By Marcus, Amit
When Wayne Booth coined the term unreliable narration, he deemed the reader’s role in identifying an unreliable narrator unproblematic (esp. 158-59). For him, the implied reader shared with the implied author an ironic distance from the norms of the unreliable narrator. Narratologists after Booth who have dealt with unreliable narration have contended that the role of the reader is not as trivial as Booth thought and hence should be thoroughly explored. For example, Tamar Yacobi uncovers the difficulties that face the reader who tries to decipher the system of norms of the implied author and offers solutions to these difficulties. She also explains the reasons that actual readers misinterpret the implied author’s perspective (“Reader”). Ansgar Nunning, who rejects the term implied author as vague, incoherent, and anthropomorphic, relies on cognitive theories of the reading process (both “bottom- up” and “top-down” processes) to describe the ways in which the reader labels a narrator unreliable. Kathleen Wall, conversely, remarks that changes in the notion of subjectivity are reflected in the way unreliability is both presented by the author and perceived by the readers.
These scholars hold different views concerning the essence of fictional unreliability, the principles that should be employed in the classification of unreliable narrators, and the status of the reader with relation to the text in identifying this type of narrator. Nevertheless, it seems that they all assume a cognitive and/or ethical gap between the narrator and the readers, who treat this type of narrator as inferior to them in either knowledge or morality. The readers hold themselves capable of exposing the flaws of the narrator, since they themselves are immune, or at any rate less susceptible, to these flaws; and even if in certain other situations they do succumb to them, their uninvolved position visa- vis the fictional world enables them to judge the behavior of the unreliable narrator as irrational or immoral.1 Accordingly, the terminology that is most frequently used with regard to the relations between the reader and the unreliable narrator emphasizes the former’s role as a detached and neutral observer, researcher, detective, and judge. The reader must follow the implied author “in judging the narrator” (Booth 158), “recognize an unreliable narrator when he or she sees one” (Nunning 54), examine whether or not he or she “has reasons to suspect” the narrator (Nunning 57),2 establish “a secret communication” with the implied author (Chatman 233), and construct the cultural or textual norms of the text (Yacobi, “Fictional” 121).
The uninvolved position of the readers leads them to the (not explicitly formulated) conclusion that they are in no way affected by the recognition of a certain narrator’s unreliability. It is implied that the readers themselves are more reliable than the unreliable narrator and, thanks to this difference, capable of identifying unreliabilty. This difference between, and in certain cases even incommensurability of, the narrator and the readers leads the latter to believe that unreliability is merely one of the criteria in the typology of narrators, with no consequences or ramifications for the readers themselves. To make things clear, I do not deem this view to be utterly mistaken. It is indispensable for readers to feel, at least to a certain extent, and in a certain phase of the reading, that they indeed are superior to the unreliable narrator in order to classify him or her as such.3 However, this feeling does not necessarily persist. It may change if the readers either find out new details about the narrator that urge them to reevaluate their classification or discover something new about themselves that encourages them to reconsider their superiority to the narrator. An interesting combination of these two possibilities is found in Camus’s novella The Fall (La Chute). I believe that an interpretation of The Fall focusing on the triad narrator-narratee-reader is significant for a work whose unreliable narration both undermines the binary opposition between “unreliable narrator” and “reliable reader” and has some general implications on the position of the reader towards fiction.
The narrator of The Fall, who introduces himself under the pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Clamence, begins his account with an appeal to his anonymous narratee to accept his services (5). This appeal establishes the situation of a monological dialogue,4 which persists throughout the text. In the course of five days Clamence tells the narratee his story, which is centered on a traumatic event (mentioned only in the third day of the narration): the fall of an unknown woman into the water. The same event, to which I shall refer further on, gradually shatters the self-image of the narrator and evokes in him the need to reexamine his life.5 But this does not suffice for Clamence, who, using different rhetorical devices, attempts to convince his narratee to make his own confession and reexamine his own life. The self-image of the narratee, contends Clamence, is – as his own selfimage used to be – fundamentally mistaken and based on the perpetual selfdeception that characterizes human existence. The generalizations of the narrator, the intimacy that he tries to foster between himself and his fictional narratee, and the analogies between this narratee and the readers are meant to encourage the latter to embark on a soul-search of their own.
The act of narration in The Fall depends as much on the willingness of the narratee to listen as on the motivation of the narrator to relate his account. This willingness requires efforts from the narratee, who follows Clamence wherever he leads him. The narratee is characterized by ostensibly individual qualities: he is a French speaker in his middle age, well educated, and, in Clamence’s words, “un bourgeois, peu prs” (11). The astounding (and suspicious) similarities between the “individual” qualities of the narratee and those of the narrator are already prominent at the beginning of the novella and become even more acute when the narratee turns out to be a Parisian lawyer, just as the narrator used to be.6 The reader may conclude from this similarity that it is not in vain that Clamence prefers mis addressee to other potential ones. Clamence tells the story of his life in a manner that seems to the reader (and probably also to the narratee) unique, and it suggests at first that the narrator wishes to create a close connection with his interlocutor. In this way the narrator achieves his need for power and control, which he openly states in the last chapter of the novella and which turns out to be one of the motivations for his narration.7
The narrator achieves his goal by two principal means. The first is the manner of addressing the narratee: he who is named at the beginning of the conversation politely but anonymously “monsieur” later becomes the more intimate “mon cher compatriote” and, afterwards, the most intimate “cher ami” (5,46, 80).8 Clamence emphasizes the similarities between himself and his addressee, so that his account may seem to the latter not only as the story of another but also as his own, thus reinforcing his curiosity to continue listening. The other principal means of the narrator to attract the attention of his narratee is the digressions from his traumatic account: the narrator admits this tendency already in the opening pages (“Mais je me laisse aller, je plaide!” [17]), and his words indeed seem associative and unprepared. He oscillates between past and present as well as between his personal story and his general statements regarding humanity, the narrative situation, and the places to which he leads his narratee. For example, when Clamence and his narratee wander about the streets of Amsterdam, both of them pass, perhaps unintentionally, by a house that was owned, according to the narrator, by a slave merchant. The sight of the house evokes in Clamence thoughts concerning the importance and function of slavery, and these thoughts make him consider his arrogance (48-53). Moreover, the goal of Clamence’s account remains unclear almost to the end of the novella, before which it seems that he is little more than an uncontrollable chatterbox with no ability to distinguish the principal from the subsidiary.
