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and reality, we have to hypothesize that this assumption suffices only so long as it respects the rules of representation that exist in any language and with which all speakers of that language are familiar. Words may still tell a truth if the rules are followed. "
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Fiction possesses its own system of referentiality and hence its own truth according to the agreed-upon rules of its own writing: "truth in fiction rests on verisimilitude, a system of representations that seems to reflect a reality external to the text, but only because it conforms to a grammar. Narrative truth is an idea of truth created in accordance with the rules of that grammar."5 In turn, one can distinguish between a verisimilitude which is a special instance of mimesis, "a sign system based on the referentiality of its components, that is, on the assumption that words carry meaning by referring to things or to nonverbal entities,"6 and a verisimilitude which is found in consecution, "a special instance of motivation, that is, as a compellingly visible coherence in the sequence of causes and effects."7 Verisimilitude as consecution ''privileges the narrative sequentiality that is entirely within the text's boundaries;" it provides a truth which is thoroughly textual.8 Though fiction does not proceed by reference to established and perceptible realities outside itself, it is able to extend beyond itself because it has inscribed into it certain tensions and rough textures which compel the reader to reread and to read differently, with a continually shifting attitude toward the text being read. The interaction of the prepared reader with a richly textured whole guides that reader into the space of a narrative truth which can be just as commanding of the reader's attention and response as an extratextual reference might be. |
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By analogyand it can only be such, for though textual Advaita's truth cannot be adequately described as a fictional truthwe can understand how truth can be said to reside in the upanisads and in the Advaita Text, and how that truth is real, demanding and efficaciouswithout having also to maintain that there is an extratextual reference for this truth. I now explore the inscription of Advaita's truth in its Text by introducing two of its own textual strategies: 1. the distinction between Brah- |
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