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Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative 1st (first) Paperback Editio Edition by Brooks, Peter
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First published January 1, 1984
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About the author
Peter Brooks
111 books60 followersPeter Brooks is the author of Henry James Goes to Paris, Realist Vision, Troubling Confessions, Reading for the Plot, The Melodramatic Imagination, and a number of other books, including the historical novel World Elsewhere. He taught for many years at Yale, where he was Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature, and currently is Andrew W. Mellon Scholar at Princeton.
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October 4, 2014
What do the flashbacks and nightmares of trauma victims have to do with the way we experience pleasure? Peter Brooks makes these unexpected connections in his essay, Freud's Master Plot, within his book, Reading for the Plot.
A professor of literature at Yale, Brooks wanted to know why stories are a certain length. Why don't we go directly from the beginning to the end and skip all the twists and turns along the way? Why is it necessary to have a plot? Brooks believes that he can explain with some help from Freud.
In Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Freud noted that, in their dreams, flashbacks, and patterns of behavior, trauma victims compulsively repeated their horrible experiences as if they were happening in the present, rather than remembering them as events of the past. If you believe in the pleasure principle, namely that people do whatever is pleasurable, you would not expect this. Freud developed his idea of the death drive in an effort to explain.
This is how the death drive works. Death, you see, awaits you. You prefer not to think about it, but it forces itself into your consciousness when you have a close call; a trauma, in other words. Your trauma made you experience something close to death, before you have had a chance to live life fully. You wish you had the sufficient vigilance to ward it off.
Having a death drive doesn't mean that you want to die. Far from it. You know that you will die, but you want to do so on your terms. You attempt to master the inevitability of death by compulsively repeating the event that brought it to your awareness. This compulsion to repeat the trauma is to keep up the kind of vigilance which you think you failed to have in the past. You can't take your eyes off of it, no matter how much you'd like, because of the threat it poses and the significance it has to your story. Flashbacks, then, are rehearsals.
Here's where Brooks advances Freud and further develops the death drive. The moment you have a desire, you seek to extinguish the desire. When you crave chocolate, you mentally rehearse the eating of chocolate in the same way that trauma victims rehearse, or "remember forward", their death. All desire, says Brooks, naturally heads towards quiescence, and all life heads towards death.
Turning to Brooks' interest in reading: when you pick up a book, you soon find that the hero in the story has a desire. The boy desires the girl, the detective desires to solve the crime, the vampire desires blood. If the book hooks you, you soon have a desire, too: to keep reading until the book is done. A good ending achieves a sense of boundedness when all desires are resolved and all the loose ends tied up.
But there's more, and this is why novels are long: not too long, not too short, but of a certain length. When you crave chocolate, you know it's not that enjoyable to just cram it into your mouth at once. The craving can be enjoyable, too. If you look forward to the chocolate, delay your gratification; if you lick it, savor it before consuming it, then you enjoy it more.
This process is what Freud calls binding. The more you tease yourself with the desire, the more you rehearse its satisfaction, the more you tightly bind yourself to it. In addition to its original importance, the desire, once it's bound, becomes invested with all the energies generated by delay.
When you read, you want the hero to be successful, but only after having adventures, suffering setbacks, and acquiring helpers. First, there's the hero's desire that drives the plot forward. Then, there's the delay, the detour, the arabesque, the refusal of closure, the making of bad choices. This is what fills the pages in the middles of literary plots. Subplots, with their own system of desires, setbacks, and resolutions, contribute to the delay. A satisfying story, by teasing you with the ending, binds all of these elements together. In a good book, everything is there for a reason.
In summary, in real life, just as in fiction, whether there has been trauma in it, or not; life moves toward death. You know you're going to die, but you want to die on your own terms, after having had a full life. A full life consists of the very same desires, setbacks, adventures, and delay we find in fiction. It is enriched by the subplots provided by our associates. An awareness of death adds a great deal to the story by bringing to mind what's at stake. Trauma adds drama. The pleasure principle and the death drive coexist and cooperate in the developing and enriching of the good life, as it does in the developing and enriching of the good plot.
A professor of literature at Yale, Brooks wanted to know why stories are a certain length. Why don't we go directly from the beginning to the end and skip all the twists and turns along the way? Why is it necessary to have a plot? Brooks believes that he can explain with some help from Freud.
In Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Freud noted that, in their dreams, flashbacks, and patterns of behavior, trauma victims compulsively repeated their horrible experiences as if they were happening in the present, rather than remembering them as events of the past. If you believe in the pleasure principle, namely that people do whatever is pleasurable, you would not expect this. Freud developed his idea of the death drive in an effort to explain.
This is how the death drive works. Death, you see, awaits you. You prefer not to think about it, but it forces itself into your consciousness when you have a close call; a trauma, in other words. Your trauma made you experience something close to death, before you have had a chance to live life fully. You wish you had the sufficient vigilance to ward it off.
Having a death drive doesn't mean that you want to die. Far from it. You know that you will die, but you want to do so on your terms. You attempt to master the inevitability of death by compulsively repeating the event that brought it to your awareness. This compulsion to repeat the trauma is to keep up the kind of vigilance which you think you failed to have in the past. You can't take your eyes off of it, no matter how much you'd like, because of the threat it poses and the significance it has to your story. Flashbacks, then, are rehearsals.
Here's where Brooks advances Freud and further develops the death drive. The moment you have a desire, you seek to extinguish the desire. When you crave chocolate, you mentally rehearse the eating of chocolate in the same way that trauma victims rehearse, or "remember forward", their death. All desire, says Brooks, naturally heads towards quiescence, and all life heads towards death.
Turning to Brooks' interest in reading: when you pick up a book, you soon find that the hero in the story has a desire. The boy desires the girl, the detective desires to solve the crime, the vampire desires blood. If the book hooks you, you soon have a desire, too: to keep reading until the book is done. A good ending achieves a sense of boundedness when all desires are resolved and all the loose ends tied up.