Conversely, there are textual signs that may indicate an opposite tendency on the part of the narrator, that is, a tendency to distance himself from the narratee. For example, he never addresses the narratee by his first name (for which he does not ask); on the contrary, he persists in addressing the narratee in the second- person plural vous, which is characteristic of formal acquaintanceship; he makes frequent reference to historical events and to several landmarks of Western culture, especially Western literature;9 his speech tends to an ornate and conceited style characterized by the relatively frequent use of the imperfect subjunctive, a tense rarely used in contemporary spoken French.10 The florid style of the narrator conceals his suffering and his intention to afflict his addressee and shake his soul, yet from the beginning of his account he hints at the existence of a secret wound: “Le style, comme la popeline, dissimule trop souvent de l’eczma” (8).\Thus the narrator plays an intricate and delicate game between drawing the narratee closer to him and distancing him, between emphasizing their common features and maintaining their discreteness and differences.” Moreover, it gradually becomes clear that even if a large portion of what Clamence says is indeed a consequence of the concrete and unique acquaintance with his narratee, the general framework of the account has been predetermined. The narrative structure initially gives the impression of being singular and spontaneous, but it is eventually revealed as a rhetorical device that is meant to lure the narratee, to stimulate his curiosity, and thus to cultivate his (perhaps temporary) dependence on the narrator.12 I will now examine in greater detail the narrator’s attempt to create the desired effect.
In the first two parts of the novella (5-45), which are parallel to the first two days of the narration, Clamence conceitedly presents the story of his professional success as a highly esteemed Parisian lawyer. The narcissistic portrait of the narrator is clearly articulated in his Nietzschean language: “je me trouvais un peu surhomme” (33). Clamence considers himself at the time in which his story took place as someone who had already arrived at the peak of his achievements, a perfect man both intellectually and morally. His life crisis (which is depicted from the end of the second part of the novella) begins with a deep and unrelenting feeling of unease incurred by a laughter that he hears behind his back on a bridge above the Seine, whose source, although not mysterious, is not entirely clear (43-44). This laughter later proves to be both internal and external (85), thus seemingly transgressing the border that separates the outside from the inside. Whatever its source, Clamence perceives it as a crying evidence for the false appearances of his life, its void pretence, and its decay concealed by arrogance. Slowly penetrating the soul of the narrator, the awareness of all of these flaws makes him remember everything that he has preferred to forget or, in his own metaphorical language (which once more evokes water and flowing), everything that has slipped above him.11 His success story necessitates the constant and willful forgetfulness of everything that is incompatible with it, whereas remembering makes him reconstruct his life story from the beginning as a story of permanent failure and fall (53-54).
Hence Clamence has discovered motives for his behavior of which he had been unaware: how he abused his glory and the respect people felt for him in order to use them like objects; how he treated his female lovers too as means to an end, and how all his seemingly altruistic feats were based on egoistic motives.14 The reader gets the impression that Clamence’s renewed examination of his life released him from his former self-deception and that the shame Clamence feels is a sign that he has reformed his ways and experienced deep repentance. The reference he makes to his internal burning, which is the physical equivalent of shame (“La honte, dites- moi, mon cher compatriote, ne brle-t-elle pas un peu?” [74-75]), intensifies the impression that he is now willing to bear full responsibility for his deeds, in contrast with his past behavior. Similarly, the narrator’s “digressions et . . . efforts d’une invention” (75) might be comprehended as an expression of a real and sincere mental difficulty in coping with his former selfdeception and narrating it, not necessarily as a rhetorical device whose aim is to mislead the narratee. In Clamence’s view, the starting point of his fall is the fall of the anonymous woman into the river Seine, whereas the reminiscence of this fall hurls him into the abyss with dizzying swiftness.15 Whether by consequence of a conscious decision (taken hastily and under pressure) or of an instinctive reaction to a state of distress, Clamence avoided jumping into the water to save the woman. He did not even inform anybody of this occurrence and made no effort to figure out the identity of the drowned woman. But the attempt to treat as a nonevent such a dramatic event that put his system of values to the test fails when Clamence reexperiences the event, years later, as a trauma.16
During the period in between the fall of the woman and the hearing of the laughter, Clamence made supreme efforts to preserve his self-image as well as his image in the eyes of others; in the words of the narrator, he tried to endure his punishment but avoid a trial: “… la question est d’viter le jugement. Je ne dis pas d’viter le chtiment” (83). At this point, the reader is not yet informed of the exact nature of Clamence’s punishment, but it is plausible to assume that it is not a punishment imposed on him by society but an internal mechanism: the feeling of guilt for failing to aid another at the time of her distress urges him to narrate his account to someone who is a total stranger to him, and guilt also makes him fall lower and lower from the Olympus of self- satisfaction.17 As for his statement that he wishes to avoid a trial, Clamence means that he seeks to keep away from the shameful scene in which certain others (the judge or the jury) demonstrate their superiority to the defendant. They claim that they have not sinned but he has and that therefore they should not be punished, whereas he should.
Clamence anticipates the proclamation that is clearly expressed towards-the end of the novel: turning his personal guilt into collective guilt releases him from the need to judge himself. Clamence stresses that for him these survival tactics transcend the boundaries of logic, because the other is perceived as a potential predator that lies in wait for every expression of weakness on his part (84). In his narration, the narrator expects the objection of the well-educated and rational narratee (or one who at least purports to have these qualities) and tries to frame a sufficient reply to it. At this phase it is enough for him to confound the narratee, make it difficult for the latter to decipher the meaning of his motives, and reinforce in him the will to fathom him. The direct address to the narratee, the questions that the narrator asks him, and the astonishing mixture of self-irony, self-pity, sarcasm, and the search for empathy achieve the desirable effect in his interlocutor: raising his curiosity so that he will continue listening to Clamence’s chatter (82-83).
