daughter, finds her, sees her from a distance in the street, and then
decides that he will not meet her after all.Here we see how there are multiple versions of the plot, but one version
seems to call into question the validity of the others. Alternative storylines
often make us more aware of psychological and political resonances which
would not have been there otherwise. They make us see ‘the other side of
the story’. They have become quite common in postmodern fiction, for
example, in Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel (1982) and John Fowles’s The
French Lieutenant’s Woman (1987). They have also recently infiltrated
popular culture in films such as Run Lola Run and Sliding Doors.
In Robert Coover’s postmodern story ‘The Elevator’ in Pricksongs and
Descants , one narrator tells us different versions of the story about Martin
riding up and down in the elevator (Coover 1989, pp. 100–9). The story
is told in the third person, not by Martin himself, so we might initially
expect some objectivity. But the ride in the elevator keeps appearing in
different forms. On one occasion Martin is the object of derision by
people in the elevator who make fun of him, but on another occasion he
is locked in an amorous embrace with the operator girl who he fancies.
Are we being told the story of what did happen in the elevator on differ-
ent occasions; what could happen, or what Martin fantasised about; or is
it a mixture? There is no one version which seems to be the ‘real’ one.
There are so many incompatible versions of the story that we lose any
sense of where the truth lies. It makes us think about how subjective
reality is, and how stories are always fictions: constructs, rather than facts.
This story, and Coover’s ‘The Babysitter’ (1989) also in Pricksongs and
Descants , are excellent models for writing in this way. I urge you to read
them and use them for that purpose.
CHARACTER REBORN, POSTMODERN
IDENTITIES
The traditional view of characters is that they should be ‘well-rounded’: that
is, behave like flesh-and-blood human beings. This view is based on
mimesis: the idea that literature is an imitation of life, and that characters
should be as lifelike as possible. In realist novels, authors generally suggest
how characters come to be the people they are, and give us some access to
their inner lives: there are implied causes and effects, even though these may
be subtle, complex and incomplete. A character is seen as an individual who
is clearly differentiated from others: even when that character has conflicts
they are contained within a recognisable and knowable personality.
Postmodern f(r)ictions 139