What Have We Here Then

By Dick Webb

Two journalists are sent by their editor in search of answers to the big questions - Why am I here? Where is here? Is what we see real? Will they find the answers? The Narrator, with a chip on her shoulder the size of Westminster Abbey, pushes herself forward into a prominent role.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dick Webb
• Release date: Jan 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311580030

Dick Webb

Born in post-war England.Lived in Denmark since the 60's.Written poetry (and short stories and stuff) since schooldays - but this is the first publication.

Book preview

Title:

What have we here then

or

The inscrutable cow and other questions

author:

Dick Webb

Copyright Dick Webb 2015

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Pithy quotes that add a touch of class to the book.

The subtilty of nature is far beyond that of sense or of the understanding: so that the specious meditations, speculations, and theories of mankind, are but a kind of insanity, only there is no one to stand by and observe it.

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Aphorisms concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man, London 1620

Objective reality: even cut and dried, it won't lie flat, and on closer inspection it dissolves in curlicued wisps of filigree mist.

Alan Spinell, Weft and Warp: Possible materials for the fabric of the universe, Århus 2016.

Frontispiece:

Caption: A family photograph of an excavation. Someone, presumably the author, casting light on the foundations of reality.

Contents

Quotes

Frontispiece

Introduction

Chapter 1

Epilogue

Disclaimer

Introduction.

What have we here then is the title and (obviously) the theme of this book, so it would be fitting in an introduction to give at least the outlines of an answer, if it were a question, which it isn't, more like an expression of interest, as you would hear, if you were close enough, an amateur archaeologist mutter if she unearthed a small shard of pottery or a bone fragment while digging in her garden. And how exciting does that promise to be. Well, since when has putting your trust in promises been a good idea?

Let me introduce myself - A Narrator, in fact a Logical, Omnipresent, Observing, Partially Invasive Narrator. Lupin is the obvious acronym, but Loopy is the name that seems to stick. I take this in the sense of convoluted, and feel that it is a reasonable assessment of my style, a conclusion you have perhaps already reached, but to give an example: assuming a logical frame of mind, which is not difficult in my case, I have to point out that my presentation is problematic on several counts, the first one being that it is ambiguous on the question of whether I am an actual or an imaginary person, a fictive or a fictional character (there is a difference) or something else entirely. I have a name, but that doesn't necessarily make me a person. Anything can have a name - dogs, organisations, concepts. But a name and a style (remember?) and being referred to in the first person (there you go) implies that I am a person, but on the other hand omnipresent suggests a more nebulous creation (or even creator), and surely rules out the possibility of me being a person, even a fictional person, it being an unnatural (not to say supernatural) property. Persona seems to be a good try - but only because it fails to address the question. Literary construct does appear to cover it; it does assume that this is literature, but since, of late, even what appears to be random burblings straight from somebody's semi-consciousness is accepted - and, incredibly, even praised by people old enough to know better - it is plain that the gatekeepers have been sacked and anything gets in. However, a construct is - by definition I suppose - whatever you (not you the reader, but you in general) want it to be, so being a construct could make me anything, and that means we are more or less where we started, since the potential for being anything does not necessarily mean that I am actually something, or not something in particular at least. I suppose I could tell you what I am, if I knew, but this wouldn't in fact clarify anything to anyone's satisfaction, since narrators, especially of late, are as untrustworthy as promises. And while we're on the subject of narrators - and for obvious reasons this is something I feel quite strongly about - there is a persistent error in the understanding of Narrators - a wilfully persistent error in my opinion, but I will probably (or inevitably) be getting into this later - and though I am not convinced that information and good reasons are sufficient to rectify this, I would like to make myself plain: the Narrator is not a postman. Postmen don't open parcels - not officially at least - they may not know or even wonder what the parcels contain, they are concerned that parcels arrive at the right places but indifferent as to the reaction they cause - none of this corresponds in any way to the relation a Narrator has to the story, so I hope it is obvious that the whole Narrator as postman, story as package, metaphor is hopelessly misleading and degrading for both parts - no Narrator worth her salt would even contemplate being so indifferent to the story as the postmen are to their packages - and no postman would like to be caught doing to a parcel what Narrators feel obliged to do to a story. It just might be possible to believe that a narrator is a channel