Reading Novels

11. Sentence Structure and Connection

165 11 Sentence Structure and Connection According to traditional views of language, the sentence is a basic unit that is, as the Oxford English Dictionary says, “grammatically complete.” Since we are concerned with the analysis of texts, however, we must be cautious about considering sentences in isolation as separate units. In traditional terms, the sentence is something that may contain a proposition or propositions, and if we are to grasp the information in a passage, we need to understand the meaning of the propositions it contains. But propositions are not independent of form and context. Moreover, the information we gain from novels is not simply propositional, and we are as much concerned with what sentences evoke as what they encode. (There is in any case no clear boundary between evoking and encoding.)1 Fictional Sentences A sentence conventionally contains a main verb, and so is very often a unit of narrativity. But we cannot say that sentences as such are necessary for narrative: comic strips and films narrate stories through images, and dispense with sentences. Only when we try to give an account of these narratives in language are we forced to use sentences. There is no single underlying sentence pattern specifically found in sentences in works of fiction. Some sentences typically found within novels do, however, indicate fictionality, particularly those where there is an adverb suggesting the present and a verb suggesting the past: And now Anna’s heart was sinking under the heavy conviction which she dared not utter, that Gwendolen would never care for Rex. (George Eliot, Daniel Deronda [1876], book 1, chap. 7) reading novels 166 Now, as if he too were remembering that other time, he insisted on buying a drink, and pursed his lips disapprovingly when I asked for a gin. (John Banville, The Book of Evidence [1989], 36) Sentences such as these mix “now” and past tenses, creating time-schemes that are illogical at the local level. They sidestep into the past in a way that is quite acceptable in fiction.2 Dividing Text into Sentences From one point of view the use of customary sentence structure might be considered simply as a way of dividing up a text into manageable parts. We cannot read long texts without pauses, and so cut them into chapters, paragraphs, sentences, clauses, and phrases. The sentence unit gives us something to focus on, provides a frame for attention (with a capital letter at the start and full stop at the end). Looked at in this way, the sentence is simply a convention of the modern book, which can be expanded, contracted, or even dispensed with if necessary. Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable ([Fr. 1953] 1958) attacks the convention by ending with a huge sentence several pages long, and his How It Is dispenses with sentences entirely. Beckett originally intended to publish How It Is as one long unbroken text, but then split it up into paragraphlike fragments. The narrative is told by an I who is in some kind of primeval mud and is going over the details of his relationship with a character called Pim: here then part one how it was before Pim we follow I quote the natural order more or less my life last state last version what remains bits and scraps I hear it my life natural order more or less I learn it I quote a given moment long past vast stretch of time on from there that moment and following not all a selection natural order vast tracts of time part one before Pim how I got here no question not known not said and the sack whence the sack and me if it’s me no question impossible too weak no importance (Samuel Beckett, How It Is, [Fr. 1961] 1964) At first glance this may seem incomprehensible. After a time it becomes possible to read: the phrases, or groups of words, separate off and provide sentence structure and connection 167 us with sense, though we cannot quite be sure what is connected with what. Link words have been dropped along with punctuation, and with no breaks inside the paragraphs we are unsure where to focus our attention . Conventional division into sentences is obviously not an absolute necessity for the novel, but it is certainly a convenient device that makes texts easier to read. It gives us a sense of the structure of information, and helps us guess...