impossibilia-8-octubre-2014

he narator’s voice sounds here benevolent and at the same time competent enough to be able toexpand from the particular to the general and consequently make what he is teling efectively bear on thereader/listener, that is, in McEwan’s intention, on the adult as wel as on the child and their respectiveexperiences.Once the actual stories begin, however, these naratorial intrusions change in tone and mater asthey move from general statements on children and adults to direct interpelations of the reader, mainlyaimed at encouraging identication through a sort of captatio benevolentiae: “You have to try and imagine”(McEwan, 1994: 24) or “If you believe it is strange [.] then you should know” (28).What acounts for thischange? Does it alow us to hypothesize a shift of voice, despite the fact that the whole book is narated inthe third person? We may solve these doubts by paying specic atention to the closing words of theintroductory chapter:And Peter himself learned as he grew older that since people can’t se what’s going on in your head, the bestthing to do, if you want them to understand you, is to tel them. So he began to write down some of thethings that happened to him when he was staring out of the window or lying on his back looking up at thesky. When he grew up he became an inventor and a writer of stories and led a happy life. In this book youwil ind some of the weird adventures that happened in Peter’s head, writen down exactly as theyhappened. (McEwan, 1994: 14)Now, if we are to trust these words, we must interpret he Daydreamer as a frame narative inwhich the heterodiegetic narator of the prefatory chapter –the one who wilingly comments on childrenand adults– gives way, in the folowing stories, to an autodiegetic narator who disguises himself behind athird person voice, 2 though maintaining the protagonist’s point of view throughout. Far from being“authoritative and omniscient” (Malcolm 2002: 189), then, naration in the book sems to share the samemetamorphosing quality of the adventures it describes and to subscribe to a tricky confusion of roles furtherenhanced by the fact that, as already suggested, Peter the writer-narator-dreamweaver mayautobiographicaly be asimilated to his own creator. his metaleptical corespondence overtly points to theauthor’s intentional playing with the diferent personae of the narative pact (writer, narator, character) so asto warn his readers against any simplication as wel as urging them to delve into a narative reality wherenothing can be taken for granted.his reality is characterized by a voluntary bluring of the boundaries separating the real world andthe dream, the pasage from one to the other being “fairly seamles” (Malcolm, 2002: 188). Each story2Christine Reynier, who ofers a Deleuzian interpretation of he Daydreamer as a sort of Bildungroman about theconiguration of the self, deines it in terms of “une oeuvre où la biographie se confond avec l’autobiographie”(2002: 98).Ferari, Roberta. “Metamorphosis of a genre: he Daydreamer by Ian McEwan”. Imposibilia Nº8, Págs. 46-63 (Octubre 2014)Artículo recibido el 29/07/2014 – Aceptado el 10/09/2014 – Publicado el 30/10/2014.51