Framed Narratives

[Wraxtiorre]

As often as I keep saying it, I still wish that I had included
that letter about the meaning of the Schizophrenic Diatribes written
to my friend in the Appendices, because it breached the subject of
narrative framing as a revelation, and in the same sense described--in
some depth, I might add--all of the Schizophrenic Diatribes. But the
other day, as I was wondering what to say about Mangled Doves (and
fearing that I might have run out of meaningful ways to push the sales
of the book), it occurred to me that "The Young Man and the Wizened
Old Philosopher" was more than a silly romp with an embedded tirade
that made little to no sense. It was framing, something I openly
announced in "Wander-Sea Part One." As I realized the significance of
framing in my writing style, I quickly reread the story and made the
connection between the narrative and the tirade. Yes, the old man and
the young shepherd were in fact rhetorical opposites of each other.
In the young man's eyes, the old man is wrong to continue trying to
"be," and the perception that wisdom entails intellectual prowess is
mocked for its apparent failure. In the old man's eyes, the young
shepherd is wrong to be, for his abrasive willfulness betrays a lack
of wisdom, or even thoughtfulness. This frames the argument against
the Law of Parsimony (as I later learned, or Occam's Razor, as it is
otherwise named) by defending the possibility of wrongness, and
defiling the value of risking it for the sake of empirical
convenience. While the argument and its defense are nothing new, the
fact that I framed it so strongly and effectively was a bit
empowering. It does, however, mark the beginning of a longstanding
rivalry against the empirical method--a rivalry that I still haven't
outgrown.

Yet again, I offer up the novella, "This and That" as an ironic
comparison. As in every other way (so far), it defies the capability
shown in these other writings by being the example of this effect in
dysfunction (Be the shining example of what not to do!). The "Gone
Dog Story," told in Chapter Eleven of This and That, bears no actual
relation to the story which frames it, and in fact isn't even a case
of framing. And yet, its interpolation in the narrative, much like
the dismissed poem embedded into the text, performs a necessary
bridging effect. In a way, it is a framing narrative by trying not to
be a framing narrative.