A Modality

Ita verba in variis sententiis locis posita, et crebo audita, quarum rerum signa essent, paulatim colligebam, measque jam voluntares, edomito in eis signis ore, per haec enuntiabam.

These words are from Augustine and they are particularly resonant as I consider how I understand fiction. First, most of us are looking blankly at the Latin, wondering a couple of things. “What does it say?” “Why is it there?” “What is Everett trying to prove by putting it there?” “Does Everett care at all about the content of this sentence?” The fact is, we will all stare, knowing that staring at it will yield no meaning, but hoping that some bit of a single word will appear familiar and lead in some way to some understanding of the something, anything.

It’s more than just a puzzle. Without a dictionary and the rules of grammar, this might as well be a barking dog. Perhaps not quite. I will in most circumstances know why my dog is barking, but I can never be sure what he is telling me. Conversely, one might find a Latinist to translate this sentence, but you will never be sure why I have used it.

Consider the Walt Kelly line: “Rabbits are rounder than bandicoots sam.”

Here, there are recognizable words, but it is nonsense. I can make no meaning of this, though rhythmically it is familiar and I enjoy saying it. I might even enjoy saying it enough that I employ it as a kind of gleeful interjection on occasion. My friend Sweetle Peetles is having tea at my house and tells me of her new crow and, delighted, I say, “Rabbits are rounder than bandicoots sam!” She, knowing my love of the line, amusedly smiles. I have not uttered a sentence that makes sense, but my utterance itself does make sense.

And so I present Sweetle Peetles with a twelve page, single-spaced prose work that has her as a character and offers no resolution, no conflict and no place. Let’s imagine that in it, she goes about her daily chores, just Peetling along. She reads it and says, “Why did you write this?”

“Because I am a writer,” is not a satisfactory answer. Instead I say, “It’s a story.” This implies, I suppose, that I am a writer, but also says something more. It tells her what to expect from the pages in her hand. And what does she expect? What does one expect when one comes to a story? It is different from what one expects from a note magneted to the refrigerator and a loose paper found lying in the gutter.

Nunquam visi caseum in tantis modis diversis paratum.

The above statement says, “I have never seen cheese prepared in so many different ways.”

Is this nonsense? Perhaps I am making a point about contextualization and the construction of meaning. Perhaps I am concerned here with some notion of propositional content or at least implication. Or perhaps I am ridiculing my whole endeavor here and cheese is a code word for something and I’m either having you on or I’m poking a doll-likeness of myself with a philosophical pin.

Or perhaps, perhaps, perhaps this is just a story, one in which I find myself here writing a twelve page, though not single-spaced, bit of prose to present to my friend Sweetle Peetles whose Latin is rusty and who will be frustrated by the opening passage because she could at one time read it but not now, because she has seen it before and because it is at present not available to her or because I am being obtuse.

And what has happened now that I have opened that door?

This is not a work of fiction. Just look me in the eye, sneer and say, “Sit Simplex, Stulte!”

So, I will try to keep this simple and please don’t call me “Stupid.”

A story is a beetle in a box.

A story is document that has a beginning and end, but has no beginning or end.

A story is not a document.

A story is...