REVISION OF THE PAST


an event's occurrence (Tharmas' turning round the Circle) is nearly can-
celed out at the exact moment its preconditions come into existence in a
subsequent event (the emergence of the Circle itself from Tharmas' woven
fibres). A natural Newtonian reflex in the face of this causal paradox might
be to posit an underlying event, object, or structure-the ur-Circle of
Destiny-then assign subscripts to the two narrated events in the order of
their appearance (i.e., Circle, and Circle2) and treat each of these as surface
transformations or aspects of the primordial underlying Circle of Destiny
event. This gesture defeats the purpose for which it was made, however;
it cannot account for causal discrepancies because such a primordial
event must be constituted-as must all such substantialist abstractions-
by features that the two surface events have in commonn.8 Beyond the
words of the text, however, the two narrative "Circles" have little in
common (and even here there is variation, see note 19 below).
 A more productive strategy would be to treat the Circle2 as a transfor-
mation of the Circle1, and indeed this approach finds some support in the
minute verbal differences between these two events." Although this tactic
avoids the distracting and unexplanatory assumption of a completed
underlying world, it does not go far enough; it does not account for the
way Circle2 actually subverts the possibility of Circle1. While it acknowl-
edges that relationships between elements in a narrative series can signifi-
cantly be constituted by differences rather than similarities, it stops short
of seeing that what primarily connects the two events is a radical narrative
principle: that the past itself is not fixed and stable but can undergo trans-
formation or revision.
 Such retroactive transformations appear at almost every juncture,
sometimes in cases much less noticeable than in the Circle of Destiny, but
often in cases even more radical. The process is always the same: details
that are the consequences of a linear narrative chain turn out not only to
establish the preconditions of a prior event in the chain but actually to
subvert the prior event per se: the subsequent event seems to cause and nearly
rule out the prior event at the same time. Retroactive transformations
must alter significantly the reader's perception, not only of the transform-
ing past but of the future as well. The text evokes a kind of free-floating
anxiety (which in any given narrative situation is nevertheless quite pre-
cise) concerning how the future of the text will make possible or cancel out
the contours of the present narrative event.
 This process cannot be explained away by the Newtonian assumption
that the "events" in question occur only in the "reader" and not in the
"text" itself. Retroactive perspective transformation is, we must recall, an
aspect of the narrative, and the narrative is the primary agent by which the
reader is able to cause the text to alter or revise itself. Retroactive transfor-
mation must, of course, occur in the reader, or it cannot occur in the text;
but it must be perceived by the reader (through the agency of the narrative)
as occurring in the text itself (and notjust in the reader). If the reader does
not experience the text as transforming itself, the reader will simply per-


The Circle of Destiny
dissolves.






















Simultaneous cancella-
tion and constitution in
the operation ofretroac-
tive transformation








Retroactive revision
must appear to be hap-
pening to the text itself.