mental disposition to intuit such patterns after exposure to specific instances
of them. When we encounter a new work, our knowledge of the limited num-
ber of patterns allows us to place it in the appropriate genre—sometimes as
early as the second chapter.
Sacks admits that his argument for the second hypothesis is speculative,
and, as I noted above, I find the speculations more fascinating than persuasive.
Sacks does not provide sufficient warrant for the assumption about the limited
number of genres, and the argument by analogy is vulnerable from multiple
directions, including that it overlooks the differences between learning a first-
order sign system (language) and a second-order sign system (generic distinc-
tions). Attending to the differences would seriously complicate the argument
because it would mean giving a much larger role to culture’s influence on the
second-order sign system. Furthermore, applying a posteriori reasoning leads
me to be skeptical of the hypothesis: the vast corpus of narratives in the world
does not seem to be reducible to only a few genres.
On the other hand, Sacks’s point about how readers typically respond to
the beginning of chapter 2 of Pride and Prejudice does invite further thought
about intuitive knowledge in our reading. Rather than locating that intuitive
knowledge in the apprehension of a genre, I propose a more flexible con-
clusion: the unfolding responses of the audience function as tentative, open-
ended frames within which they comprehend new parts of literary works.
These unfolding responses can include but would not be restricted to the
apprehension of a work’s genre. In the case of the first few sentences of chap-
ter 2 of Austen’s novel, such an inference about genre is not necessary. Instead,
because Austen in chapter 1 so closely aligns the voice and values of Mr. Ben-
net with the voice and values of her narrator, it is going to take something
more egregious than his actually doing what his wife wants him to do and not
telling her until after the fact to alter our ethical judgments of him.
BEYOND ARISTOTLE AND SACKS: IMPLAUSIBILITIES AND
READERLY DYNAMICS
I turn now to elaborate on my claim in the introduction to this chapter that
probable deviations are not one-off or anomalous phenomena but rather instruc-
tive examples that indicate how tellers frequently rely on the unfolding of read-
erly dynamics in their construction of textual dynamics by looking at two cases
of implausible narration, one in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the other
in The Great Gatsby. These analyses will then prepare the way for my discus-
sion of the panels from Stitches that serve as my first epigraph.
AUDIENCES AND PROBABLE IMPOSSIBILITIES • 43