ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

created by a formal device that represents through a violation of the traditional
ontological status of the text a state of epistemological, rather than ontological,
uncertainty: a modernist middle through arguably postmodernist means.
This chapter first considers the general theoretical implications of Johnson’s
randomized middle for traditional narrative theory, grounded in the work of Genette
and Todorov. It then enlists more Ronald Langacker’s more recent theories in
cognitive linguistics to advance a framework for understanding how Johnson’s
technique reifies the narrative line. Finally, I provide close readings of several
sections from the novel. These close readings reveal how Johnson’s themes of
memory, disease, death, and truthfulness interact with the novel’s unusual form. In
particular, I will highlight how the beginning and ending of the novel frame its
middle. Highlighting the stability of the novel’s fabula in contrast to its syuzhet, I
note a particular a section that is marked as different from the rest, and which serves
as a short middle of the fabula and a sort of anchor for the novel’s long middle.
Finally, I conclude with a few short speculations on the effects of the novel’s form on
the relationship between author and reader, particularly in regard to the theme of
memory.
The form of The Unfortunates proceeds in part from the difficulty of creating
a chronologically accurate transcript of this visit and the act of remembering
contained within the visit. Johnson knows a beginning and ending for his narrative—
they are set by the project he has undertaken, and are the traditional narrative
beginning and ending of arrival and departure. However, he cannot remember with
certainty the order in which he remembered certain things about his friend Tony, nor
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