Six Walks in the Fictional Woods

by Umberto Eco, 140 pages
Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1994

Reviewed by Carolyn McKay

For anyone who has ever considered the relationship between author and reader, story and plot, reality and fiction, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods will provide a valuable insight into fictional form and method. Umberto Eco, best known for his novels The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, has published several well-regarded books on literary constructs. In this series of lectures, given as part of the Norton lecture series, Eco addresses the way in which authors induce us to read and experience narrative text. Using a walk in the woods as a metaphor, Eco guides the reader through some of the most commonly used narrative techniques.

Each section — or walk — deals with one aspect of form or method. The first chapter deals with the concept of the model, or second-level reader. Eco discusses how the model reader is created by the author through certain clues in the text, and how these clues incite the reader to explore a fictional work from a certain perspective. This is often accomplished by establishing a certain tone through the complexity of the language used, the verb tenses chosen, or even the use of white space. We all enjoy an exciting story told at an exciting pace, but how does the author know when to speed up, and when to take us away from the action? Eco answers all these questions and more. The number and variety of references used as examples is astounding. Eco uses such diverse examples as the works of Joyce, Poe, and Flaubert, interspersed with references to Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming spy novels, Andy Warhol movies, and modern pornographic film. In the first lecture, the literary references come fast and furious. Unfortunately, they seem inserted into the lecture rather haphazardly and some come across as merely pedantic. However, as the lectures progress, the tone becomes more conversational, and Eco begins to hit his stride.

The most engaging chapters deal with techniques of narrative time. Here Eco discusses the use of such basic devices as the flashforward and flashback, and demonstrates their effects. In his discussion of techniques for influencing the reader's pace, Eco's expertise is apparent. Those readers who enjoyed his novels will marvel at the lengths the author went to in structuring them. Using more of his diverse examples, Eco examines the relationship between story time, discourse time, and reading time. Anyone who has ever skipped 'the boring bits' of a novel in order to get back to the action should be especially amused by this section. Eco explains why a moment of action or suspense in a novel is often followed by several pages of what might appear to be tedious and superfluous descriptions. Again, it's all a matter of pace. This change of narrative pace is part of what Eco refers to as 'the art of slowing down'. Eco claims that even the time that it takes for the reader to turn pages that are not being read is taken into account by the author. Although fascinating, one wonders if all the works quoted by Eco were constructed with such complex strategies and purpose.

Figures such as this one help to
summarize Eco's main points

The book contains several illustrative diagrams that resemble those used by Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time. These diagrams are meant to show how notions of time can be manipulated by the author. The series of events that occur in a fictional work do not necessarily have to follow in chronological order. The flashforward and flashback can be used effectively to convey knowledge of events that occur outside the linear plot scheme. Unfortunately, like Hawking, Eco begins by using very simple figures to plot a chronological sequence of events, and concludes with a complex diagram that appears more daunting than necessary.

In another section, Eco examines the use of historical and geographical facts in a fictional narrative to lend authenticity to a character's actions or a plot development. Eco follows this with several anecdotes about readers who attribute real lives to fictional characters outside the context of the work. This discussion of the grey area between fiction and reality provides a seamless segue into the final lecture, in which he discusses the dangers to society when audiences can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction. Eco gives a long-winded, but ultimately instructive description, of how a "plot" is conceived. The concluding image, however, is both breathtaking and redemptive, and describes how our lives are constantly enriched through the responsible melding of fiction and reality.

These lectures are probably not for the casual reader; they are geared more toward those who wish to become better informed about narrative processes and the effects they create. Although these guided walks appear to meander at times, the reader emerges having mapped some unknown territory and looking forward to the next outing.

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