Narrative Gravity: Conversation, Cognition, Culture (review)

In this thought-provoking and stimulating book, the author integrates various theoretical frameworks and perspectives, such as structural linguistics, speech act theory, the cooperative principle, relevance theory, and conversation analysis, making an admirable effort to demonstrate her view of narrative as ‘a species of natural theory’. For Nair, narrative ‘is a culturally approved mode of performance’ (14), ‘is probably an important instrument of self-protection’ (18; italics in the original), and ‘is a structure that introduces the question of “why?” and the connective “because” into the world’ (344; italics in the original).

This book contains eight chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion. As noted in the introduction (1–25), these eight core chapters focus on three paradoxes: John Searle’s paradox of fictional discourse, Daniel Dennett’s paradox of authorless narrative, and the author’s own paradox of the Indian rope trick of narrative. In Ch. 1, ‘Structural simplicities: The grammar and context of narrative’ (26–68), N deals with William Labov’s structuralist approach to narrative analysis, focusing on three functional categories of narrativity—orientation (or abstract), evaluation, and coda. N points out that the ambiguous use of the term ‘context’ causes some difficulty in explaining the linear sequence of narrative order. In Ch. 2, ‘Force, fiction, fit and felicity: Narrative as a speech act’ (69–128), N scrutinizes J. L. Austin and John Searle’s influential speech act theory and challenges its rationality in the analysis of conversational narratives. In Ch. 3, ‘Performatives, perlocutions, pretence: Deconstruction and the narrative speech act’ (129–66), N analyzes Paul de Man’s and Jacques Derrida’s work, arguing that neither of them can ‘liberate speech act theory’ (131) and that the form of narrative may help solve some problems with the theory. In Ch. 4, ‘Cooperative conventions: Implied meanings in narrative’ (167–200), the author focuses on H. Paul Grice’s work. In this chapter, inspired by conversational implicature, N presents her version of narrative implicature for the first time.

Ch. 5, ‘Rationality and relevance: Mental codes and cultural memes in narrative’ (201–48), is the most important chapter of this book. In it, N begins with Dennett’s views on self and memes, explaining in what sense narratives are authorless. After that, N shows how narrative grammar and memes can be linked to each other. Next, N presents her inferential model of narrative based on Dan Sperber and Dierdre Wilson’s relevance theory and applies it to the discussion of minimal narratives, arguing for ‘a tentative cognitive grammar of narrative’ (345). In Ch. 6, ‘Turns at talk: Ethnomethodological analysis of narrative’ (249–87), N introduces conversation analysis, pioneered by Harvey Sacks and his colleagues, into the study of narrative, compellingly demonstrating that the completion of narrative can also be a result of moment-by-moment evolution. In Ch. 7, ‘Self, state and solidarity: The politics of narrative’ (288–310), N aims to illustrate how governmental narratives make use of ‘the nominal kind/natural kind of distinction in the representation of disaster’ (292). In Ch. 8, ‘Explaining enigmas from evidence: The cause of evidence’ (311–40), N concludes that conversation, cognition, and narrative can be integrated as an organic whole and that the cause of narrativity is also a narrative of causality (340). In the conclusion (341–79), N presents 259 ‘final narrative sutras’, reiterating all the major arguments presented in previous chapters. The book ends with five appendices, a bibliography, and an index (380–425).

In sum, N’s presentation helps to deepen our understanding of narrative and a variety of issues pertaining to it. This excellent text will be of much interest to those concerned with cognitive, anthropological, and sociological approaches to the study of narrative.