Thefirst questionwe might ask is: What sort of cognitivestructure does this narrativebuild, such that the meaning of
each sentence has itsproper placeinit?Ithas a multidimensional complexityin time, pointofview, tone, and narrative
rhyth mfar beyond anything we have looked at so far. Given this structure, then we have to ask yet again: how do
readers derive thisstructurefro mthe printedpage, and howdo they learn to do it? What are thecognitiveantecedents
that allow narrative to take such forms?
Afinal question: What is wrong with this narrative?
(74) Once upon a time there was a littleduck wholivedwithan armadilloin a burrow underneath a stop sign,next to a big purplefire station.
In thefire station lived a dog named Spot who had been born on a farm in Florida. His parents belonged to a man named Harry
Thistlethwaitewhogrewtobaccoforcigars. Oneday Harry was outwalkingwhen hespied a littlegirl walkingdown thestreet.Thegirl's name
was Monica, and she was 10 years old. She owned three umbrellas, one of which was manufactured by a company in Singapore that went
bankrupt four years later. Its owner was so distressed he went to Las Vegas and drowned himself in a swimming pool....
Conversations at dinner parties sometimes go like this. Everything is locally connected, but there are no larger
connections. This kind of rando mwalk fro mtopic to topic is however unacceptable in narrative. We understand that
topics opened and characters introduced must eventually result in narratively significant events, and that threads of
narrative opened at one point must eventually be tied up. Again it is of interest to ask what cognitive structures are
associated with narrative that demand this sort of large-scale coherence.
Speaking of large-scale coherence, I fear that the range of issues and topics covered in this book may by now feel to
readers a bit like a large-scale version of (74). So I will close by trying to summarize what makes it all hang together.