But there's more, and this is why novels are long: not too long, not too short, but of a certain length. When you crave chocolate, you know it's not that enjoyable to just cram it into your mouth at once. The craving can be enjoyable, too. If you look forward to the chocolate, delay your gratification; if you lick it, savor it before consuming it, then you enjoy it more.
This process is what Freud calls binding. The more you tease yourself with the desire, the more you rehearse its satisfaction, the more you tightly bind yourself to it. In addition to its original importance, the desire, once it's bound, becomes invested with all the energies generated by delay.
When you read, you want the hero to be successful, but only after having adventures, suffering setbacks, and acquiring helpers. First, there's the hero's desire that drives the plot forward. Then, there's the delay, the detour, the arabesque, the refusal of closure, the making of bad choices. This is what fills the pages in the middles of literary plots. Subplots, with their own system of desires, setbacks, and resolutions, contribute to the delay. A satisfying story, by teasing you with the ending, binds all of these elements together. In a good book, everything is there for a reason.
In summary, in real life, just as in fiction, whether there has been trauma in it, or not; life moves toward death. You know you're going to die, but you want to die on your own terms, after having had a full life. A full life consists of the very same desires, setbacks, adventures, and delay we find in fiction. It is enriched by the subplots provided by our associates. An awareness of death adds a great deal to the story by bringing to mind what's at stake. Trauma adds drama. The pleasure principle and the death drive coexist and cooperate in the developing and enriching of the good life, as it does in the developing and enriching of the good plot.
January 22, 2015
Più che di lettura, si è trattato di studio appassionato e attento. Matita sempre pronta. Un testo per cultori, studiosi e appassionati. Accademico, serrato, profondo, impegnativo. Entusiasmante. Vi si analizzano a fondo la storia, le tecniche, le ragioni e gli esiti della necessità di una trama, nella narrazione. Qualsiasi narrazione. Anche quella che si fa a sé stessi, come narratori della propria esistenza. Lo studio è condotto, scientificamente, in analogia e paragone con il processo psicanalitico freudiano, ed è tanto lucido da risultare in molte parti avvincente. La lettura migliore del 2012. Un innesco... in polveriera.
Grazie alla cultura e alla sensibilità dell'amica Roberta, e alla sua segnalazione entusiasta.
Riletto e apprezzato, se possibile, di più (2015).
Grazie alla cultura e alla sensibilità dell'amica Roberta, e alla sua segnalazione entusiasta.
Riletto e apprezzato, se possibile, di più (2015).
March 17, 2017
I meant to dip into this to remind myself of the general argument - that plot is not a static thing, but a process, and a desire - but I got sucked in and found myself starting from the beginning and re-reading the entire thing. The overall theoretical armature is interesting and worthwhile, but the great pleasure of the book is the way it combines it with a joyful immersion in close-readings of various novels. A wonderful read.
July 11, 2016
This book is dense, bloated, and necessary. Narratology—or the theory of narrative—is one of the most delightful fields of literary study. Elegant narratologists like Mieke Bal, Northrop Frye or Gerard Genette have invented a whole vocabulary, which makes it easy to categorise and explain stories of all kinds. More visionary narratologists like Walter Benjamin or Roland Barthes, or more scholarly ones like Monika Fludernik, have revealed how essential stories are in our lives. We have a deep instinct to turn our lives into stories, and the stories we tell have a big impact on the way we think about reality.
Brooks is certainly a visionary narratologist, rather than an elegant or scholarly one. Unlike the elegant narratologists, he does not set out a clear theory of how narrative is structured. He does not define a series of basic concepts, nor does he set out what the different types of narrative are. In fact, he criticises such an approach to narrative, calling it "formalist." He does not want to explain what narrative is; he wants to show us what it does. Using Freudian psychoanalysis, he analyses a series of famous novels (and a couple of Freud's own non-fiction narratives). He shows us how each novel's plot is a complex system of desires, which drive the novel forward and shape our interpretation of the action.
Because he eschews a philosophical or theoretical approach, and because he focusses so much on his particular examples, it is difficult to sum up what Brooks's notion of narrative is. But this is not really a flaw, since he is not trying to expound a theory, but rather to have a certain attitude towards narrative. We should be open to the complexities and contradictions of plot. We should see how plots unfold in time. We should measure our own desires in and against the plots we read. If we have this open attitude, we will understand ourselves and what we read better.
He makes his case with aplomb. The chapters on Great Expectations and L'Education Sentimental were particularly impressive, while his discussions of Freud's "Wolf-Man" and Conrad's Heart of Darkness were also memorable. His prose is muscular, though extremely dense, and his arguments are strong and persuasive, though extremely digressive.
This is a book for serious students of narratology. It's got a lot in there, but you have to work to get it out.
Brooks is certainly a visionary narratologist, rather than an elegant or scholarly one. Unlike the elegant narratologists, he does not set out a clear theory of how narrative is structured. He does not define a series of basic concepts, nor does he set out what the different types of narrative are. In fact, he criticises such an approach to narrative, calling it "formalist." He does not want to explain what narrative is; he wants to show us what it does. Using Freudian psychoanalysis, he analyses a series of famous novels (and a couple of Freud's own non-fiction narratives). He shows us how each novel's plot is a complex system of desires, which drive the novel forward and shape our interpretation of the action.
Because he eschews a philosophical or theoretical approach, and because he focusses so much on his particular examples, it is difficult to sum up what Brooks's notion of narrative is. But this is not really a flaw, since he is not trying to expound a theory, but rather to have a certain attitude towards narrative. We should be open to the complexities and contradictions of plot. We should see how plots unfold in time. We should measure our own desires in and against the plots we read. If we have this open attitude, we will understand ourselves and what we read better.