The narrator’s attempt to rid himself of all blame and responsibility is expressed in his long-lasting hedonism. In retrospect, Clamence admits that he found shelter in debauchery to forget the laughter that defied him and threatened the ostensible security and stability of his life. Debauchery served him as a kind of sedative that makes the debaucher forget everything that exceeds immediate pleasure and the means to achieve it. In Clamence’s metaphorical language, his life was shrouded in fog: “Je vivais dans une sorte de brouillard o le rire se faisait assourdi, au point que je finissais par ne plus le percevoir” (115). The fog symbolizes an existential state in which one banishes the past and the future to the margins of one’s consciousness, thus narrowing one’s field of vision and deferring an account of his deeds, a comprehension of his feelings, and an analysis of his motives. Clamence’s selfhood shrank, for his “forgetfulness” was not a consequence of external and uncontrollable forces, but of his chosen stage of existence.18 This choice, Clamence emphasizes in response to the potential disapproval of his narratee, is fraught with advantages whose significance should not be underestimated.
Yet the narrator has discovered that his hedonistic way of living was founded on an internal contradiction, not in the field of logics, but in the existential sphere.l9 This way of living had instilled in him the illusion that he would live forever. It took into account neither aging nor death, which bring an end to all pleasures of the moment and render them meaningless.20 Clamence’s body eventually revolted against his insouciance, and he became ill (113). Probably for the same reason, the attempt of the narrator to forget the laughter succeeded merely for a short period. One day, at the time of a cruise initiated in order to celebrate his seeming recovery from his mental and physical crisis, Clamence notices a black point in the ocean, which immediately reminds him of the drowning woman (116-17). On the same day, he realizes that the outcry of that woman and the laughter that ensued would never leave him, that he would never again be able to immerse himself in selfforgetfulness. Clamence, therefore, feels extremely vulnerable. All of a sudden, his internal defense layers collapse like a stack of cards, his deceitful self-image cracks, and his life is about to become intolerable.
Clamence regards the same evening on which he heard the laughter for the second time as a kind of religious portent. Like some of the Biblical prophets, he has seen the light, and, like them, he too is governed by an almost uncontrollable internal impulse to tell others what they prefer not to hear. However, in contrast with these prophets, the light that has been revealed to the narrator does not show him God’s will or essence but his own subjectivity: first and foremost the gap between his ostensibly altruistic existence and his deep and previously unacknowledged egoistic motives. Only by admitting his self-deception may he, so he says, find the proper reply to the laughter and the laughing people, whose nature probably remains unclear both to the narratee and to the reader. Clamence bids his interlocutor not to smile when discovering this supposedly primal and trivial truth: “Ne souriez pas, cette vrit n’est pas aussi premire qu’elle parat. On appelle vrits premires celles qu’on dcouvre aprs toutes les autres, voil tout” (92). \At this point of the narration, the reader and the narratee might assume that the narrator is merely asking to defend himself against the conceited and disrespectful attitude shown towards him: he is the one who has erred, who has learned a lesson from his mistakes, and now merely solicits the sympathy of someone else who has not experienced the same mistakes.
A hedonistic existence can no longer shelter the narrator from his tormented conscience. He expresses his feeling that he has to live as if he were in solitary confinement and could neither straighten up nor lie down, only stand in a distorted position (119). Guilt is portrayed in Clamence’s words as an emotion that deprives one of one’s freedom and turns one into aconvict of one’s internal world, because, like solitary confinement, it does not enable one to forget one’s situation even for a minute. Nonetheless, Clamence alludes to his unwillingness to acknowledge his imprisonment in a vicious circle of guilt. At the beginning of his account these hints are vague, implicit, and assimilated in the other thoughts and arguments of the narrator. For example, he claims to have no more friends, only accomplices, among whom is the narratee, and all of whom are blameworthy (80). Clamence clarifies that his privileged interest in the narratee is temporary and that it stems not from any of the latter’s unique qualities but from the narrative situation. He views the narratee as a kind of object that is interchangeable in principle and also in practice with any other narratee marked with similar traits. At the end of the account Clamence is to court another narratee, whereas the former is to become another member, unimportant in himself, of humanity.
Shared guilt explains the almost imperceptible alternation of the first person singular (je) and plural (nous), as if the narrator’s account applied to the narratee and only to him, thus implying that the two of them have to cooperate against the rest of the world. This transition gives the impression that the narratee is guilty of the same transgressions as Clamence and that they both share the same interests. Clamence is not troubled by the inconsistency between his friendly address to the narratee and his proclamation that he has no friends, as long as his rhetoric creates the desirable effect: “Mon cher ami, ne leur donnons pas de prtexte nous juger, si peu que ce soit!” (84).
The hints about the goal of Clamence’s account-a self-reproach that entitles him to reproach others – gradually become more explicit, clear, and focused. For example, in reply to the analogy that Clamence creates between his own life and the life of a convict in solitary confinement, his interlocutor asks if one cannot live in this condition and yet be innocent.21 In his answer, Clamence tends to deny this possibility not only with regard to himself but also with regard to humanity: “Chaque homme tmoigne du crime de tous les autres, voil ma foi et mon esprance” (119). He hopes and believes that collective guilt has a potential for assuaging his tormented conscience; but he is aware that this idea may be conceived as abnormal by both the narratee and the reader. Therefore he simultaneously reveals and conceals his manipulations, thus avoiding the antagonism of his narratee, which might bring him to leave Clamence, and of the reader, who may cease reading the novella because of his revulsion.
