be an integral part of the implied Didion’s purpose of exploring the connec-
tions between mourning and self-delusion.
However, because The Year of Magical Thinking is nonfiction, this
hypothesis about distance between the implied Didion and the narrating-I
is extremely difficult to sustain. In fiction, the implied author is ontologi-
cally distinct from the narrating-I and the experiencing-I, while in nonfiction,
there is ontological continuity from one to the others. In Didion’s case, this
continuity gets expressed, first, in the alignment of the implied author and the
narrating-I as able to recognize the magical thinking of the experiencing-I,
and, second, in the gradual movement of the experiencing-I toward a union
with the attitudes and understandings of the other two figures. It would be
self-contradictory for the implied Didion to intentionally undermine this
movement at this juncture of the narrative. To put these points another way,
the larger design of the narrative underwrites the experiencing-I’s movement
toward some partial acceptance of John’s death. Consequently, it makes sense
to regard the implied Didion and the narrating-I as endorsing the conclusion
that there was nothing that the experiencing-I could have done to have pre-
vented John’s heart attack. Thus, the off-kilter quality of the passage is unin-
tended. I will return to the consequences of this judgment, but first I want to
consider another example of unintended off-kilter narration.
Jean-Dominique Bauby’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is an account of
living with “locked-in syndrome,” a condition in which one’s body is almost
completely paralyzed, while one’s mind remains fully functioning. The passage
I want to consider is from a chapter entitled “Twenty to One.”
Neither of us was a racing fan, but the track correspondent valued us highly
enough to treat us to lunch at the Vincennes restaurant and to give us the
password to the Aladdin’s cave of racing: a tip. Mithra-Grandchamp was
a sure thing, he told us, a guaranteed winner, and since the odds on him
were twenty to one, a fat little profit—much better than municipal bonds—
seemed likely. [. . .]
We had eaten an enjoyable lunch that day in the restaurant overlooking
the racetrack. The large dining room was frequented by gangsters in their
Sunday suits, pimps, parolees, and other shady characters who gravitate nat-
urally to horse racing. Sated, we puffed greedily on long cigars and awaited
the fourth race. In that hothouse atmosphere, criminal records bloomed like
orchids all around us. [. . .]
At Vincennes, we lingered so long in the dining room that the race
came and went without us. The betting counter slammed shut under our
noses before I had time to pull out the roll of banknotes the people back atIMPLIED AUTHOR, DEFICIENT NARRATION, AND NONFICTION • 209