“…narratology has in practice been too exclusively concerned with the identification of minimal narrative units and paradigmatic structures; it has too much neglected the temporal dynamics that shape narratives in our reading of them, the play of desire in time that makes us turn pages and strive towards narrative ends.”
This particular quote from Brooks’ article about reading for plot has really stuck with me ever since I read it while we were discussing the piece in class. Admittedly, it first only did so because I was really confused as to what it was actually trying to tell me (academia is truly in love with big, complicated words). The more I read it, the more I started to get the impression that this was what it was trying to say: people who are too focused on narrative structures when they read, often search for both minute details and grand symbolic imagery alike, and rely on a steady advancement of the narrative to maintain their interest in the plot; whereas those who read purely for plot are satisfied simply with the knowledge that the plot will, eventually, advance, and that’s what keeps them turning the pages. Now, I could be completely and totally wrong, but that’s just the way I see it.
And honestly? Brooks has a point, and that’s probably why nobody in this day and age is really capable of successfully reading authors like Henry James. All of the books and short stories and music videos and movies–basically just anything with a narrative plot–that we’re exposed to these days have plenty of those minute narrative details and grand symbolic imagery to keep us satiated as we drift from plot point to plot point. Authors like Henry James, however, as well as other classical authors like James Joyce or Herman Melville seem to write specifically for readers who are capable of seeing the big picture when going into a story–those who stay interested in the story just because the story interests them.
The phrase “reading for plot”, then, takes on a new meaning with authors like James because when the plot is a summary of what’s happening, and in cases like Daisy Miller, you’re quite literally reading just to find out what happens. There’s no minute plot details that all tie together in some big, flashy reveal at the end, like so many modern fantasy novels. There’s no fateful intertwining of multiple lives that culminate in a huge climactic moment like in A Tale of Two Cities. It’s just a story that happens, in the lives of the characters that James has created, and if you want to read Henry James you have to be okay with that.
In all likelihood, that’s probably the reason why many people nowadays have such difficulty reading Henry James “for the plot” (as Brooks, more or less, says so himself). It’s because James doesn’t write the kinds of plots we’re used to. He doesn’t write the sort of heart-pounding, page-turning, can’t-put-it-down-because-you-have-to-know-what-happens-next plots. In the case of Daisy Miller, and a few of his other stories as well, he’s content with writing a simple slice-of-life plot that has no overall symbolic meaning beyond the story itself. It’s just a nice little story about Winterbourne and his romantic misadventures with Daisy. Nothing more, nothing less. And there’s nothing wrong with us for possibly not being able to enjoy that; it’s simply just not what we’re used to.
(And, to be clear, I hated reading this as much as the next guy, because I, too, want a more solid plot in my writing.)
I do agree with you that in some ways narrative structures have changed over time, and that the narrative provided in Daisy Miller is not quite the kind of narratives modern readers are expecting. But I also think that this is far more complicated than just Daisy Miller’s plot, or lack there of. I know of tons of contemporary works of fiction which have odd endings or in which nothing really happens in that are very successful among contemporary readers. I wonder more though about why James narratives are so different than Dickens, and how in fact they are the same. In a way, Daisy’s death, although only unsatisfyingly tacked on, feel to me like a very 19th kind of move. It is similar, I think, to how when we discussed in a Tale of Two Cities where all the plot lines come together quickly for their pay off, that’s kind of what Daisy’s death seems like to me.
You make a really interesting plot, and honestly when attempting to analyze Daisy Miller I had not kept Brooks in mind. I think your argument is valid, as I believe we, as contemporary readers, are so accustomed to a storyline that ends after the climax. I suppose that is why I disliked the story so much, as it strayed from the normal storyline I am so used to. Moreover, I think you’re right in that we should read this as they would’ve read it when it was originally published–that is for the text, not for the plot.