Pursuing the same rhetorical move stratagem, Clamence calls up Christ to support his argument. In an increasingly cynical tone of voice, Clamence piles insult upon insult at the expense of Christians, insisting that their way of life contradicts the foundations of their belief: “nous sommes tous coupables les uns devant les autres, tous christs notre vilaine manire, un un crucifi, et toujours sans savoir” (126). In a way that is wholly contradictory to that of Jesus Christ who, himself innocent, took it upon himself to bear suffering and torture in order to redeem humanity of its sins22 – every person crucifies the other; that is to say, we blame the other instead of ourselves and believe that we will thus be purged. True Christians are supposed to consider themselves guilty (since they are tainted by original sin) and try to purify themselves by believing in the Savior. But human beings are capable only of crucifying their own kind, thus repudiating responsibility for their deeds and imputing them others.23 This is the foundation of collective self-deception, which Clamence strives to make the narratee acknowledge.
In the last meeting held between the narrator and the narratee, the former lays his cards more openly on the table and exposes the rhetorical devices that have guided his narration. For example, he alludes to Plato’s well-known Simile of the Cave (Republic1.514a- 17a), whose moral is the immense difficulty of people who lived in falsehood to recognize a truth that completely alters their worldview. When the truth is bluntly revealed to the self-deceived, they are dazzled, claims Clamence (130), and therefore it is better to avoid a direct and explicit expression of truth, as in philosophical argument, and instead to tell a story (or a fable), whose truth is diluted with falsehood and which gradually penetrates the realm of consciousness. This type of expression also facilitates the work of the narrator, who finds it equally difficult to accept the bitter truth and who tries in his confession to avoid it to the same extent that he wishes to reveal it. I believe that this is a reasonable way of making sense of the narrator’s confession of the difficulty of distinguishing the truth from the falsehood of his account, which amounts to a declaration of his unreliability.24 In this respect, both truth and falsehood are intended to attract the attention of the narratee (and the reader). Therefore it matters little if he has invented certain details that had never occurred or seasoned his account in order to make it more palatable.25 Eventually, he contends, falsehood and truth serve the same purpose, but falsehood does so more effectively (130).26 Thus, by the end of the novella, the oxymoron bogus sincerity seems like a suitable description of Clamence’s narration.
Clamence feels that the technique that he has chosen for delivering his messages – the endless repetition of his life-story in front of different narratees enables him to forget the laughter that had haunted him, to restore his self-image, and to regain the position of superiority for which he has yearned.27 He stresses that he has regained the symbolic summit that distances him from the depths to which the anonymous woman had plunged and to which he had sunk after this incident. Furthermore, he haughtily declares his success in performing “a Copernican revolution” by shifting the narratee’s focus from the outside -judging the other – inwards – inspecting his own soul (149-50). However, the narrator opens the door to distrusting his words, not only because the laughter has not totally disappeared and he is still annoyed by doubt ( 154) but also because his fragile self-image demands constant maintenance, without loosening the grip even for one moment. In fact, his life – including its vicissitudes, progressions, and retreats has ceased; instead he revolves in an internal circle from which there is no outlet.
The above-mentioned goal of the narrator also clarifies the reason for his request from the narratee to keep his (the narrator’s) account from going overboard by restraining his associative digressions. Towards the end of the novella, Clamence reveals that these requests are nothing but another aspect of his play with the narratee: “Ne vous fiez pas trop d’ailleurs mes attendrissements, ni mes dlires. Ils sont dirigs” (158). What initially looks like the spontaneous digressions of the narrator is actually planned as a rhetorical device to attract the attention of both the narratee and the reader:
Je m’accuse, en long et en large. Ce n’est pas difficile, j’ai maintenant de l mmoire. Mais attention, je ne m’accuse pas grossirement, grands coups sur la poitrine. Non, je navigue souplement, je multiplie les nuances, les digressions aussi, j’adapte enfin mon discours l’auditeur, j’amne ce dernier renchrir. Je mle ce qui me concerne et ce qui regarde les autres. Je prends les traits communs, les expriences que nous avons ensemble souffertes, les faiblesses que nous partageons, le bon ton, l’homme du jour enfin, tel qu’il svit en moi et chez les autres. Avec cela, je fabrique un portrait qui est celui de tous et de personne. Un masque, en somme, assez semblable ceux du carnaval. … Le rquisitoire est achev. Mais, du mme coup, le portrait que je tends mes contemporains devient un miroir. (51-52)
The narrator treats his narratee (and perhaps, indirectly, the readers too) as more intelligent than most other narratees and therefore as someone harder to manipulate, one whose self- confidence is not easily shaken (153). The narratee’s laughter is evidence of the difficulty that he finds in accepting the narrator’s request from him to confess. It is plausible that the laughter also reminds the narrator of the days in which he felt he was being held in contempt by his surroundings. This difficulty of interacting with the narratee does not bring him, however, into a state of despair but only causes a slight change in the manipulations that he uses in his account. He contends that the characteristics of the specific narratee lead him to elaborate on his behavior. He knows that in order to achieve the desired effect, he cannot ignore the intellect of his skeptical narratee. But he believes that eventually even such a narratee could not avoid relating to what he is saying. Moreover, his words might have a deeper effect on him precisely because he does not automatically accept them but examines and reexamines them. One cannot kn\ow whether the narrator is right or wrong in expecting this kind of a response from the narratee and whether his flattery might soften the narratee and make him easier to persuade or, on the contrary, intensify his antagonism.
It has already been claimed that the fictional narratee unknowingly serves as a mediator between the narrator and the reader.28 The narratee’s silence or his laconic responses, as reported by the narrator, turn him into an abstract and undefined character who serves as a sort of medium between the narrator and the reader (see Fitch). It seems that the narrator finds the address to the reader through the mediation of the narratee more convenient and effective than a direct address.29 A blunt rebuke might distance the reader and not achieve the desired effect. Utterly different is a state in which rebuke and guilt slowly, indirectly, manipulati vely, and almost inattentively transpire, as the reader is unaware that the narrator is invading his or her soul. From this point of view, the narratee is nothing but another rhetorical device of Clamence in his devious journey to the reader. The portrait of the “penitent judge” becomes a series of mirrors that reflect each other and in which the reader is able to see his or her own image through the character (or pseudocharacter) of the narratee. The narrator makes the reader feel increasingly ill at ease. The former is interested in turning the latter from a passive voyeur who listens to the confession of a fictional other, with neither commitment nor responsibility, nor, moreover, any feeling of blame, into an active accomplice.30 Like the narratee, the reader too tends to judge and criticize the narrator, as if the latter’s story had nothing in common with the former’s. But accepting the lesson or insight of the narrator’s account redirects the blame back unto the reader and the narratee. If they accept the narrator’s “verdict,” they are hurled into a dizzying circle of absorbing blame and setting themselves free from it, which is in principle the situation in which the narrator finds himself.
