N a r r a t i v e1 0 5there is a logic implicit in reality, and that the task of the novel is to
bring it patiently to light. We are all part of a stupendous plot, and
the good news is that this plot has a comic outcome.
It may be helpful in this respect to think of narrative as a kind
of strategy. Like any strategy, it mobilises certain resources and
deploys certain techniques to achieve specific goals. A good many
realist novels can be seen as problem- solving devices. They create
problems for themselves which they then seek to resolve. Human
beings who do this may find themselves being referred to psychia-
trists, but it is the kind of thing we expect of realist fiction. If
there is to be narrative suspense, however, difficulties must not
be cleared up too quickly. Emma Woodhouse must end up in
Mr Knightley’s arms, but not in the second paragraph. In resolving
one kind of problem, however, literary works may simply succeed
in throwing up another, which needs to be tackled in its turn.
Modernist and postmodernist literary works are generally less
interested in solutions. Their aim is rather to lay bare certain prob-
lems. They do not typically end with fast- living fraudsters being
hung upside down from lamp posts, or a set of blissful marriages.
And in this, one might suggest, they are more realistic than most
realism.
For classical realism, the world itself is story- shaped. In a lot of
modernist fiction, by contrast, there is no order apart from what we
ourselves construct. And since any such order is arbitrary, so are
fictional openings and endings. There are no divinely ordained
origins or natural closures. Which is to say that there are no logical
middles either. What may count as an end for you may serve as an
origin for me. You can make a start or call a halt wherever you want.
Ends and origins are not inherent in the world. It is you, not the
world, who calls the shots in this respect. Wherever you make a