For a second there, I had wondered, naively no doubt, if I hadn't inadvertently stumbled over a new critical term. One that might even have some use. Alas, it seems not.
Oh, well.
'Narrative plenitude'?
A simple google search will find plenty uses of the term, going at least as far back as Laura Mulvey's seminal 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' (1975) and Frederick Jameson's The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (1981), both works that I know only by reputation. From the brief scan which is all I have time to give them at present, it would seem that I meant something different by the term. It appears that a sense of narrative plenitude is used in a Freudian context, set against a narrative 'lack'. Plenitude here appears to be in line with the first definition of the word as it is defined by the OED:
"Fullness, completeness, or perfection; the condition of being absolutely full in quantity, measure, or degree."
'Narrative plenitude' is referring to a narrative which conveys a sense of satisfaction, of completeness. It's a narrative which satisfies all the conflicts and issues which have been brought up throughout it's duration. It's a sense of narrative 'rightness' which can of course be construed as a form of mystification if one is so minded.
I apologise if I'm repeating myself a bit there, but I'm trying to get a hold of this. 'Plenitude' of course has another sense, of abundance and excess, and that also seems to a be a way in which it can be used. It can be used in terms of analysing melodrama, where part of the satisfaction of the narrative is surely precisely in that excess of emotion or style which the form provides. In other contexts, 'plenitude' refers to the excess of multiple narratives that postmodern or consumerist culture confronts us with.
It's this last which is closest to what I was trying to get at, and it might be argued that there isn't really any need for a new term. But then, what am I trying to get at?
It's a form of intertextuality. Professor Challenger isn't just referred to in All-Consuming Fire. Although he doesn't actually appear in the narrative, what is clearly being posited is a fictional world in which he and his published adventures are all as much a part of the fictional reality as are the adventures of Holmes or the Doctor. It's part of the 'reality effect' of the novel, even though what's being referred to is fictional. This effect becomes clearer in works like Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics or much of Kim Newman's fiction (Anno Dracula obviously, but also the Diogenes Club stories), where characters from multiple fictions are actually interacting with each other. I've not read any of Philip Jose Farmer's 'Wold Newton' work, but that might be earliest example of what I'm talking about (there's also a little known short story by Maurice Richardson, 'Unquiet Wedding' from 1948, and other examples too no doubt, but that's more of a burlesque, which is not quite what I'm trying to describe here). It's a sense of multiple narratives interacting, that behind the scenes of the novel which we're currently reading, there is a wealth of narratives currently invisible to us. But there they are, happening out in the same fictional landscape.
It could be argued that we already have the perfectly serviceable term 'crossover'. I wouldn't wholly disagree, but that feels rather too mechanistic to me, a simple description of what it is. In a more academic context, Umberto Eco has proposed the term 'transworld migration' which can be taken as the technique of borrowing a literary character from another work. Again, this feels to me like a structural term to label a technique. Whereas what I'm trying to describe here is something that is more affective (assuming I've got the right term there), a sense of how it works, of what it actually achieves. Which will inevitably be somewhat subjective. It's a quality rather than a description.
Consequently, whilst I think that these narratives which bring fictional characters together from multiple disparate works are at the heart of what I'm thinking about here, I would also broaden it to include other works. Michael Moorcock's 'Eternal Champion' stories, especially the 'Second Ether' trilogy, also seem to have something of this quality. Then there's the storied landscapes of the superhero universes owned by Marvel and DC. The worlds of Star Trek and Star Wars and Doctor Who and all their many spin offs. The many spin-offs of Sherlock Holmes. Again, no doubt there are plenty of other things I'm currently unaware of at present.
What all of these fictional narratives have in common is that they have multiple authors. This is most obviously the case with Marvel/DC and commercial spin-offs, but it's also the case in a work which combines characters from the work of other authors.* It's also, unless one is a complete obsessive, practically impossible to read or see or hear everything that makes up most of these narrative worlds. I'm never going to read every DC comic, or every Doctor Who spin-off, or the original appearance of every character that Kim Newman includes in Anno Dracula. Life's too short.
So the sense of narrative plenitude or excess which I'm trying to define here also encompasses narratives that I'm never going to experience. I'm sure this is the case for most readers. So that sense of narrative excess actually entails a lack, which might in turn account for the obsession with continuity which so many fans of this kind of fiction exhibit. It's the hope that somehow this excess of narrative can be contained and made to make sense. Since the very reality of multiple authorship also means that there will inevitably be contradictions in these texts, there is obviously something rather quixotic about such a desire, but it's a desire which is clearly a response to that initial sense of narrative excess and plenitude.
Once you get away from that anxiety though, what we have is a sense of seemingly boundless possibilities, of narratives bumping up against each other, braiding together: a plenitude, an excess. A joy.
So that's an initial rough sketch of what I think I'm trying to get at here. Now I just have to decide on what to call it.
* It might be argued therefore that Moorcock's 'Eternal Champion' stories don't fit here, since there there is only one author. And most of the characters Kim Newman crosses over in his Diogenes Club stories are of course his own creations. It does seem that where an author's work falls into discrete series there is then the opportunity for combining characters so as to produce an effect which is otherwise more commonly found in works which have multiple authors, or which borrow characters originally created by others.
Consequently, whilst I think that these narratives which bring fictional characters together from multiple disparate works are at the heart of what I'm thinking about here, I would also broaden it to include other works. Michael Moorcock's 'Eternal Champion' stories, especially the 'Second Ether' trilogy, also seem to have something of this quality. Then there's the storied landscapes of the superhero universes owned by Marvel and DC. The worlds of Star Trek and Star Wars and Doctor Who and all their many spin offs. The many spin-offs of Sherlock Holmes. Again, no doubt there are plenty of other things I'm currently unaware of at present.
What all of these fictional narratives have in common is that they have multiple authors. This is most obviously the case with Marvel/DC and commercial spin-offs, but it's also the case in a work which combines characters from the work of other authors.* It's also, unless one is a complete obsessive, practically impossible to read or see or hear everything that makes up most of these narrative worlds. I'm never going to read every DC comic, or every Doctor Who spin-off, or the original appearance of every character that Kim Newman includes in Anno Dracula. Life's too short.
So the sense of narrative plenitude or excess which I'm trying to define here also encompasses narratives that I'm never going to experience. I'm sure this is the case for most readers. So that sense of narrative excess actually entails a lack, which might in turn account for the obsession with continuity which so many fans of this kind of fiction exhibit. It's the hope that somehow this excess of narrative can be contained and made to make sense. Since the very reality of multiple authorship also means that there will inevitably be contradictions in these texts, there is obviously something rather quixotic about such a desire, but it's a desire which is clearly a response to that initial sense of narrative excess and plenitude.
Once you get away from that anxiety though, what we have is a sense of seemingly boundless possibilities, of narratives bumping up against each other, braiding together: a plenitude, an excess. A joy.
*
So that's an initial rough sketch of what I think I'm trying to get at here. Now I just have to decide on what to call it.
* It might be argued therefore that Moorcock's 'Eternal Champion' stories don't fit here, since there there is only one author. And most of the characters Kim Newman crosses over in his Diogenes Club stories are of course his own creations. It does seem that where an author's work falls into discrete series there is then the opportunity for combining characters so as to produce an effect which is otherwise more commonly found in works which have multiple authors, or which borrow characters originally created by others.
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