877) spirits the protagonist from one setting into the other within a line: ‘During the space of an hour, Nejdenov listened to the wise, courteous, patronizing speeches of his host, received a hundred roubles, and ten days later was leaning back in the plush seat of a reserved, first-class compartment … being borne along to Moscow’ (quoted by Ireland, pp. 67-8). In this section, Ireland’s focus on chapter transitions already becomes prominent. It turns out to be the focus of the third section of the theory chapter which is entitled ‘Continuity relations and categories of transition’.

Ireland starts his discussion of continuity by reference to Todorov’s distinction between embedding (hierarchical combination), linking (juxtaposition of parallel plots) and ‘alternation (moving back and forth between stories)’ (p. 75). Ireland’s analysis concentrates on the transition between chapter endings and subsequent chapter beginnings. He distinguishes between (a) continuous phase, (b) proleptic phase, (c) analeptic phase, (d) parallel phase, (e) simultaneous phase and (f) alternative phase as six logical combinations of continuity. Basically, continuous phase refers to a transition continuing the plot by means of a number of ‘ties’—e.g. by adverbs like then or later, by explicit narratorial comment, or by minor ellipses like the ‘nocturnal gap’: next morning. Proleptic phase is characterized by proleptic commentary such as (‘And Arkady proceeded to relates his uncle’s story. Which the reader will find in the following chapter’—Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, transition at end of chapter 6; quoted by Ireland, p. 85). Analeptic phase is frequently signaled by a narratorial ‘let us return to …’ phrase and clearly serves the purposes of providing background information.

Parallel phase, to be distinguished from simultaneous phase (‘While Grandcourt … was taking the pleasure ride …, Gwendolen was seated before the mirror’ –quoted on p. 113), occurs when events narrated at the end of a chapter (partially) overlap with those referred to at the beginning of the next; in other words the two chapters deal with events that occurred simultaneously but in different settings. While parallel phase therefore refers to a long overlap, simultaneous phase merely signals contemporaneity as a shifting device from one person (Grandcourt) to the other (Gwendolen). Ireland also has a name for a common shifting tactic, ‘analeptic overleap’. ‘I left Mary, on that same Thursday night’ (from Mary Barton, quoted on p. 124), a strategy for returning to one plot strand after having shifted to another in alternate phase structure.

The new conceptual refinements provided in Ireland’s theory chapter are eye-openers in terms of the failings of traditional narratoloy since Genette to engage with textual detail and to do so from a historical perspective as well. This is an important book that should receive wide coverage.

—Monika Fludernick, Language and Literature, 2003 12(4)

Another title to consider within the narrative rubric is Ken Ireland’s The Sequential Dynamics of Narrative. This book has clearly had a long gestation (a reading of Genette back in the 1970s is mentioned) and, a rare virtue in days of RAE-driven research, benefits from careful consideration of a wide range of reference, primary and secondary, from the European literary canon as well as from Japan and Africa, and in narratology and reader research. The material is lucidly presented throughout. What governs sequence in narratives? If, for example ‘one event follows this rather than that event in the act of narration, what difference should it make? (Introduction, p. 15.). ‘Art’ as opposed to one damned thing after another?’ See Chapter 1! A very thought-provoking read altogether, on notions of time and temporality in the novel. Punctuation, chapters, and sections on one hand, the search for patterns, coherence and the phenomenology of reading on the other, continuities and discontinuities, this is a rich field to mine. Ireland too argues a need for hermeneutics and cognitive psychology to be brought to bear along with narratology, criticism and the linguistics of writing:

Sequential dynamics relate, then, both to the manner in which sequences are arranged, in terms of overt authorial division of the text, and to the manner in which the reader, proceeding through that text, registers temporal and continuity relationships, and creates sequential ties. (Ireland, 2001:37)

There is a rich empirical mapping of historical instances of narrative onto theoretical taxonomies, with Part 3 opening vistas from literary history onto homologies of preference of cultures and times for varieties of sequential dynamic, even if, at the end of a very stimulating study, van Peer and Chatman’s Introduction may return to consciousness: literary scholars tell us a lot about texts, but not enough about readers and reading.

–Geoff Hall, Language and Literature, 2002

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Photograph courtesy of Louise Dell-Bene Stahl © 2001