I take it there is no internet in 'the fourth dimension'?

If the 'writer' is entirely detached from the literature that the reader passes over, he has no identity or does even not exist at all, then he is essentially 'free'

Already been done man. There is an author who has sold millions of these books writen in the 'fourth person' where it seems as if there is no writer. In fact in his books the 'reader' effectively 'becomes' the 'writer'. It is a really effective genre and very profitable from what I hear. Maybe you've heard of him? He is an American. His name is Michael Dell.

B.

JC,

I think as much or as little as people on WW are "getting" this, I think I'm right in saying that we all just want to see an example. I mean, no offence, but it's no good having an earth-shattering theory if the story's pants, is it? And you certainly won't be able to sell a book to a publishing house or literary agent on the strength of a fourth-person hypothesis; they'll want to know, as we (or I) do here, what's it about? What's it like? Is it written well. Are the characters beleivable? (if they're there at all!)

Do you see my point?

Come on. Upload as much or as little as you like, but at least upload some. We want to read it. As a part-member you are able to upload a piece. And none of us here will steal your idea. As Dee's already said, we're pretty intelligent and writing savvy. It'll also prove you're not winding us up. C'mon old chap. Be a sport!

Best wishes,

Nik.

JC

Go on.

Pete

Dreamer,

It is not the 'person' that Michael Dell was concerned with, it is the language he used. I think most people regard computer 'language' as so much gobbledegook.

I think the call to JC to upload some examples is really a call back to sanity. Of course there are no examples to upload for all this is a load of tosh.

However I applaud JC for starting a Topic that not only drew a lot of 'authoritative' comments but I am sure has raised a few smiles. It's marvellous what one can do when one strings together a lot of big and important -sounding words. It was the first mention of 'the 5th Dimension' by JC that should have warned WW Members.

However PR Practioners and Spin Doctors know all about such techniques.

Len

Come on, JC. For any theory to have any weight it must be backed up with substance, evidence. And the easiest way for anyone to understand something is by seeing it.



Nik.

I am sure we are all looking forward to JC's final posting on this topic on April 1st.

In the meantime, logic would suggest that, regardless of the kind or 'person' of the narrator, what defines a narrator is whether he/she/it narrates.Boolean logic for instance allows only a 'narrator' or a 'not(narrator)'. A narrator, as we all understand very well, must be either 1st person (I/we), 2nd (thou, you) or 3rd (he/she/they/it - it being maybe an intelligent computer program). The fact that a narrator may be extremely or even totally detached doesn't make him/her/it not belong to one of these categories.

JC's argument is like saying that there are 4 colours: 'blue', 'yellow', 'red' and 'bright'. The so-called 4th is not a separate colour (or person) but simply an attribute of any of the first three, i.e. detachment being an attribute of the narrator, not another 'person' of the narrator'.

If the narrator does not belong to the 1st, 2nd or 3rd person he/she/it is not a narrator. There is therefore no narrative. Isn't that why we have seen no example?

Chris

Old Friend,

I was referring to the fact that Michael Dell sells computers which are keyboards attached to word processors. So with these 'books', the reader is totally disassociated from the writer in that he is writing his own stuff.

I was ingaging in a little reversE leg pulling as I felt ours had been pulled sufficiently by JC.

Brian.

Brian - you had me fooled about Dell! I was trying to work out in my head what his stuff must look like.

Sigh ... please don't try to sell me Niagra Falls, I've nowhere to put it.

Jim

This is a song... 'Where have all the intellectuals gone?.. Long time no seeeeeeeee...'

This is an interesting example of 'fooling the people some of the time...' syndrome. I think this topic has contributed a great deal of fun to WW and it would be pleasant to welcome JC into the ranks - the sort of person who has some slight difficulty in eating, all due to that permanent tongue in cheek.

Len

I don't think J.C. is a con artist. I think he just doesn't know quite what he wants to say.

Fran

J.C as a con artist? Jesus Christ?

Now that is a topical theory.

JB

This discussion might be dead - but this is what wikipedia has to say about the fourth person:-

The grammar of some languages divide the semantic space into more than three persons. The extra categories may be termed fourth person, fifth person, etc. Such terms are not absolute but can refer depending on context to any of several phenomena.

Some languages, the most well-known examples being Algonquian languages, divide the category of third person into two parts: proximate for a more topical third person, and obviative for a less topical third person. The obviative is sometimes called the fourth person.

The term fourth person is also sometimes used for the category of indefinite or generic referents, that work like one in English phrases such as "one should be prepared", when the grammar treats them differently from ordinary third-person forms.

Traveller, that's very interesting. It's so revealing of ways we don't think, when other languages do something we'd never have thought of. The classic example is the Inuit having 14 different words for snow, but there are so many others, and grammatical structures in some ways are the most revealing, because they're about ordering our view of the world, not just making distinctions between objects.

Emma

I'm never quite sure how seriously to take the 'strong' version of the thesis that the way our language is structured conditions our conceptual view of the world. This takes us towards 'language equals thought' (as opposed to the other end of the argument 'language and thought are totally separate entities with one being dependent on the other'. David Crystal in the 1987 edition of the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language (there's a more up to date version I'm sure) says "the truth seems to lie somewhere between these two positions" (!).

It's a big debate, and I haven't checked out the latest thinking on it since I quit teaching (Deo Gratias!)and took up heather burning. But structural anthropolgists like Levi-Strauss and post-structuralists like Derrida have all had a go.

Famously, 'linguistic determinism' was associated with the 'Sapir-Whorf'.
hypothesis, predicated on a few languages -Hopi in particular. Crystal, in 1987, went on to say: "... in its strongest form it is unlikely to have many adherents now".

Any different views out there? Especially on the number of Inuit words for snow? In English we can manage sleet, slush, snow ... any more? Three English seems to me to show that none of this signifies very much at all. And if you don't have a word for something - you can still grasp the concept, perhaps through circomlocution ('falling snow' - 'snow that fell yesterday/on my budgie's birthday etc'

Jim

<Added>

oops, 'circumlocution' not 'circomlocution' (which is Martian, and signifies "a shallow hole in which ants live").

Erm, I've just spotted something, I am very cynical by nature, so this may just be me being me, but JC's profile says he is called Jonathan Crapes - sounds too much like Jonathan Cape to me - am I on to something here?

Kat