He makes his case with aplomb. The chapters on Great Expectations and L'Education Sentimental were particularly impressive, while his discussions of Freud's "Wolf-Man" and Conrad's Heart of Darkness were also memorable. His prose is muscular, though extremely dense, and his arguments are strong and persuasive, though extremely digressive.
This is a book for serious students of narratology. It's got a lot in there, but you have to work to get it out.
November 4, 2018
Letti i primi cinque capitoli (fino a pag. 151) per l'esame di teoria della letteratura.
Questo saggio parla di come la trama sia l'ossatura del racconto (e della vita stessa). Attraverso le teorie dei formalisti russi e degli strutturalisti francesi spiega come l'intreccio travolge la fabula (l'ordine cronologico degli eventi) e la rende a volte quasi funzionale al discorso narrativo, parla del desiderio di significato, che coincide col desiderio della fine e delle forze propulsive che spingono avanti il racconto. Il tutto in relazione alle teorie sulla psicoanalisi di Freud.
Questo saggio parla di come la trama sia l'ossatura del racconto (e della vita stessa). Attraverso le teorie dei formalisti russi e degli strutturalisti francesi spiega come l'intreccio travolge la fabula (l'ordine cronologico degli eventi) e la rende a volte quasi funzionale al discorso narrativo, parla del desiderio di significato, che coincide col desiderio della fine e delle forze propulsive che spingono avanti il racconto. Il tutto in relazione alle teorie sulla psicoanalisi di Freud.
July 21, 2012
Psychoanalytic criticism, from its earliest inception, has been, with few exceptions, a lamentable enterprise. As early as 1910, just a year after Freud published The Relation of a Poet to Daydreaming, analysts and critics have been loosely appropriating the language of psychoanalysis to bring deeper understanding to literature. Part of the problem has been a lack of agreement on what (or who) exactly is to be analyzed. Analysts from Otto Rank, writing more than a century ago, to contemporary critics, most notably Harold Bloom, have focused their attention on the author, supposing that the text is a product of her unconscious desires. Another strain of psychoanalytic criticism has centered its attention on the fictive characters of literature. Much ink, for instance, has been spilled over Harry Potter's unresolved oedipal complex. Finally, and perhaps less intuitively, the reader herself has been the object of psychoanalytic criticism, a now near dormant theme that excited postmodern critics in the last decades of the twentieth century.
Such contrivances, argues Peter Brooks in Reading for the Plot, miss the point. Psychoanalysis, being primarily a narrative art, empowers the reader most when used to better understand the dynamics of the plot. More specifically, using Freud's model of psychoanalytic transference in addition to those formulations articulated in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, it is only the text itself that may be fruitfully analyzed with the tools of psychoanalysis, the goal being not explanatory but instead introductory. Only when "[t]he narrative text conceived as transference then becomes the place of interpretation" can psychoanalytic criticism overcome its dubious past and add hermeneutic value. Furthermore, it is best employed as an admixture to an existing body of narratology, specifically to that of the Russian Formalists and their focus on Fabula and Sjuzet. If you are still following at this point, then you'll likely find Brooks' book a compelling read.
Yet to focus solely on the theoretical memes of Reading for the Plot would be to neglect the equally interesting application of Brooks' theory in the world of existing novels. In chapters on Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le noir, Dickens’ Great Expectations, Sue’s Le Mysteres de Paris, Flaubert’s Le Education Sentimentale, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, Brooks attempts to articulate, mostly with success, exactly how structures, functions, sequences, and plot allow the reader to understand the text as “an interpretive model of life.” Though I had read none of the works discussed, I was for the most part still able to engage with the text. Chapter 6 on prostitution and the serialization of the novel was interesting as historical background on the novel and its treatment of the oldest profession. The chapter on Great Expectations was also illuminating and I will soon read the book itself. Despite my having read other criticism of Faulkner’s work, the chapter on Absalom, Absalom was cumbersome and not as convincing. These are surface impressions only. It would take me at least one, maybe two, more readings of this book and a great deal of other reading in order to be able to offer up anything more penetrating or insightful.
If like me you'll be entering for the first time into the world of Russian Formalism and (slightly less so) Sigmund Freud, then prepare to spend some time bringing yourself up to speed as you work through the four chapters that focus on the theoretical aspects of Brooks’ argument. Barthes’s S/Z and Lukac’s The Theory of the Novel are also helpful companion books. Though marketed (on the back cover) to both 'literary theorists' and 'readers of the novel' alike, it crossed my mind that it will be those literary theorists who also read novels that will most appreciate Brooks’ narratological criticisms. This is not to say that the book itself, for the more casual reader, is not worth reading; but rather, an advisory to fellow journeymen critics and bookworms not versed in the classics to prepare for rather arduous conditions. That said, if you the reader not steeped in the world of narratology should persist, it's unlikely that you will read another novel in the same way you have read novels in the past. Reading for the Plot is a seminal work of criticism and having read it from cover to cover, I will definitely read my next novel with a far greater literary competence.
© Jeffrey L. Otto July 21, 2012
July 6, 2022
Pretentious
Read
May 14, 2014Plotting is essentially, inevitably, gloriously human.
May 29, 2025
This is a very demanding book.
Chapter 1: Reading for the Plot
Plot as an organizing force: Plot is not merely a sequence of events, but "the design and intention of narrative," giving it direction and meaning. It is the "principal ordering force" that helps us make sense of time and our own mortality.
The historical nature of plot: The modern emphasis on plot emerged in the 19th century, a time when societies were moving away from sacred masterplots and seeking new ways to understand the world. This historical context is crucial to understanding the function of plot in the novel.
Plot and the reader's desire for meaning: We have a fundamental need for plots to make sense of our lives and the world around us. This "passion for meaning" drives our engagement with narrative.
