Frustration and catharsis

I have characterised the reader’s defeat. What remains to be seen is why Eco claims this defeat can be pleasurable. I draw an analogy between Eco’s portrait of reading impossible fiction and solving a puzzle. In both cases, the reader builds up frustration as she struggles to find a solution. For the puzzle, this solution is the answer to the puzzle. For Eco’s account of impossible fiction, the solution is the realisation of why the fiction eludes intuitive understanding. In puzzles, the discovery of a solution brings a sense of cathartic pleasure. Perhaps a similar cathartic pleasure is available for Eco’s reader. I characterise this cathartic pleasure, but argue that, like Eco’s first-level reading of impossible fiction, it is not widely experienced by real readers.

The process of reading impossible fiction which Eco describes is extremely similar to existing accounts of puzzle-solving. When discussing impossible fiction, Eco describes a ‘linear and temporally ordered… scanning’ which is part of the process of making a ‘global analysis… that requires an interplay of long- and short-term memory (1994: 78).’ This description of the reader’s actions is similar to the description of the actions of puzzle- solvers. In their psychological description of problem solving, David Hambrick & Randall Engle describe the Tower of Hanoi, a classic example of a puzzle. They claim that:

Discovery of a solution [to the Tower of Hanoi] may depend on the ability to activate information from multiple, unsuccessful solution attempts, and to maintain that activation until the information is integrated… working memory is a fundamental determinant of proficiency in a wide range of tasks (Hambrick and Engle 2003: 179–180).

121 To solve the Tower of Hanoi the solver must use her memory to synthesise information gained from failed attempts to solve the puzzle. This information guides her future attempts by helping her avoid making the mistakes which led to failure.

As Eco describes impossible fictions, they also have a ‘solution’—the identification of which aspect makes them absolutely impossible. For the Penrose triangle, this is the combination of angles in the corners of the triangle. For Back to the Future and Looper, it is the paradoxes included in the story. In both Eco’s account of impossible fiction and Hambrick & Engle’s account of puzzles, solutions are discovered through the faculty of memory. If both the puzzler and the reader are drawing on the same faculty when engaging with their respective media, investigating the experience of the puzzler may shed some light on the experience of the reader. This is why the comparison to the process of solving puzzles is helpful for the discussion of impossible fiction.

Both attempting to solve a puzzle and attempting to normalise an impossible fiction can be frustrating. Marcel Danesi describes a build-up of suspense in the process of solving a puzzle (2002: 226–227). The same goes for the reader, who must draw on her memory and interpretive skills to try and make sense of the fiction she is reading. Just as a puzzle- solver does not embark on a puzzle which she knows has no solution, a reader does not try to make sense of a fiction unless she thinks there is a sensible interpretation available. Correspondingly, just as the puzzler’s frustration is based on the thought that she could solve the puzzle but has failed to do so, the reader’s frustration is born of an expectation that the text can be successfully interpreted which is not met.

Eco agrees with this overall picture of the reader’s defeat. He claims that the reader’s objective is to find the meaning of the text (Eco 1994: 77). To Eco, this is a process of interpreting the text in such a way that the reader can understand it. To other theorists, this may be seen as a different process, such as recovering the intentions of the author. In either case, the goal is a specific interpretation of the text—usually one which is rational and consistent. The obstacle to this process is the fact that the text is impossible: there is no easy way of interpreting the impossible elements. This prevents the reader from interpreting the text in the way she normally would.

The reader therefore develops a feeling of suspense and frustration. Typically, frustration is replaced by pleasure when the source of frustration is finally overcome. This is the pleasure associated with puzzles. Danesi describes how puzzles cause a feeling of suspense and anxiety in their audience (2002: 2). This feeling of suspense grows as the reader attempts to solve the puzzle. It is only when the puzzle is solved that the reader achieves a ‘mental catharsis’, and with it relief from the suspense (Danesi 2002: 2). To

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Danesi, this suspense is a key part of a puzzle’s appeal (2002: 226–227). A good puzzle is one which builds up anxiety and, presumably, though Danesi does not specify this, releases this anxiety when the reader finds a solution. A puzzle is too easy if we manage to solve it before any frustration builds up. A puzzle is too hard if we are unable to find a solution which allows the frustration to be released.

A reader who successfully normalises an impossible fiction feels a similar moment of catharsis to the puzzle-solver: a moment where the information they have been collating finally makes sense. This catharsis is the result of the reader feeling that she finally understands the fiction. In the case of Maison, the reader who draws on a functional normalisation like those of Eco and Doležel may feel as though she has finally put her finger on why exactly the unusual elements of the fiction are present. This achieves her goal— making sense of the fiction—in a manner which cathartically dispels her frustration with the confusing narrative of Maison. I argue that this catharsis can be an enjoyable aspect of successfully normalising an impossible fiction, just as it is for solving a puzzle. This catharsis is a result of the building frustration which accompanies the efforts to engage with an impossible fiction like Maison. It is not an Aristotelian catharsis—the exorcism of pity and fear. It is a less technical sense of the term: the purgation of negative emotions in general.

This corresponds with Eco’s notion of the pleasure of logical and perceptual defeat. When the reader accepts that she cannot conceive of the fiction in the standard way, she admits defeat in her original objective. Accepting our defeat in the effort to grok the fiction and instead adopting a principle of normalisation can be cathartically pleasurable. Danesi claims that a pleasurable, cathartic release is created by the discovery of a solution to a puzzle. I argue that this release is analogous to the discovery of a method for reading the impossible fiction which makes that fiction seem coherent. This model also shows why failing to normalise fiction can result in a frustrating reading experience. A reader who cannot normalise Maison is doomed to simply fail in her effort to grok the fiction. There is no moment of cathartic release, and so this reader’s experience is likely to be strongly negative.

I argue that the logical and perceptual defeat to which Eco refers is best understood as the reader’s inability to conceive of the fiction as she would normally. This can be pleasurable, as the cathartic sense of release from frustration has been earned by the hard work of repeatedly failing to grok the text. Eco takes a stronger position and claims that the reader cannot conceive of the world of Maison at all, but this is still compatible with the model of catharsis which I have described in this section.

123 This sense of cathartic release is not available to every reader of impossible fiction. It is only available to those who recognise or strongly suspect that a fiction is impossible but cannot place the exact reason for this impossibility. As I previously explained in my criticism of Eco, I do not think that many readers have this experience. Readers are often aware prior to or early on in reading a fiction that it is impossible. Consequently, while I agree that some readers may gain this sense of catharsis, a great many will not. This does not mean that these other readers are doomed to a negative experience. In the following section I argue that there are other reasons why a reader can find her logical and perceptual defeat pleasurable.