The Literary Mind.pdf

124 THE LITERARY MIND
of the dreamed event of waking after having overslept. "The little nap that I always
take when I come in from my walk with Mme de Saint-Loup, before dressing
for the evening" is a description of the role nap as it exists in that remembered
and dreamed habitual temporal space. The role nap lies in this habitual temporal
space. The particular nap that fills that general role lies in the temporal space
of having these thoughts in this dream of having awakened after oversleeping.
The general role in one space and its particular filler in another are connected
not by an identity connector but by a role connector. The descriptor Proust uses
for the particular nap in a punctual temporal space can come only from its corresponding
general role in the habitual temporal space.
It is natural that the literary mind should be adept at such connections across
spatial and temporal spaces. A small spatial story is always recognized or executed
from a single viewpoint and with a single focus. Part of our most basic cognitive
capacity is to consider the spatial story as a single unit despite evident and transforming
shifts of viewpoint and focus. When we see someone startle as he looks
in some direction with what we assume to be some focus, we must be able to
look immediately not in the same direction and not with the same focus but in
the corresponding direction from our location, and with the corresponding focus
from our location, so as to see what he sees, even though we do not yet know
what he sees but merely hope to find out what it is. To do this, we must be able
to imagine his spatial viewpoint and then calculate backward to the appropriate
bearing and distance from our own spatial location. We do this instantly, as a
survival capacity. The case is the same with temporal focus and viewpoint: To
learn small spatial stories in a way that allows us to recognize them or execute
them, we must be able to recognize the entire story from the viewpoint of any
particular temporal slice or frame; we therefore require the capacity to hold various
things constant, through connectors, as we switch temporal viewpoint and
temporal focus from mental space to mental space.
We have seen that the basic human story of spatial viewing is projected
parabolically to the story of temporal "viewing." Of course, these two stories combine
into the basic human story of spatiotemporal viewing. But this story too is
projected. It is projected to the schematic story of mental viewing. There are various
kinds of mental "viewpoint" and "focus" that arise from this parabolic projection:
Philosophical, political, and ideological viewpoints and foci are only some
of the possibilities. Someone who inhabits a certain role in a story will have a
mental "viewpoint" and "focus" appropriate to that role. In the projection of spatial
stories of movement and manipulation onto stories of mental events, spatial
locations and objects correspond to ideas, assertions, and thoughts. The mind
"sees" or "views" ideas, assertions, and thoughts from a particular location and
with a particular posture. The mind may then "move toward" an idea or "away"