The relationship between fabula (story) and sjužet (discourse): Brooks builds on the Russian Formalist distinction between the raw material of a story (fabula) and its artistic presentation (sjužet). Plot is the "interpretive activity" that arises from the interplay between these two levels.
Plot as a "double logic": Narrative operates on a "double logic" where events are presented as the cause of the plot, but are also secretly produced by the plot's need for meaning. The ending, in a sense, determines the beginning.
Chapter 2: Narrative Desire
Desire as the motor of narrative: Desire is the "dynamic of signification" in narrative, propelling the story forward and engaging the reader. It is a force that seeks to "combine organic substances into ever greater unities".
Ambition as a key form of narrative desire: In the 19th-century novel, ambition is a "dominant dynamic of plot," driving the protagonist's quest for success and self-realization.
The "desiring machine" and the "motor" of the self: Brooks uses the metaphor of the motor to describe how desire functions in the novel, as a self-contained source of energy that drives the plot forward.
The link between desire, narrative, and capitalism: The rise of the novel is connected to the rise of capitalism, with both systems fueled by a desire for acquisition and exchange.
The "erotics of art": Brooks argues for an "erotics of art" that goes beyond formalist analysis to explore the ways in which texts engage our desires and emotions.
Chapter 3: The Novel and the Guillotine, or Fathers and Sons in Le Rouge et le noir
The problem of paternity in the 19th-century novel: The conflict between fathers and sons is a central theme in many 19th-century novels, reflecting a broader societal concern with authority, legitimacy, and the transmission of values.
Le Rouge et le noir as a novel of revolution: Stendhal's novel is shaped by the legacy of the French Revolution, and its plot is driven by the hero's "usurpation" of a place in a society that seeks to deny him.
The interplay of politics and manners: The novel shows how politics, the "unassimilable other," constantly threatens to disrupt the seemingly stable world of manners and social conventions.
The role of fictional models in shaping identity: The hero, Julien Sorel, constructs his identity and his life's plot through a series of bookish models, from Napoleon to Tartuffe.
The arbitrariness of the ending: The novel's abrupt and seemingly unmotivated ending, with Julien's execution, can be seen as a "laying bare of the device" of plotting, exposing its artificiality.
Chapter 4: Freud's Masterplot: A Model for Narrative
Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle as a model for narrative: Brooks proposes Freud's theory of the death instinct as a "masterplot" for understanding narrative. The drive toward the end, toward a state of quiescence, is a fundamental organizing principle of plot.
Repetition as a key element of plot: Repetition in narrative is not simply a formal device, but a way of binding and working through the trauma of existence. It is a "return" that is also a form of "remembering".
The "dilatory space" of the middle: The middle of a narrative is a "detour" or "postponement" of the end, a space of "vacillating rhythm" created by the interplay of the pleasure principle and the death instinct.
The danger of "short-circuit": The narrative is always in danger of reaching its end too quickly, of achieving an "improper death" that would foreclose the possibility of meaning.
The "desire for the end": The desire of the text, and of the reader, is ultimately a "desire for the end," for the moment of recognition and closure that gives meaning to the whole.
Chapter 5: Repetition, Repression, and Return: The Plotting of Great Expectations
Great Expectations as a novel about plot: The novel is exemplary in its exploration of how we find and lose plots for our lives, and how we are "cured" from the need for them.
The search for a beginning: The novel begins with the hero, Pip, in search of an "authority" that would authorize the plot of his life.
The layering of plots: The novel is structured around a series of "official" and "repressed" plots, with the return of the repressed—the convict plot—ultimately proving to be the most decisive.
The misreading of plot: Pip consistently misreads the plot of his life, mistaking the "fairy tale" of Satis House for the true source of his expectations.
The "cure" from plot: The novel ends with Pip in a state of having "outlived plot," renouncing the desire for a directed and meaningful existence.
Chapter 6: The Mark of the Beast: Prostitution, Serialization, and Narrative
The erotic body in the 19th-century novel: The novel traces a "progressive unveiling of the erotic body," particularly in the context of commercialized literature.
The serialized novel as "industrial literature": The rise of the serialized novel in the 19th century is linked to new industrial modes of production and consumption.
The reader's desire for narrative: The popular novel of the 19th century catered to a massive public appetite for narrative, creating a "utopia of reading and writing".
The transformatory power of reading: The novel can have a profound impact on its readers, illuminating their own lives and creating new possibilities of meaning in the world.
The pleasure of the text: The popular novel, at its best, offers the pleasure of a "dilatory, almost fetishistic text," where the suspense and mystery of the plot are enjoyed for their own sake.
Chapter 7: Retrospective Lust, or Flaubert's Perversities
Flaubert's critique of traditional plotting: Flaubert's novels, particularly L'Education sentimentale, challenge the reader's "passion for meaning" and refuse to provide the satisfactions of a coherent and meaningful plot.
The insignificance of the hero: The hero of L'Education sentimentale, Frédéric Moreau, is an "insignificant" figure whose desires fail to invest the world with meaning.
The "retrospective lust" for the past: The novel offers a "retrospective lust" for a past that is always already lost and can never be fully recovered or understood.
The subversion of the Bildungsroman: Flaubert's novel subverts the traditional form of the Bildungsroman, or novel of education, by showing the hero's failure to learn and grow.
The "unreadable" text: L'Education sentimentale presents the reader with a world that is ultimately "unreadable," a world where events refuse to cohere into a meaningful pattern.
Chapter 8: Narrative Transaction and Transference
Narrative as a transaction: The telling of a story is a "dynamic exchange" between a speaker and a listener, a "transaction" that is shaped by the desires and expectations of both parties.
The "transferential" model of narrative: Brooks proposes a "transferential" model of narrative, based on the psychoanalytic concept of transference, in which the listener becomes a "surrogate" for figures from the speaker's past.
The roles of teller and listener: The meaning of a narrative is a product of the "listening as of the telling," with the listener playing an active role in the construction of meaning.
