Another subtype of nonsense stories works by defying basic conventions of narrative structure. A closed loop of meaningless language can create an illusion of progression by going around in the same endless circle. A PhD student of cognitive psychology recited this example to me:
It was a cold night on the mountaintop, and the cowboys were huddled around a campfire. Suddenly, one of them spoke up and said, “Tell us a tale, Luke.” So, this is the tale that Luke told.
It was a cold night on the mountaintop, and the cowboys were huddled around a campfire. Suddenly, one of them spoke up and said, “Tell us a tale, Luke.” So, this is the tale that Luke told.
It was a cold night on the mountaintop and the cowboys huddled around a campfire. Suddenly, one of them spoke up and said, “Tell us a tale, Luke.” So, this is the tale that Luke told. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
How do nonsense narratives create these crazy effects? Throughout life, most people love stories, and we tell stories to children from their earliest years. So, in childhood, we soon internalize the basic abstract framework that underlies all stories. The basic narrative framework then vanishes into the background and operates automatically. Afterwards, we do not think about the basic structural constituents of narratives when we are absorbed in enjoyable stories. Therefore, when meaningless, unintelligible language is laid out over the framework of a story, it creates a sense of narrative action. Here again we see that the form of language takes precedence when there is no meaning.
exercise
Nonsense Stories
One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords, and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise and came and killed the two dead boys.
1. Write an original nonsense story.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about the mental process of writing a nonsense story.
The next type of nonsense is a subtype of nonsense stories. However, it has certain extraordinary characteristics and effects that deserve separate consideration. Therefore, it seems best to put the strange case of nonsense in motion into its own category.
Nonsense Travel Narratives
Nonsense language can be structured to create an illusory sense of motion in the mind. Abraham Lincoln used this device to make people laugh when things went wrong at a solemn state ceremony. His role in the ceremony called for him to ride away from the scene on horseback, leading a procession.
When Mr. Lincoln climbed into the saddle, the horse lifted up its hind leg and got its hoof caught in the stirrup. As the horse hopped around helplessly, the crowd was embarrassed into silence by seeing the President in such an undignified predicament. But Mr. Lincoln looked down at the horse and said, “Well, if you’re getting on, I’m getting off.”
The motion the joke contemplates cannot take place, except in words. A horse cannot get onto its own back by putting its hoof into a stirrup and climbing into the saddle, yet Mr. Lincoln’s words create in the mind a vivid, though confused and incoherent, image of that very motion.
Fiction and nonfiction travelogues are a perennially popular form of literature for old and young people alike. Children are exposed to travel narratives at a young age. Thereafter, children love to listen to travel stories and read them and see them in movies.
Concurrently, early in life, almost everyone develops the basic verbal skill of recounting journeys and telling stories of one’s travels. The narrative format itself soon becomes automatic, and the speaker just supplies the specifics of the story. In sum, the travel narrative format is ubiquitous and so familiar from such an early age that it recedes into the background. Normally we do not even think about it.
Its strong appeal and deeply ingrained familiarity make the format of a travel narrative an excellent vehicle for nonsense writing. Laying nonsense out as a travel narrative produces a strange mental sense of motion. In their minds, those reading or listening to a nonsense travel narrative experience a kind of motion that cannot take place, except in words. Nonsensical travel tales lead us on fascinating mental journeys.
In my courses and workshops, participants introspected as they listened to, or read, nonsense travel narratives. Throughout the exercise, they remained aware that the poems were unintelligible nonsense, yet they experienced a strong inner sense of motion. One can appreciate these effects simply by introspecting while reading nonsense travelogues. A nineteenth-century example called “An Unsuspected Fact” follows:
If down his throat a man should choose
In fun, to jump or slide,
He’d scrape his shoes against his teeth,
Nor dirt his own inside.41
Nonsense Worlds
Almost every child develops the basic verbal skill of describing a place. Place descriptions are ubiquitous in literature, in news stories, and in conversation. From constant exposure, almost everyone is familiar with the format, so its ingrained familiarity makes it an excellent vehicle for nonsense writing.
A layer of nonsense may be put down over the conventional framework of a place description. The process creates an illusionary place in the mind that cannot exist other than in words. Complex nonsense place descriptions evoke corresponding nonsense worlds in the mind. While nonsense worlds are nowhere to be seen except in the mind’s eye, they are of considerable social and historical significance. We will look at two literary examples of nonsense worlds. The first example is from Flatland, a novel by Edwin A. Abbott (1838–1929). Abbott was an Anglican clergyman and lecturer at Cambridge University. Flatland is a classic of nonsense writing that evokes a curious alternate world in order to satirize nineteenth-century British society. Within the space of a few paragraphs, the book draws us into a strange two-dimensional realm or state of existence. We quickly find that the strange world is inhabited by sentient geometric figures.
I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.
Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows—only hard and with luminous edges—and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen.42
Abbott explains that only straight lines are visible in Flatland. There is no source of light, and therefore no shadows are created that could provide a sense of perspective.
If our friend comes closer to us we see his line becomes larger; if he leaves us it becomes smaller: but still he looks like a straight line; be he a Triangle, Square, Pentagon, Hexagon, Circle, what you will—a straight Line he looks and nothing else.43
Abbott’s book uses categorical nonsense to evoke an alternate reality. For, plainly, imputing thought and a hierarchical society to triangles, squares, and circles mismatches things and attributes. Here we find nonsense superimposed on the format of a place description. The process creates a mental world that cannot be, except in words.