The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction

It was another typical chaotic day at the university, with discussions ranging from ‘limited’ generic sentences to spittoons in Midnight’s Children to Owen Barfield on metaphor. So it was not until that evening that thoughts on free indirect discourse were taken up again. Surely sentences with parentheticals were not free enough, and not problematic enough, not (precisely by virtue of the yes! he would say it! intrirding parenthetical) sufficiently productive of uncertainties about the preceding discourse’s sponsor? (from Moms Pizzazz, Sniall lVorld Enorrgh and Tlijnie)