The Literary Mind.pdf

SINGLE LIVES 123
as something extra; for if building that information into a new space were the
narrator's sole purpose, he would not have reported it.
We think of a story as unitary, and of various mental spaces that are defined
relative to different spatial and temporal viewpoints as simply different "perspectives"
on that story, naturally belonging to a whole. There are some very interesting
consequences of this thinking. Consider again that something in one of
these spaces can be described by giving the description that belongs to its counterpart
in another space. For example, if you are in the dark and are asked what
you are looking for, you may say, "The red ball." Of course, within the spatiotemporal
space of speaking, the ball cannot appear to be red because there is no light.
"Red" is not a possible descriptor of the ball in this spatiotemporal space of narration.
But that ball is connected, in imagination, to its counterparts in other
spaces, and in those other spaces, "red" is a possible descriptor. The "red" of "red
ball" spoken in darkness comes from a different mental space. When you are
giving directions to someone over the telephone, you may say, "Go past the cafe
on the right," even though the cafe is not presently on your right and is not presently
on the right of the person you are speaking to and is indeed not universally
"on the right" but is only "on the right" from the spatial viewpoint of someone
driving down the street in the direction you have indicated. You and the person
receiving directions can both imagine a mental space that is constructed with a
certain spatial viewpoint on the street in an imagined story—namely, the story
of someone making this particular journey in this particular way—and in that
mental space, the cafe is on the right of the journeyer. Because of identity connectors,
you may later say, "We are now sitting in the cafe on the right."
The use of descriptions from one space for counterparts in other spaces is
subtly demonstrated in the passage from Proust:
I was in my room at Mme de Saint-Loup's, in the country: Good Heavens,
it is at least ten o'clock, they must have finished dinner! I must have
overslept myself in the little nap that I always take when I come in from
my walk with Mme de Saint-Loup, before dressing for the evening.
The temporal viewpoint of "Good Heavens, it is at least ten o'clock" is the
moment of making this observation, a punctual moment. Much of the description
given from this temporal viewpoint is indeed possible for the mental space
of this viewpoint: "Good Heavens, it is at least ten o'clock, they must have finished
dinner! I must have overslept myself. ..." But the phrase that describes
his nap does not belong to the space of this temporally punctual viewpoint. It
belongs instead to the larger remembered habitual temporal space of "life at Mme
de Saint-Loup's, in the country," in its function as dreamed inclusive background