The narrator encourages the narratee and the reader to criticize and blame him before criticizing and blaming others, because in this way they commit, throughout the narration, the same essential error of self-deception that he has committed and of which they too become aware only post factum. The narrator implies that selfdeception is a collective existential state that is unavoidable and not wholly releasable, at least not in modern bourgeois society. The individualism, materialism, and pursuit of external achievements that are the foundations of this society make subjects believe that they are what they are not and that they are not what they are. In this existential state, the most one can do is to be aware of one’s susceptibility to self-deception and to instill a similar awareness in others, as does Clamence. Paradoxically, his call for the narratee and the readers (after they have fallen into his trap) to avoid repeating his own mistake becomes at the same time more effective (because of the didactic value of experience) and completely ineffective (because his advice is given in retrospect, after they have been induced to err). In any case, the narrator is interested in making the “almost bourgeois” readers involved, responsible and even blameful as they read on, in spite of their habit to regard reading as detached from these concepts.”
The readers are not obliged, of course, to accept the decision of the “penitent judge”; they may certainly object to being accused and treated as self-deceived accomplices as well as to the cunning with which the narrator attempts to lead the narratee and the readers to confess their guilt.32 The narrator is capable of dealing with his fractured self-image only by smirching another, since he believes that a trouble shared is a trouble halved. This may indeed evoke great antagonism in the reader. But from the point of view of the narrator, this antagonism corroborates the main argument of his account. According to him, readers who disapprove of this argument are interested in avoiding an active and involved position when reading about the life of another, and their intellect offers them an easy outlet from this position. Intellect does not lack emotion and motivation, since it expresses the unwillingness of the antagonist readers to deal with the ramifications of acknowledging their own blame. Hence the narrator tries to lure his readers into a trap from which they cannot escape: however readers interpret the narrator, whether they respond to him willingly or unwillingly, in any case they will not be able to elude Clamence’ s existential truth, according to which each one of us lives falsely, because truth is too bitter and too difficult to deal with.31
Is it nonetheless possible to release oneself from Clamence’s hermeneutic trap, or does it really have no outlet? The importance of the answer to this question was already intimated at the beginning of this essay. I have indicated that if every human being, just like every narrator, is perceived as unreliable, then the reader has no reason to feel superior to the narrator. Perhaps, as Clamence claims, we are all permanently and inexorably self- deceived, at least as long as we regard ourselves innocent.34 A narratological ramification of Clamence’s argument, if accepted at face value, is that there is no justification for the distinction between reliable and unreliable narrators: all narrators are unreliable, but only some of them, like Clamence, know how to use their unreliability for their own advantage and gain control of the responses of the reader: “J’ai cependant une supriorit, celle de savoir, qui me donne le droit de parler” (152).
But it seems reasonable to claim otherwise.35 Camus himself proposes in the preface to his important essay The Rebel ( 1951 ) to shatter the images of the mirror that reflect human evil in ourselves and others (21);36 one must surpass this mirror and reconstruct the meaning of life from its abysses, thus releasing oneself from feelings of doubt and absurdity. From this point of view, the mirror that Clamence places in front of his readers is perceived not as a vicious circle but as a starting point. Readers who meet Clamence’ s demands and dare to look in the mirror might see their portrait as changeable and worthy of change. In contrast with the narrator of The Fall, the readers are not obliged to believe that this portrait is essentialist, meaning that it is natural and necessary for a human being; in contrast with him, they might be capable of dealing with their tendency to self-deception without asking for an easy but restraining outlet.37
Another way for the readers to set themselves free of the no- outlet situation that the narrator attempts to impose on them is by denying the universal validity of Clamence’s portrait of humanity (even though, as stated above, Clamence relates to this potential denial as a reinforcement of his argument). Such readers will regard Clamence’s account as evidence that the self-image of every person is based on a certain ideal or certain ideals, whose content is not permanent and whose very ideality creates a gap between the person and reality. Such readers might contend that, after all, not everyone is like Clamence: not everyone is completely unaware of the necessity of this gap; not everyone desperately avoids a reexamination of oneself, one’s values, and the motives of one’s behavior; and not everyone is constantly self-deceived, even if many are motivated to see themselves in a light that blurs their mistakes and weaknesses.5″
Consequently, the mirror that the narrator places in front of the narratee and the reader is distorted from the start. Hence Clamence’s account is not as universal as it pretends to be, although it challenges every reader. The Fall points to the impossibility of a simplistic and nave perception of the readers as automatically and unequivocally superior to the unreliable narrator. Hence this novella makes the readers less conceited and more critical of themselves;39 it replaces the static distance between reader and narrator with a dynamic one, in which the interrelations between the two change during the reading process. The readers might feel morally or cognitively superior to the narrator from certain aspects or during certain phases of the reading process, relate to him as their equal from other aspects, and sometimes even feel inferior to him.
Yacobi’s thesis for settling textual inconsistencies and incongruities attributes an active role to the readers: they discover the inconsistency and seek the best hypothesis to explicate it. An implicit assumption of this thesis is that reading and interpretation processes are motivated by the readers’ need to remove the difficulties in the text in such a way that may set their minds at rest. The Fall undermines this assumption, since the most reasonable explanations to settle its textual inconsistencies-the one based on thefunction of the account (its goal) and the other based on the narrator’s perspective (his unreliability)-leave the readers disquieted. The most significant mask that the narrator wears – self-flagellation – is removed from him, and the revelation of his unreliability exposes the real purpose of his account: deflating the stability and composure of the fictional narratee and of the readers. Whether or not the latter approve of the final conclusion of the narrator, the text does not allow them to be uninvolved or indifferent.