The "evaluation" of narrative: Oral narratives often contain a moment of "evaluation," where the speaker calls attention to the "point" of the story and asks the listener to judge its importance.
The self-consciousness of modern narrative: Modernist literature is characterized by a "crisis" in the understanding of plot and a heightened self-consciousness about the act of storytelling.
Chapter 9: An Unreadable Report: Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness as a narrative that resists interpretation: The story of Kurtz is an "unreadable report" that cannot be fully deciphered or understood.
The search for meaning in the other's death: The narrator, Marlow, seeks to find the meaning of his own life in the story of Kurtz's death, but the meaning remains elusive.
The failure of transmission: The novel dramatizes the "anxiety about the possibility of transmission," as Marlow struggles to communicate the meaning of his experience to his listeners.
The "lie" as a necessary fiction: The novel suggests that the "lie," the fictional narrative, may be necessary to protect us from the unbearable truth of the "heart of darkness."
The limits of narrative knowledge: Heart of Darkness ultimately questions the ability of narrative to represent and make sense of the world, highlighting the "epistemological and linguistic problems posed by storytelling".
Chapter 10: Fictions of the Wolf Man: Freud and Narrative Understanding
Psychoanalysis as a narrative art: Freud's case histories are a form of narrative, in which he constructs a coherent story out of the fragmented memories and dreams of his patients.
The "construction" of the past: The analyst "constructs" a version of the patient's past that is not necessarily a simple recollection of what "really happened," but a fiction that has therapeutic power.
The role of "circumstantial evidence": Like a detective, the psychoanalyst uses "circumstantial evidence" from the present to reconstruct a story from the past.
The problem of narrative authority: The case of the Wolf Man raises questions about the authority of the analyst's narrative and the patient's own "fictions."
The "double logic" of narrative construction: The analyst's narrative is shaped by a "double logic," in which the events of the past are both the cause of the present and a product of the narrative's need for coherence.
Chapter 11: Incredulous Narration: Absalom, Absalom!
Absalom, Absalom! as a novel about the impossibility of narrative knowledge: The novel poses a "radical doubt about the validity of plot" and challenges the very possibility of knowing and telling the past.
The absence of a stable plot: The story of Thomas Sutpen is told through a series of "incredulous narrations" that never cohere into a single, authoritative plot.
The "dialogic" nature of narration: The story is constructed through a "dialogic" process of telling and listening, in which the narrators and listeners collaborate in the creation of meaning.
The "hermeneutic fiction": The narrative of Sutpen's life is a "hermeneutic fiction," a story that is created in the act of trying to understand it.
The "raging and incredulous recounting": The novel suggests that narration is a necessary but ultimately futile attempt to "bear with living" in a world where meaning is always elusive.
In Conclusion: Endgames and the Study of Plot
The "endgame" of modern plot: In modern and postmodern literature, endings are no longer seen as definitive resolutions, but as "arbitrary" and "tenuous" moments of closure.
The persistence of narrative: Despite the "crisis" in the understanding of plot, the desire for narrative ordering remains a fundamental human impulse.
The return to psychoanalytic models: Brooks reaffirms the value of psychoanalytic models for understanding the dynamics of narrative, particularly the interplay of desire, repetition, and transference.
The "transactive" nature of reading: Reading is a "transactive" process, in which the reader actively participates in the construction of meaning.
The refusal to allow temporality to be meaningless: Plot is ultimately a product of our "stubborn insistence on making meaning in the world and in our lives".
Chapter 1: Reading for the Plot
Plot as an organizing force: Plot is not merely a sequence of events, but "the design and intention of narrative," giving it direction and meaning. It is the "principal ordering force" that helps us make sense of time and our own mortality.
The historical nature of plot: The modern emphasis on plot emerged in the 19th century, a time when societies were moving away from sacred masterplots and seeking new ways to understand the world. This historical context is crucial to understanding the function of plot in the novel.
Plot and the reader's desire for meaning: We have a fundamental need for plots to make sense of our lives and the world around us. This "passion for meaning" drives our engagement with narrative.
The relationship between fabula (story) and sjužet (discourse): Brooks builds on the Russian Formalist distinction between the raw material of a story (fabula) and its artistic presentation (sjužet). Plot is the "interpretive activity" that arises from the interplay between these two levels.
Plot as a "double logic": Narrative operates on a "double logic" where events are presented as the cause of the plot, but are also secretly produced by the plot's need for meaning. The ending, in a sense, determines the beginning.
Chapter 2: Narrative Desire
Desire as the motor of narrative: Desire is the "dynamic of signification" in narrative, propelling the story forward and engaging the reader. It is a force that seeks to "combine organic substances into ever greater unities".
Ambition as a key form of narrative desire: In the 19th-century novel, ambition is a "dominant dynamic of plot," driving the protagonist's quest for success and self-realization.
The "desiring machine" and the "motor" of the self: Brooks uses the metaphor of the motor to describe how desire functions in the novel, as a self-contained source of energy that drives the plot forward.
The link between desire, narrative, and capitalism: The rise of the novel is connected to the rise of capitalism, with both systems fueled by a desire for acquisition and exchange.
The "erotics of art": Brooks argues for an "erotics of art" that goes beyond formalist analysis to explore the ways in which texts engage our desires and emotions.
Chapter 3: The Novel and the Guillotine, or Fathers and Sons in Le Rouge et le noir
The problem of paternity in the 19th-century novel: The conflict between fathers and sons is a central theme in many 19th-century novels, reflecting a broader societal concern with authority, legitimacy, and the transmission of values.
Le Rouge et le noir as a novel of revolution: Stendhal's novel is shaped by the legacy of the French Revolution, and its plot is driven by the hero's "usurpation" of a place in a society that seeks to deny him.
The interplay of politics and manners: The novel shows how politics, the "unassimilable other," constantly threatens to disrupt the seemingly stable world of manners and social conventions.
