The Third Kind of Tale, and the Fourth

Tales of experience and the tales that tell of tales

Two More

In ‘The Two Kinds of Tale’ we talked about the original two branches of the tale. First was the tale of the event; it tells us ‘what happened’ and looks most of all to action and plot. Second was the tale of the man; it tells us ‘who he was’ and looks most of all to anecdote and character. At the time (two weeks back) I thought these covered all the kinds of tale, since between the two they solved the old argument, whether plot or character should take first place in the tale.

But since then I’ve come to realize there are (at least) two other kinds of tale that don’t really fit under the original two.

Both these kinds came much later in the development of tales. We can argue whether ‘what happened?’ or ‘who was he?’ was the first of all questions the original talesmen answered. But it seems clear enough to me that tales of experience arose very late in the history of talesmanship, and that tales of tales themselves only arose within the last century or so.

Of the third kind of tale, I will write at some length, but of the fourth kind of tale I have very little to say, and will only note that it exists.

Tales of Experience

A tale of experience plays on the audience’s senses. It offers us the audience a chance to experience, in all sensual detail, some event, as if we were the character in the tale. These tales also appeal to the emotions and might be said to tell us, ‘how did it feel.’ Such a tale might aim

• draw our tears
• or laughter,
• arouse us sexually,
• make us afraid,
• play to our pity,
• thrill us to victory,
• embitter us,
• soothe our hearts,
• inspire us with wonder,

or give us many other such feelings. The talesman in these tales hopes to draw his audience inside the tale so that they lose themselves in it; no longer do they sit or stand where they are, and hear of other happenings; but they enter into the tale and are transported to the tale’s own world.

This has some practical consequences for talesmanship. First, because the talesman doesn’t want his audience to see the hero from ‘the outside in,’ he will want to make his hero bland and less interesting in and of himself. He doesn’t want us to look at the hero (or any point-of-view character in the tale) but rather to look through the hero’s eyes. We have to feel comfortable enough inside the hero’s skin, and that means

• the hero should be like us physically
• the hero should share our culture
• the hero should represent a lowest common denominator that we all share

In practical terms, then, a tale of experience will present us with the events in the main, and thus might fall under the class of ‘what happened’ tales. What sets this kind of tale apart is the way in which the talesman tells us ‘what happened’ — rather the way in which he presents us with ‘what happened’ or makes us feel it.

This kind of tale comes closest to a dream. We inhabit the skin of some character in the tale; he is our other self, and such other selves must always be, at heart, us. The character might live in another age, be of another class, have more or less education, be stronger, taller, swifter (or not). He might believe some things we do not. But there must be some kernel in him that we can identify with.

Another way to look on such a character is with the word ‘typical.’ ‘The typical German peasant of 1452.’ ‘The typical Egyptian nobleman of 2800 BCE.’

Or we could say these characters are ‘us, if only.’ ‘Myself if I were born in Germany of peasant kin in the mid-1400s.’ ‘Myself if I were born in Egypt of noble class in 2800 BCE.’

Also, because the events are shown us in order to provoke some sensual response, they should be events that deal with sensual experiences. The life of the mind, and intellectual debate, are not well suited for this type of tale. Extremes of experience are most often chosen, because we the audience will feel these events less sharply than we do our ‘real’ lives. We can only experience these dream-tales with the imaginations we have, and not all of us have such vivid imaginations; the trance does not always take us so deep that we lose all track of ourselves and our own ‘real’ bodies.

Tales that tell of Tales Themselves

This kind of tale is reflexive, self-aware, refers to itself and to other tales that share some traits with it. These tales fall under the term ‘post-modern.’ They ask us the audience to be sophisticated and learned in the tradition of tales, and to look both at what is said to be happening ‘within’ the tale and also at the tale itself and its relation to other tales.

This kind of tale takes for its outer pelt the form of one of the other kinds of tales. It deals within a certain class or genre of tale, at the same time giving us an example of such a tale, and talking about this family of tales themselves. It does not hide its artifice, but will rather draw our attention to it: the talesman here wants us to see how such genres are usually constructed, and to think through the implications of the genre.

Sometimes these tales are fondly satirical. They appeal to talesmen and audiences who no longer find satisfaction in a particular genre, but still feel a bit of nostalgic pleasure, a memory of the pleasure they used to derive from such tales. The genre is turned inside-out or upside-down, taken apart piece by piece, and then put back together again at the end in what looks like the traditional ending of tales of the genre.

Sometimes these tales savage their genres. They appeal to talesmen and audiences who have lost all faith in a genre, no longer believe a bit of it, feel betrayed by it and ashamed they ever ‘fell for such tripe’ and seek to destroy the genre as a means of intellectual revenge. At the same time the talesmen of such tales hope to warn others who are not yet disillusioned, not to trust in the genre. ‘It’s all lies, a fraud, don’t pay any heed to that slop!’

Sometimes these tales only note, intellectually, in the spirit of a game, the quirks and oddities of a genre, rather like literary anthropologists shaking their head in amused bafflement over this weird species, bemused that anyone anywhere could ever have taken such stuff to heart.

Parentage of Both

Like tales of experience, tales that tell of tales themselves will on the whole descend from tales of ‘what happened’ since ‘what happened’ forms the base of most genre-tales. And yet it can be true that a tale of experience might aim at ‘who was he’ in the sense of letting us the audience feel and experience what a madman feels, or a member of a social class to which we don’t belong. So it can be true that a tale that tells of the tale itself might aim to skewer and examine some of the conventions of a tale of ‘who he was’ — for such tales also have their typical shapes and conventional turns.

(Composed on keyboard Thursday, April 17, 2008)