Thus, whatever the attitude of the readers to the lesson that Clamence wishes to teach his narratee, The Fall focuses on their rvaluation of themselves and their world, or, to use a term of Paul Ricoeur, on the refiguration of the fictional text (7076): indeed, Clamence never addresses the readers directly, and he speaks about self-deception asa characteristic of human existence in general; nonetheless, from the point of view of the implied author (and perhaps also of the real author), it is significant that the narrator’s account is told in a fictional text that is directed to real readers.
It is commonly held that reading enables readers to turn their gaze from themselves to others and thus to detach themselves from responsibility and engagement, which are features of worldly existence. A well-known representative of this standpoint is the narrator of Dickens’s David Copperfield, for whom reading fiction is a comfort that renders him oblivious to his distress for a short while: “[fictional characters] kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time. . . . This was my only and my constant comfort” (58-59). Copperfield’ s view of literature is not entirely mistaken, of course, but it seems that the implied author of The Fall is aware of the potential danger of adhering to this position. Reading is perceived in the novella as a henneneutic activity that encourages, perhaps more than any other activity, the formation of self-deception, precisely because it encourages the creation of a reassuring distance between the world of the readers and mat of the narrator and characters.
Returning to our point of departure, we must now inquire to what extent The Fall proposes a significant change of focus in the interrelations between the unreliable narrator and the reader. On the one hand, it seems that Camus’s novella merely reinforces the traditional treatment of the reader as a detached observer, detective, and judge, because Clamence’s manipulations would have no effect on the readers unless they regarded their position as stable and superior to that of the narrator. The primary identification of the unreliability of another remains, even after reading the novella, dependent on the supposed (relative) reliability of the self. On the other hand, the dynamics of unreliable narration can no longer be looked upon merely as a product of changes in the narration (i.e., the narrator is identified by the readers as more reliable at certain points of the text and less reliable at others),40 for it is also a product of the changes in the position of the readers with regard to themselves while reading the text, which may, of course, influence their view of the narrator. The readers are thus not detached from the account, and their position is neither stable nor secure. It is indeed reasonable that they should come to perceive themselves at a certain phase of the account as equal to the unreliable narrator or even inferior to him. Even if they finally manage to restore their previous superior position, the threat to their self-image and the need to overcome it cannot let them remain just as they were before.
Most scholars dealing with unreliable narration consider the unreliable narrator inferior to the reader in either knowledge or morality. This conception implies that the readers are more reliable than the unreliable narrator and, thanks to this difference, capable of identifying unreliabilty, with no consequences or ramifications for themselves. Although this view is not entirely wrong, the readers’ superiority to the narrator may change if the readers either find out new details about the narrator that urge them to reevaluate their classification or discover something new about themselves that encourages them to reconsider their superiority. An interesting combination of these two possibilities is found in Camus’s novella The Fall (La Chute). My interpretation of The Fall focuses on the triad narrator-narratee-reader and the narrator’s rhetorical manipulations, maintaining that the text both undermines the binary opposition between “unreliable narrator” and “reliable reader” and has some general implications on the position of the reader towards fiction.
Notes
I am grateful to Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Ruth Ginsburg, and Johnathan Stavsky for their comments on different versions of this essay.
1 During the past few decades, the widespread criticism of the key terms of such a conception of (unreliable narration, like truth, rationality, and subjectivity, has encouraged narratologists to reconsider it. Wall, for example, significantly diminishes the gap between some unreliable narrators, such as Stevens hi Ishiguro’s The Remains of The Day, and the reader, claiming that no narrator-or any human being – is entirely reliable, consistent, and rational (esp. 21,39). Yet even in Wall’s interpretation of the novel and its challenges to theories of unreliable narration, the reader must be more self-reflexive than the unreliable narrator in order to recognize the letter’s mistakes and give a more coherent interpretation to Stevens’s story.
2 Similar expressions can be found in Rimmon-Kenan 102; Wall 30.
3 I share Yacobi’s view (“Reader” 7) that the reader is inferior to any narrator m the sense that the former cannot directly approach the objects of the fictional world and has no access to a report of this world other than the one given to him by the latter. However, in my discussion of the reader’s superiority to the narrator, I am not referring to this kind of ontological or existential gap but rather to the reader’s belief that he or she excels the narrator in his or her moral qualities, cognitive abilities, or both. The argument that readers feel superior is stronger for the unreliable narrator whose cognitive abilities are deficient than for the unreliable narrator whose worldview is deformed (sometimes named “untrustworthy” [Lanser] or “discordant” [Cohn]). In principle, a reader may think that he or she shares with the narrator norms that society sees as deformed and recognize that, according to these norms, both he or she and the narrator are unreliable. Nonetheless, I believe that a reader who deviates from common moral values more often regards his or her own values as “truer” or “more reliable” and places his or her trust in the narrator that others call “untrustworthy.” In referring to unreliable narrators I abstain from using it, since I share with Zerweck the view that all kinds of unreliable narrators are personified, even though they are not necessarily homodiegetic.
4 I name the situation of the narration “a monological dialogue” because the words of the narratee are never directly provided in the text and everything that the reader is able to know or assume about him relies on the words of the narrator. The latter asks the narratee some questions, tells of his responses to the story, and even asks him to recount a similar story about his own life (71, for instance), but the voice of the narratee is never heard. Hence the text merely imitates a dialogue and never becomes one (see also Fitch). Nevertheless, we shall see that the presence of the narratee stands out, arouses curiosity, and propels the story no less than that of the narrator. Indeed, one may attribute to the narratee the same deafening muteness that is attributed at the beginning of the text to the “gorilla” waiter (6).
5 The fall of the woman, which might be perceived as the central event of the narrative (as regards both its importance and its location in the text), paradoxically promotes the fragmentation of the narrative and its decentralization (see Felman 171 -72). On the shattering of self-image, see Brochier and again Felman ( 169-71 ), who has a subchapter on the disintegration of the witness.