The role of fictional models in shaping identity: The hero, Julien Sorel, constructs his identity and his life's plot through a series of bookish models, from Napoleon to Tartuffe.
The arbitrariness of the ending: The novel's abrupt and seemingly unmotivated ending, with Julien's execution, can be seen as a "laying bare of the device" of plotting, exposing its artificiality.
Chapter 4: Freud's Masterplot: A Model for Narrative
Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle as a model for narrative: Brooks proposes Freud's theory of the death instinct as a "masterplot" for understanding narrative. The drive toward the end, toward a state of quiescence, is a fundamental organizing principle of plot.
Repetition as a key element of plot: Repetition in narrative is not simply a formal device, but a way of binding and working through the trauma of existence. It is a "return" that is also a form of "remembering".
The "dilatory space" of the middle: The middle of a narrative is a "detour" or "postponement" of the end, a space of "vacillating rhythm" created by the interplay of the pleasure principle and the death instinct.
The danger of "short-circuit": The narrative is always in danger of reaching its end too quickly, of achieving an "improper death" that would foreclose the possibility of meaning.
The "desire for the end": The desire of the text, and of the reader, is ultimately a "desire for the end," for the moment of recognition and closure that gives meaning to the whole.
Chapter 5: Repetition, Repression, and Return: The Plotting of Great Expectations
Great Expectations as a novel about plot: The novel is exemplary in its exploration of how we find and lose plots for our lives, and how we are "cured" from the need for them.
The search for a beginning: The novel begins with the hero, Pip, in search of an "authority" that would authorize the plot of his life.
The layering of plots: The novel is structured around a series of "official" and "repressed" plots, with the return of the repressed—the convict plot—ultimately proving to be the most decisive.
The misreading of plot: Pip consistently misreads the plot of his life, mistaking the "fairy tale" of Satis House for the true source of his expectations.
The "cure" from plot: The novel ends with Pip in a state of having "outlived plot," renouncing the desire for a directed and meaningful existence.
Chapter 6: The Mark of the Beast: Prostitution, Serialization, and Narrative
The erotic body in the 19th-century novel: The novel traces a "progressive unveiling of the erotic body," particularly in the context of commercialized literature.
The serialized novel as "industrial literature": The rise of the serialized novel in the 19th century is linked to new industrial modes of production and consumption.
The reader's desire for narrative: The popular novel of the 19th century catered to a massive public appetite for narrative, creating a "utopia of reading and writing".
The transformatory power of reading: The novel can have a profound impact on its readers, illuminating their own lives and creating new possibilities of meaning in the world.
The pleasure of the text: The popular novel, at its best, offers the pleasure of a "dilatory, almost fetishistic text," where the suspense and mystery of the plot are enjoyed for their own sake.
Chapter 7: Retrospective Lust, or Flaubert's Perversities
Flaubert's critique of traditional plotting: Flaubert's novels, particularly L'Education sentimentale, challenge the reader's "passion for meaning" and refuse to provide the satisfactions of a coherent and meaningful plot.
The insignificance of the hero: The hero of L'Education sentimentale, Frédéric Moreau, is an "insignificant" figure whose desires fail to invest the world with meaning.
The "retrospective lust" for the past: The novel offers a "retrospective lust" for a past that is always already lost and can never be fully recovered or understood.
The subversion of the Bildungsroman: Flaubert's novel subverts the traditional form of the Bildungsroman, or novel of education, by showing the hero's failure to learn and grow.
The "unreadable" text: L'Education sentimentale presents the reader with a world that is ultimately "unreadable," a world where events refuse to cohere into a meaningful pattern.
Chapter 8: Narrative Transaction and Transference
Narrative as a transaction: The telling of a story is a "dynamic exchange" between a speaker and a listener, a "transaction" that is shaped by the desires and expectations of both parties.
The "transferential" model of narrative: Brooks proposes a "transferential" model of narrative, based on the psychoanalytic concept of transference, in which the listener becomes a "surrogate" for figures from the speaker's past.
The roles of teller and listener: The meaning of a narrative is a product of the "listening as of the telling," with the listener playing an active role in the construction of meaning.
The "evaluation" of narrative: Oral narratives often contain a moment of "evaluation," where the speaker calls attention to the "point" of the story and asks the listener to judge its importance.
The self-consciousness of modern narrative: Modernist literature is characterized by a "crisis" in the understanding of plot and a heightened self-consciousness about the act of storytelling.
Chapter 9: An Unreadable Report: Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness as a narrative that resists interpretation: The story of Kurtz is an "unreadable report" that cannot be fully deciphered or understood.
The search for meaning in the other's death: The narrator, Marlow, seeks to find the meaning of his own life in the story of Kurtz's death, but the meaning remains elusive.
The failure of transmission: The novel dramatizes the "anxiety about the possibility of transmission," as Marlow struggles to communicate the meaning of his experience to his listeners.
The "lie" as a necessary fiction: The novel suggests that the "lie," the fictional narrative, may be necessary to protect us from the unbearable truth of the "heart of darkness."
The limits of narrative knowledge: Heart of Darkness ultimately questions the ability of narrative to represent and make sense of the world, highlighting the "epistemological and linguistic problems posed by storytelling".
Chapter 10: Fictions of the Wolf Man: Freud and Narrative Understanding
Psychoanalysis as a narrative art: Freud's case histories are a form of narrative, in which he constructs a coherent story out of the fragmented memories and dreams of his patients.
The "construction" of the past: The analyst "constructs" a version of the patient's past that is not necessarily a simple recollection of what "really happened," but a fiction that has therapeutic power.
The role of "circumstantial evidence": Like a detective, the psychoanalyst uses "circumstantial evidence" from the present to reconstruct a story from the past.
The problem of narrative authority: The case of the Wolf Man raises questions about the authority of the analyst's narrative and the patient's own "fictions."
