Impossible Narratives?

Let us begin with the premise that impossible narratives can and do exist, so we can skip past all the metaphysical arguing and get to defining what an impossible narrative is. I am not the first to attempt defining the impossible narrative, but we will ignore those other (and likely more successful) attempts here for the sake of intellectual exercise.

I think it’s best to work backwards here.  I have what I believe to be an impossible narrative in mind, and I see no reason in pretending I’m thinking through this abstractly and then discovering in a moment of inspiration that an example is right here.  So let’s begin with Robert Coover’s “The Babysitter” and talk about why I think it’s an impossible narrative as a way to discover characteristics we can look for in other potentially impossible narratives.

In short, Coover’s short story presents a number of interrelated but incompatible scenarios.  Readers may attempt to construct a logical arrangement for these scenarios, but the short story resists this through various means including metalepses and unclear focalizations.  As a report of events, in the real world or an imaginary one, it does not operate.  After reading, one cannot tell another “what happened.”

In narratological terms, “The Babysitter” gives us a number of possible worlds.  All narratives do so according to Eco, and the mystery narrative is exemplary.  At the beginning, the reader is presented with numerous possible worlds corresponding to the different possible resolutions of the mystery.  As the narrative progresses, these possible worlds are eliminated until only one remains.  But “The Babysitter” never performs that act of elimination.  The expected resolution into which only one possible world remains never comes.  This unresolved plethora of possible worlds is, paradoxically, what makes the short story impossible, and is the very reason why one reader cannot tell another “what happened.”

Robert Coover’s “The Babysitter” is an example of one way in which a narrative can be impossible.  I am sure there are others as well, but it is difficult to theorize about what shapes they would take, for imagining rules for an impossible narrative seems almost an assault on the very concept.  So like so much else in narrative theory, the label "impossible narrative" is something I feel limited to using only descriptively if I wish to use it with any certainty.