6 I will later argue that this “individuality” is to a large extent collective, a typical product of a certain kind of society. see also Blanchot. The narrator, just like the narratee, is only ostensibly individual. It is well known that Camus added an afterword to the English version of the novella, one in which he portrays Clamence as the hero of his time-a portrait that embodies the illnesses of an entire generation (see King 87; Fortier). Blanchot adds that the narrator wears a mask that makes him impersonal, expresses human distresses, and has experiences so general that there is not even one reader who cannot relate him- or herself to him.
7 Fortier remarks that situating the “scenery” of the narrative in Amsterdam, a city crowded with strangers and surrounded by water from all sides, helps the narrator to create an appropriate atmosphere, which will captivate the narratee and get hold of him.
8 Quillard discusses the irony that is expressed by, among other means, the manner that the narrator addresses the narratee. Quillard quotes forms of address that are an anomaly in spoken French, such as “monsieur et cher compatriote,” at the end of the first chapter (18). These forms are an evidence of the narrator’s disdain towards the narratee in the guise of a polite appeal, in accordance with the norms of polite society. Quillard contends that Camus’s irony employs a hermeneutic function similar to that of Socratic irony: it constitutes a dialogue in which the interlocutor must not accept the narrator’s words at face value; he must, on the contrary, distrust the seemingly true and put everything in doubt. Hence the narratee may suspect the narrator’s familiarity with him.
9 See, for example, Clamence’s reference to Dante’s Divine Comedy (explicitly on 91) as well as to Christ and the New Testament (passim) and to the well-known Dutch painter Van Dyck ( 139). King points in her essay to structural elements as well as elements of meaning in the novella inspired by Dante’s text.
10 He says, for example, “Soyons justes: il arrivait que mes oublis fussent mritoires” (54). Clamence directly refers to this peculiarity (8). see also King. Clamence’s rhetorical devices mentioned here may be perceived as on the one hand bringing the narrator closer to the narratee (because they are adapted to his intellectual level) and on the other hand distancing him (because they mar the familiar atmosphere that the narrator tries to create).
11 Clamence’snarcissism may make the readers wonder whether the narratee exists as a real character or only as a projection of the narrator. Certain characteristics of the narratee differentiate him from the narrator and make it difficult to identify the narratee with one aspect or another of the narrator’s soul. Especially prominent is the refusal of the narratee to confess to the narrator, despite the latter’s constant pleadings. In this way the role-play persists through the novella: the narrator narrates (and verifies the narratee’s attention once in a while), and the narratee listens (and sometimes interrogates, responds, smiles, or protests).
12 For a thorough treatment of the narrator’s rhetorical devices, see Brochier.
13 In this context, there are some fascinating connections between The Fall and Oedipus Rex, some of which are indicated by Blanchot. Oedipus’s self-image, like Clamence’s, was based during a great part of his life on escaping from the truth (although these are very different kinds of truths). Blanchot claims that both the classical Greek tragedy and the modern novella are centered on a “king” (with or without quotation marks) who reigns securely, until the fact that he has “one eye too many,” meaning excessive lucidity, dramatically changes his life and urges him to abdicate.
14 For Clamence’s reexamination of his life and the way it is expressed in his narration, see Fitch.
15 Blanchot comments that the fall of the narrator, just like the fall of each of us, has no real beginning. We fall and console ourselves with the assertion of a certain point at which our fall began.
16 On this test, see Fortier. Felman discusses the kind of paradox in which the narrator is unable to experience, comprehend, and narrate the event that he relates.
17 Portier elaborately notes, in accordance with his structuralist methodology, words in the novella pointing upwards as opposed to words pointing downwards. Everything that goes deep and is thus literally and symbolically related to the fall arouses disgust in the narrator, whereas everything that rises or is associated with the state prior to the fall excites him.
18 The term “stage of existence” is based on the philosophy of the Danish philosopher S0ren Kierkegaard, who is counted, just like Camus, among the existentialist philosophers. According to Kierkegaard, there are three such stages: aesthetic, ethical, and religious. The aesthetic stage is identified by Kierkegaard with a hedonistic way of life. Each person chooses one of these stages and may choose another one at every phase of his life. Kierkegaard believes that the religious stage of existence is the highest and that it most fully realizes the goal of human existence. As opposed to this, Camus does not believe any more in the possibility of this stage of existence as a solution to the anguish of modern human being, and in his fictional and philosophical writings he asks to deal with a human world with no God.
19 This idea of changing one circle of existence for another as a result of the revelation of an internal existential contradiction in one of the circles is also drawn from Kierkegaard’s thought. Kierkegaard himself relies on Hegelian dialectics with regard to this; however, as opposed to Hegel, he believes that exposing the contradiction does not necessarily lead to a change that will solve it, but that every change in the existential sphere is the result of a chosen act.
20 For Clamence’ s immersion in hedonism and the failure of this way of life for him, see Brochier, King, and Portier.
21 As noted above, all of the narratee’s responses are only inferable from Clamence’s narration and are never spoken directly.
22 Clamence argues that Christ was not really blameless, because the Massacre of the Innocents would not have taken place had he not come into the world.
23 King justly refers to Clamence as a sort of Antichrist. Like the devil, he too falls from the heights of his vanity, and, like him, he betrays, after his fall, those who have cooperated with him, by his announcement of a universal guilt.
24 See also Zerweck’s general statement (citing Wall 23): “[U]nreliable narrators in realist contemporary texts no longer necessarily highlight the unreliability of the fictional narrator per se. Instead, they question both “reliable” and “unreliable” narration and the distinction we make between them'” (163).
25 I disagree with Fitch’s claim that the only thing left of the narrator at the end of the novella is his presence, and the attempt to persuade the reader to confess of his own life. Fitch contends that the hermeneutic action at the end shifts from “the text in itself to “the text for the reader,” as the mirror is turned to the latter. Admittedly, the narrator queries the truthfulness of every detail of his story; nonetheless, I believe that the general frame of the story: a life that is based on lies – a traumatic experience (or traumatic experiences) – disillusionment and guilt is not to be doubted. If the reader doubts these too, he or she will not be able to see the mirror that is directed at him or her. In my view, the mirror effect is created only if the narrator continues to be reflected in it until the end, even though it is no longer turned to him.