The "double logic" of narrative construction: The analyst's narrative is shaped by a "double logic," in which the events of the past are both the cause of the present and a product of the narrative's need for coherence.
Chapter 11: Incredulous Narration: Absalom, Absalom!
Absalom, Absalom! as a novel about the impossibility of narrative knowledge: The novel poses a "radical doubt about the validity of plot" and challenges the very possibility of knowing and telling the past.
The absence of a stable plot: The story of Thomas Sutpen is told through a series of "incredulous narrations" that never cohere into a single, authoritative plot.
The "dialogic" nature of narration: The story is constructed through a "dialogic" process of telling and listening, in which the narrators and listeners collaborate in the creation of meaning.
The "hermeneutic fiction": The narrative of Sutpen's life is a "hermeneutic fiction," a story that is created in the act of trying to understand it.
The "raging and incredulous recounting": The novel suggests that narration is a necessary but ultimately futile attempt to "bear with living" in a world where meaning is always elusive.
In Conclusion: Endgames and the Study of Plot
The "endgame" of modern plot: In modern and postmodern literature, endings are no longer seen as definitive resolutions, but as "arbitrary" and "tenuous" moments of closure.
The persistence of narrative: Despite the "crisis" in the understanding of plot, the desire for narrative ordering remains a fundamental human impulse.
The return to psychoanalytic models: Brooks reaffirms the value of psychoanalytic models for understanding the dynamics of narrative, particularly the interplay of desire, repetition, and transference.
The "transactive" nature of reading: Reading is a "transactive" process, in which the reader actively participates in the construction of meaning.
The refusal to allow temporality to be meaningless: Plot is ultimately a product of our "stubborn insistence on making meaning in the world and in our lives".
November 12, 2017
I use the star system a little differently: 2 stars is for "disappointed."
I had been told that this book was the most serious and thoughtful book on plot out there. Plot is one of the most difficult aspects of writing for me, so I was looking for some good insights about what makes a plot satisfying, a theory of plot, an analysis of why some plots are successful and others not. But this book doesn't do much of that. The first problem is that I haven't read any of the books used as examples. The second problem is that the vocabulary and sentence construction are arbitrarily abtruse. And the third problem is that the main plan of the book is to apply Freud to plot. It's like The Uses of Enchantment but applied to serious 19th Century literature rather than fairy tales. Like everyone who does Freudian analysis seriously, he just assumes that everything Freud said is automatically true without justification. The most annoying part is the "death drive." People don't have a drive towards death. How would such a drive evolve? It would be completely counterproductive. Maybe in 1912 it was a reasonable hypothesis, but still pretending it is true in 1992 (when this edition was published) is intellectually lazy.
So to sum up: the book makes points I don't believe, about books I haven't read, in language that is difficult to parse. I'm sure there are people who got a lot out of this book, but it's not for me.
I had been told that this book was the most serious and thoughtful book on plot out there. Plot is one of the most difficult aspects of writing for me, so I was looking for some good insights about what makes a plot satisfying, a theory of plot, an analysis of why some plots are successful and others not. But this book doesn't do much of that. The first problem is that I haven't read any of the books used as examples. The second problem is that the vocabulary and sentence construction are arbitrarily abtruse. And the third problem is that the main plan of the book is to apply Freud to plot. It's like The Uses of Enchantment but applied to serious 19th Century literature rather than fairy tales. Like everyone who does Freudian analysis seriously, he just assumes that everything Freud said is automatically true without justification. The most annoying part is the "death drive." People don't have a drive towards death. How would such a drive evolve? It would be completely counterproductive. Maybe in 1912 it was a reasonable hypothesis, but still pretending it is true in 1992 (when this edition was published) is intellectually lazy.
So to sum up: the book makes points I don't believe, about books I haven't read, in language that is difficult to parse. I'm sure there are people who got a lot out of this book, but it's not for me.
March 11, 2013
Although this seems like a book that would be up my alley, it's not really working for me. 1. Freudian reading of plot as desire, eros, which I can "get" but I'm not into. I think Freud and the whole way in which Brooks talks about desire here is way too masculinist, 2. Has elements of narrative theory, but largely dismissive of formal theories that have been extremely useful and formative for me, 3. Has that unflattering habit of narrative theorists, nonetheless, to pick and choose narratives from ALL OVER TIME and thus comes off as imprecise and insensitive to the subtleties of any one period--especially does this with the 19th century realist novel, where Brooks tends to pretend that the Victorian novel is the "baseline" from which all other novels have since grown.
September 8, 2022
I read this book immediately after Seymour Chatman's "story and Discourse" and it turned out to be a major disappointment. Starting point for both of them is a critical stance on formalist approaches to plot construction. But unlike Chatman does not systematically define categories and explain them. Instead he analyzes selected French and English language prose works from the 19th to the early 20th century, to which he adds two chapters based on Freudian psychanalysis, one of them the so called "Wolf man" as one example for plot construction. Brooks is - unlike Chatman - in most cases not very good at presenting these examples in a way that one can understand his argument.
November 10, 2022
Father of narratology killing it.
June 10, 2024
First few chapters were excellent, extolling the virtues of narrative; the subsequent discussion of several literary devices does not hold the attention of the reader all that long.
"We live immersed in narrative, recounting and reassessing the meaning of our past actions, anticipating the outcome of our future projects, situating ourselves at the intersection of several stories not yet completed."
"Plot is the principle of interconnectedness and intention which we cannot do without in moving through the discrete elements—incidents, episodes, actions—of a narrative:"
"Plots are not simply organizing structures, they are also intentional structures, goal-oriented and forward-moving."
"Plot as we have defined it is the organizing line and intention of narrative, thus perhaps best conceived as an activity, a structuring operation elicited in the reader trying to make sense of those meanings that develop only through textual and temporal succession. Plot in this view belongs to the reader’s “competence,” and in his “performance”—the reading of narrative—it animates the sense-making process: it is a key component of that “passion of (for) meaning” that, Barthes says, lights us afire when we read."
