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SIRI HUSTVEDT, Pace, Space and the Other in the Making of Fiction

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narrations, as Lev Vygotsky persuasively argued, and later empirical
evidence has supported, begin aloud, outside, not inside, and when
children start to tell their lives and invent tales, the parent “scaffolds”
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his efforts. In fledgling storytelling, the seasoned storyteller does al-
most all the work.
Narrative is relational, an intersubjective form. There is no story
without an other, but how does it come about? The revolution in
thinking about infant life has become increasingly empirical. A ach-
ment studies, initiated by John Bowlby and elaborated by Mary
Ainsworth, is now a vast field that turns on the concept of the dyad,
mother and baby as a unit of dialogical interaction and protoconver-
sation, through which an infant’s motor-sensory, emotional, and cog-
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nitive development takes place. The character of the dyadic back and
forth, also understood as “synchronies” of vocal, gestural and tactile
music, has taken on predictive value. Microanalyses of the timing
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and quality of these early exchanges are compared to progress in the
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child’s development in various domains. There is now vast research
on a achment styles, on securely a ached children as opposed to in-
securely a ached children, and how a achment relates to personality
and skill, including narrative competence. Securely a ached children,
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it seems, are be er storytellers. There is also abundant evidence that

29 Lev Vygotsky, Problems of General Psychology, Collected Works, vol. 1, ed.
R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton, trans. N. Minick (New York: Plenum Press,
1987), 250.
30 Catherine A. Haden, Rachel A. Haine, and Robyn Fivush, “Developing
Narrative Structure in Parent-Child Reminiscing Across Pre-School Years,”
Developmental Psychology 33, no. 2 (1997): 295-307.
31 Jude Cassidy and Phillip R. Shaver, eds., Handbook of A achment,: Theory,
Research, and Clinical Applications, 2nd ed. (New York : Guilford Press, 2010).
32 Ruth Feldman, “Parent-Infant Synchronies and the Construction of Shared
Timing: Physiological Precursors, Developmental Outcomes, and Risk Con-
ditions,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 48, no. 3-4 (2007): 329-54.
33 See Beatrice Beebe and Miriam Steele, “How Does Microanalysis of
Mother-Infant Communication Inform Maternal Sensitivity and Infant
A achment?” A achment and Human Development 15 (2013), doi: 10.1080.
14616734.2013. 841050.

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