26 I agree with Blanchot about the ironic tone, including self- irony, shrouding the entire novella. Unlike Blanchot, however, I think that Clamence has a serious intention (the contrast between “serious” and “ironic” is Blanchot’s) to shift the guilt from himself to his narratee. This intention is at the heart of Clamence’s motivation to narrate his story.
27 Within this context, Brochier names Clamence an “intellectual terrorist,” arguing that intellect serves Clamence to gain power over others and to prove his superiority (121).
28 Fitch claims that the narratee of The Fall is the implied reader who has become a fictional character. However, I believe that just as the fictional narratee cannot be identified with the narrator, so he cannot be identified with the reader, although their attributes partly overlap. The specific attributes of the narratee, for example his sex (male), his age (forty years old, more or less), his profession (lawyer), and his origins (Parisian) do not necessarily correspond to those of the real or implied reader. Nevertheless, the responses of the narratee to the words of the narrator, for example his wonder in the face of the narrator’s declaration of his desperate need for sympathy (“Je vois que cette dclaration vous tonne” [35]), his questions, for example the question concerning the fateful night to which the narrator hints (“Comment? Quel soir?” [36]), and, of course, his “courteous” silence (70), are shared by the implied reader. Like the narratee, the reader too is curious to know what the narrator has to say, is aroused by him to wonder and perturbation, and is “an embarrassed bourgeois,” sufficiently established and educated to be bothered by existential questions related to the meaning of life, death, love, freedom, responsibility, and guilt. Were it not for this, why would the narratee continue to listen to the words of the bothersome and egocentric narrator, and why would the reader continue to read them? The rhetorical devices employed by the narrator-actor, who desperately requires an audience, win him one that is much larger than the specific narratee whom he addresses.
29 It is reasonable to argue that the implied author of The Fall, not the narrator, is the one who communicates with the reader indirectly, “behind the back” of the narrator. Nevertheless, my opinion is that Clamence’s treatment of his narratee as an Everyman who may be exchanged with any other urges the readers to consider themselves included in the narrator’s address to the narratee.
30 Fitch stresses that The Fall demands from the reader more than what fictional texts usually do: the narrator requests the reader not only to use his or her imagination and identify with the life of the character as it is shaped by the author but also to examine his or her own moral qualities as a person. Unlike Fitch, I believe that The Fall is not an unusual text in this respect; its uniqueness is expressed in the rhetorical devices that the narrator employs in order to intensify the involvement of the reader.
31 Camus’s novella undermines certain common presuppositions of the interpretation of the genre named “confessional fiction.” For example, Nave claims that the aim of fictional confession (like the aim of religious confession) is to achieve atonement, to purge oneself, and to be readmitted into society. She contends that confession as a spontaneous-voluntary act is natural and that therefore it evokes a feeling of truth and lacks the forgery and artificiality of the obligatory confession. Clamence’s account, especially the paradoxes that he raises with regard to the goal of the confession and its truthfulness, does not enable us to accept Nave’s argument without reserve.
32 Fitch justly notes that the reader is not obliged at all to accept the general arguments of the narrator concerning human beings and the world. Similarly, Portier claims that, as opposed to the impression that the narrator tries to create, he does not end his story with the upper hand; the narratee does not simply have to accept his worldview. Unlike me, however, they do not propose alternatives to this worldview.
33 A hermeneutic trap similar to the one set by Clamence is attributed to psychoanalysis. Popper argued that if Freud’s patients agreed with his interpretation, this agreement was regarded as its confirmation, whereas if they disagreed with it, Freud named this disagreement “resistance,” explaining that the patient represses the truth that is a threat to his mental stability. Thus disagreement as well as agreement confirms the interpretation of the psychoanalyst. Therefore, Popper argues, psychoanalytic theory is irrefuta\ble.
34 Felman and Reilly deal with the concrete political and historical context of Camus’s novella. Camus debated with Sartre and other prominent scholars of his time about the communist revolution, and he insisted on the injustice of the use of temporary violence and suppression even if it is meant to serve the purpose of creating a just society. Thus, according to Camus, regarding oneself and one’s worldview as utterly pure and innocent as .opposed to all others, as a communist of his time might have done, is potentially dangerous for society.
35 The attempt of the readers to evade the role that is ostensibly dictated to them by the text is in accordance with Iser’s position as regards the constant tension between the two elements that construct the implied reader: textual structure and structured act (36-37). Iser contends that textual structure entails different possibilities of realization or concretization. My essay presents a few of these possibilities for the reading of The Fall.
36 Camus’s essay The Rebel is connected to The Fall in many ways. One interesting connection is between Clamence and different types of “metaphysical rebels” whom Camus describes in the preface of The Rebel, such as the dandy (4349).
37 King’s critique of Clamence emphasizes that, like other modern rebels whom Camus presents in his essay The Rebel, he too engages in a rebellion that has no positive basis that can enable him to surpass himself, and that therefore he fails. The inability to create such a positive basis is connected with his dichotomous worldview, which rejects any doubt and vagueness and concludes that anyone who is not wholly innocent is completely guilty.
38 See also King’s criticism, pointing in a direction different from the one proposed above. King emphasizes that Clamence’s interpretation of his behavior and its motives is not truer after the trauma that he experienced than it had been before: as much as he formerly believed himself entirely innocent, the fall makes him believe that all his deeds are purely egoistic. In this way the narrator moves from one extremity to the other and does not succeed in achieving a balanced selfimage.
39 See also Reilly : “The text [of The Fall] implicitly challenges us to prove him [Clamence] wrong, but this means breaking the prison, not pretending that it isn’t there” (137).
40 Manfred Jahn suggests that the analysis of unreliable narration should consider the axis of development (that is, an unreliable narrator becoming more reliable as the story develops or vice versa) as well as the axis of degrees and the axis of aspects of unreliability (85). Jahn’s suggestion is an important step towards understanding the dynamics of unreliable narration as proposed in this essay.
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