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tion will be as changeable, a') unstable, as illusory, as nameless, as un–
nameable, as frauuulent, as unpredictable as the uiscourse that makes
them. This does not mean, however, that they will be mere puppets.
On the contrary, their being will be more genuine, more complex,
more true to !.ife in fact, because they will not appear to be simply
what they are, they will be what they are: word-beings. What will
replace the well-made personage who carried with
him
the burden
of a name, a social role, a nationality, parental ties, and sometimes
an age and a physical appearance, will be a fictitious creature who
functions outside any predetermined conditions. That creature will be,
in a sense, present to his own absence. Totally free, totally uncom–
mitted to the affairs of the outside world, to the same extent as the
fiction in which he will exist (perform, that is ) , he will participate in
the fiction only as a grammatical being (sometimes not even as a
pronominal being ) . Made of fragments, disassociated fragments of
himself, this new fictitious creature will be irrational, irresponsible,
irrepressive, amoral, and unconcerned with the real world, but en–
tirely committed to the fiction in which he finds himself, aware, in
fact, only of his role as fictitious being. Moreover, not only the creator,
but the characters (and the narrator, if any), as well as the reader,
will participate in the creation of the fiction. All of them will be part
of the fiction, all of them will be responsible for it - the creator (as
fictitious as his creation) being only the point of junction (the source
and the recipient) of all the elements of the fiction.
PROPOSITION FIVE -
The Meaning of Fiction
It
is obvious from the preceding propositions that the most strik–
ing aspects of the new fiction will be its semblance of disorder and
incoherency. Since, as stated earlier, no meaning preexists language,
but meaning is produced in the process of writing (and reading), the
new fiction will not attempt to be meaningful, truthful, or realistic;
nor will it attempt to serve as the vehicle of a ready-made meaning.
On the contrary, it will be seemingly devoid of any meaning, it will
be deliberately illogical, irrational, unrealistic, non sequitur, and in–
coherent. And only through the joint efforts of the reader and creator
(as well as that of the characters and narrators) will a meaning pos–
sibly be extracted from the fictitious discourse. The new fiction will
not create a semblance of order, it will offer itself for order and order–
ing. Thus the reader of this fiction will not be able to identify with its