"If at the end of a narrative we can suspend time in a moment when past and present hold together in a metaphor—which may be that recognition or anagnorisis which, said Aristotle, every good plot should bring—that moment does not abolish the movement, the slidings, the mistakes, and partial recognitions of the middle. The “dilatory space” of narrative, as Barthes calls it—the space of retard, postponement, error, and partial revelation—is the place of transformation: where the problems posed to and by initiatory desire are worked out and worked through."
"We live immersed in narrative, recounting and reassessing the meaning of our past actions, anticipating the outcome of our future projects, situating ourselves at the intersection of several stories not yet completed."
"Plot is the principle of interconnectedness and intention which we cannot do without in moving through the discrete elements—incidents, episodes, actions—of a narrative:"
"Plots are not simply organizing structures, they are also intentional structures, goal-oriented and forward-moving."
"Plot as we have defined it is the organizing line and intention of narrative, thus perhaps best conceived as an activity, a structuring operation elicited in the reader trying to make sense of those meanings that develop only through textual and temporal succession. Plot in this view belongs to the reader’s “competence,” and in his “performance”—the reading of narrative—it animates the sense-making process: it is a key component of that “passion of (for) meaning” that, Barthes says, lights us afire when we read."
"If at the end of a narrative we can suspend time in a moment when past and present hold together in a metaphor—which may be that recognition or anagnorisis which, said Aristotle, every good plot should bring—that moment does not abolish the movement, the slidings, the mistakes, and partial recognitions of the middle. The “dilatory space” of narrative, as Barthes calls it—the space of retard, postponement, error, and partial revelation—is the place of transformation: where the problems posed to and by initiatory desire are worked out and worked through."
June 26, 2023
"Why have you told me this frightful story?"
To which he replies, "To offer my services, should they be needed."
Super cool. As I was reading Dombey and Son I remembered that I had read a couple chapters from this book for class, one covering Great Expectations. I flipped through to refresh my memory, ended up back at the beginning, worked through the whole thing. It's had me rethinking everything I've read or watched, and is active in anything I see.
Heavy on 19th century literature (an era that draws me in) and father-son lineage narratives common to the era, he could have, should have made a moderate digression to discuss the stories of women, Austen, The Bronte sisters, Chopin, etc. Making the case that the 19th century, 'who is my father, who am I to be' stories are the foundation and refinement of the novel, it's a fault to not discuss Austen. But he offers a lot of tools to crack into the stories by and of women and run that analysis on one's own.
"Disciplined and 'subjugated,' the transference delivers one back to a changed reality. And so does any text fully engaged by the reader."
Want to read
November 17, 2022his original book on narrative. h/t Atlantic article "Beware the storification of the internet" https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc... which references his second book Seduced by Story:the Use and Abuse of Narrative, also see.
July 1, 2025
A super-interesting study with lucid examples and a great counterpoint to structuralists. Furthermore, the book is actually well-written and engaging, which is a nice change from a lot of literary theory.
August 4, 2017
La psicanalisi freudiana come modello di analisi narratologica (non degli autori o dei personaggi; proprio delle trame).
September 1, 2020
Fascinating analysis on the nature and design of plot within works of literature and in storytelling. This is definitely worth the read.
Want to read
January 25, 2023Forerunner to Seduced by Story
Want to read
April 6, 2023to-read
December 23, 2023
3.5 rating
May 4, 2025
Livro um pouco massudo de análise narrativa, mas tem alguns elementos interessantes sobre narrativa.
March 31, 2023
Don’t be fooled, as glorious a read this is, it is still a very academic text. Really useful for creative writers who are serious about their craft. In-depth and with complex language.
June 24, 2024
Very insightful philosophy, especially in regard to desire as a literary tool. Definitely something I will be rereading.
July 4, 2022
Employing Sigmund Freud’s theories in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Brooks analyzes the structure and functioning of plot in narrative fiction. In the latter part of the text, Brooks analyzes a number of novels (for example, Le Rouge et Le Noir, Great Expectations and Absalom, Absalom!) whose plots are significant not only in the way that they substantiate Brooks’s argument, but also in the way that they reflect attempts to explore the possibilities of plot, thus supplying a comment on Brooks’s subject from another angle.
Acquired Feb 17, 2005
Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR
Acquired Feb 17, 2005
Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR
February 4, 2025
Very good. Not for a novice reader or writer. This is Freudian, which is why I read it. Excellent work. In fact, this is one of the best books on narrative understanding. The analyses of nineteenth and twentieth century novels are wonderful. I sort of resist current thought among intellectuals on plot and narrative and Peter Brooks has made me so happy. One has to understand literary theory to grasp what he is supporting and he does it so well. Remarkable, sensitive work. His psychoanalytical approach agrees with my sensibilities. Great work. One of my favorite reads.
February 2, 2017
Another one for the writer. Looks at the psychological hydraulics of narrative -- how it really works -- sometimes through a Freudian lens. Asks as many questions as it answers, and definitely not a how-to guide, but helps in thinking through what actually happens in a plot. Occasionally dense but very much worth it. I borrowed this from my advisor in college and liked it so much that I never gave it back, which I actually feel kind of bad about.
May 16, 2017
This is one of my favourite books on literary theory. It was recommended to me by one of my favourite books. Even for those of you who find Freudian interpretations iffy (I count myself among you), this is a wonderful book. It's well-written, appropriate, and genuinely entertaining.
August 1, 2018
If you enjoy reading and writing, this is the book to read. I’m only on page four and I’m in awe. If you love to write, you can see the big picture in the first paragraph. This book may be old, but Freudian theories are used throughout, which is timeless. Pure brilliance is on these pages.
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