The debate remains open on whether Frosty the Snowman and The Wind in the Willows are impossible fictions. The answer to this question does not impact on my definition of
157 impossible fiction. However, the way in which an answer is given demonstrates how substantive disagreement about classification as impossible fiction can proceed under my revised definition. I am persuaded by Stock that Frosty the Snowman is not impossible, and I extend the same arguments to The Wind in the Willows. There are no absolute impossibilities to be found in this work of fiction. I demonstrate this by rejecting Matravers’s list of properties which are supposedly inconsistent with the classification ‘toad’:
(1) Wears goggles, a cap, gaiters and an enormous overcoat. This is logically possible. In fact, it is something any one of us would be capable of bringing about given some custom-made clothes and a patient toad.
(2) Speaks English. This is not biologically or physically possible given the structure of the larynx in known toads. However, the discovery of a new species, toad-like in every respect except for the ability to mimic spoken language, is entirely possible. Plenty of animals are capable of mimicking language, and this has never interfered with their species classifications.57
(3) Owns a stately home. The Jackson Oak in Athens, Georgia, is a tree which owns itself. Michael Jackson’s chimpanzee, Bubbles, inherited two million dollars upon Jackson’s death. The only thing preventing a toad from owning a stately home is the lack of willing donors.
(4) Prone to passing fits of enthusiasm about vehicular transport. This issue is the most potent, as it requires the toad to have certain higher brain functions not typically associated with toads. It requires intention and emotion to be enthusiastic about vehicles. However, we may run the same test here which Stock applies to Frosty the Snowman: it is not clear that any property seen as necessary to the concept (in this case, ‘toad’) is inconsistent with the property in question (‘prone to passing fits of enthusiasm about vehicular transport’) (Stock 2003: 121). Toads are not defined by their lack of enthusiasm about vehicular transport. A toad which could express such enthusiasm would be seen as a particularly intelligent toad, rather than a different kind of creature altogether. The concept ‘toad’ and the concept ‘enthusiastic about vehicles’ can be entertained together.
Matravers claims that ‘one does not have to be too essentialist’ to think that any of these properties are logically inconsistent with classifying something as a toad (2014: 130). I argue the exact opposite: one must be extremely essentialist about toads to think that the
57 Mimicry is all that is required to explain Toad’s capacity for English. In the event that Matravers
thinks the speaking of English involves an intentional activity which communicates meaning, the property is dealt with in property 4.
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character Toad is logically impossible. It would require an extensive list of properties necessary to the classification of a toad. I therefore disagree that The Wind in the Willows is a work of impossible fiction. In doing so, I have demonstrated that there is still scope for meaningful disagreement about whether a work is an impossible fiction under my definition of the term.
A.9 Conclusion
The type of necessity under discussion in these accounts of impossible fiction is necessity in the widest sense—a necessity which holds in every possible world or set of circumstances. For this reason, many accounts of impossible fiction refer to logical impossibility as a sufficient criterion for an impossible fiction. It is for the same reason that conceptual, analytic and metaphysical impossibilities are frequently brought up in relation to impossible fiction. These types of necessity are also taken to be impossible under all circumstances and in all possible worlds.
This means that most positive accounts of impossible fiction support the revised definition I have defended. Lewis, Walton and Nolan all explicitly agree with the notion that impossible fiction is fiction which could not have taken place in any possible world. Stock and Gendler’s arguments on conceptual necessity do not directly endorse my definition, but both are compatible with it. The only definition which outright contradicts my own is Matravers’s account, as it allows for logical impossibilities and nothing else. If this is indeed the correct interpretation of Matravers, then he and I are at odds. However, I have also shown why Matravers might not endorse this reading of his account, and why he might allow other types of necessity to feature in a definition of impossible fiction. In either case, I am satisfied that the counterfactual definition does not need revision in response to any of the accounts of impossible fiction I have discussed in this section.
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Appendix B: Impressions and existing accounts of
fiction
B.1 Introduction
This appendix follows up on my assertion in Chapter 2 that reader impressions are compatible with other accounts of fiction. I sketch out two major players in the debate on fictional truth: make-believe and intentionalism. I show that reader impressions are not only compatible with these accounts, but they even contribute to a reasonable analysis of certain works of fiction. I show how the varied reader interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey are explained by impressions under Walton’s make-believe account. I also show how reader impressions explain reader responses to fringe cases of intentionalism: queer readings of
Batman and Harry Potter. Since reader impressions are not only compatible with these
accounts, but actually offer some explanatory power for reader behaviour, I conclude that reader impressions are theory-neutral.