Implicature in the Novel

--- by J. L. S.

In my "The Pratt and the Grice" I make a passing ref. to Leech/Short, "Implicature in the novel". This is a rather brief treatment but under that specific rubric, as I recall, in their manual on literary stylistics. From what I recall (I must have the relevant photocopies somewhere, but I'm doing less and less photocopies at the Swimming-Pool Library), they deal basically with that rather bore of an authoress (hey, I'm no chick-flick fan), "Jane Austen" (Give John Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, anyday).

Kramer is right that if a novel character is "CLUMSY" (Kramer's charm of a word) in the way 'they' (i.e. he or she or it -- you never know with novels), surely that's a reflection on 'their' flatness (We follow Forster on there being only two types of character: round and flat).

Leech and Short follow Kramer's suit here. The problem with Austen is that she never distances far enough from her characters. She is, in a way, better than the Bruntys. As we know (or 'know' if you wish) they (the Brunty novels) were written by Branwell. And he could NOT distance far enough!