‘Uh, seventy-six. Eighty-six.’
‘What’s ninety-three minus seven?’
‘1914–1918.’
‘What are the dates of the First World War?’
‘Okay,’ says the patient, sitting up straight.
‘I’m now going to ask you some questions.’
‘No.’
‘Sleeping okay? Any digestive problems?’
‘I’ll be eighty-one in January.’
‘And you’re.. .what?’
‘I don’t feel myself.’
‘Well, what seems to be the problem?’From Time’s Arrow or The Nature of the Offence (Amis 2003, p. 35)The effect of this ‘backwards’ dialogue is quite strange. The patient seems
to be giving more and more bizarre answers to Tod’s questions, but they
also fit with Tod’s assertion ‘That’s an abnormal response’. In fact, we can
read the dialogue both forwards and backwards, though the effect is dif-
ferent in each case. For conversation is not always linear or progressive in
the way we might imagine, while cause and effect can sometimes be
reversed with meaningful results. If we read the dialogue as it stands, the
patient’s responses are bizarre, but they are still recuperable as ‘real’ if we
think of the patient as wayward or psychologically disturbed. On the other
hand, if we read the dialogue backwards the patient’s responses appear rel-
atively normal. The doctor interprets them as abnormal, but we are likely
to think they are not, and that the doctor is being overly controlling. Either
way, it is the patient’s mental faculties which are in doubt, and the power
relationship between patient and doctor which is central. Turning dia-
logue upside down may reverse its political and psychological import, but
not necessarily render it as nonsense.
POWERING UP YOUR DIALOGUE
Exercise 3 focuses on the way dialogue can express emotional investments
and power relationships. The importance of power relationships in dia-
logue is very well made by Keith Johnstone in his book Impro (1981).
Impro is about improvisational techniques in acting, and is therefore
mainly relevant to the creation of dialogue in performance, but the book
contains many insights which are significant for writing in general.
Dialoguing 117