jellyfish rising

Is everything in a narrative functional ? Does everything,
down to the slightest detail, have a meaning? Can narrative
be divided up entirely into functional units? We shall sce
in a moment that there are several kinds of functions, there
being several kinds of correlations, but this does not alter
the fact that a narrative is never made up of anything other
than functions: in differing degrees, everything in it signifies.
This is not a matter of art (on the part of the narrator), but
of structure; in the realm of discourse, what is noted is by
definition notable. Even were a detail to appear irretrievably
insignificant, resistant to all functionality, it would nonetheless
end up with precisely the meaning of absurdity or
uselessness: everything has a meaning, or nothing has. To
put it another way, one could say that art is without noise
(as that term is employed in information theory):2 art is a

2. This is what separates art from ‘life’, the latter knowing only
‘fuzzy’ or ‘blurred’ communications. ‘Fuzziness’ (that beyond which it
is impossible to see) can exist in art, but it does so as a coded element
(in Watteau for example). Even then, such ‘fuzziness’ is unknown to
the written code: writing is inescapably distinct.

system which is pure, no unit ever goes wasted,1 however
long, however loose, however tenuous may be the thread
connecting it to one of the levels of the story.2

1. At least in literature, where the freedom of notation (in consequence
of the abstract nature of articulated language) leads to a much
greater responsibility than in the ‘analogical’ arts such as cinema.
2. The functionality of a narrative unit is more or less immediate
(and hence apparent) according to the level on which it operates: when
the units are situated on the same level (as for instance in the case of
suspense), the functionality is very clear; it is much less so when the
function is saturated on the narrational level – a modern text, weakly
signifying on the plane of the anecdote, only finds a full force of meaning
on the plane of the writing.