Juxtaposition

No exposition like juxtaposition. It’s something a few authors do frequently to avoid spelling things out—placing seemingly unrelated facts or concepts within the manuscript with the objective of causing readers to make leaps in logic. A kind of stealth explanation.

Case in point: Gene Wolfe’s La Befana. On its surface, it’s a short sci-fi story set on another planet about Friend A going to visit Friend B and his extended family (which include a mother, two children, and a grandmother) at their home.

As Friend A, Friend B, and the family chat, there are frequent references by the cast to noises coming from somewhere outside the dwelling. These noises are eventually revealed to be (at first) a man and a woman, then a woman in labor. A few lines of dialogue later: there allegedly wasn’t anywhere nearby for the unknown woman to give birth, so she was let into the “charity place” next door. There’s further exchanges about other subjects, and then the story ends.

Throughout the narrative, there are a handful of references to Earth’s La Befana legend, in which an old woman, who failed to recognize Christ’s birth, is hellbent on finding him anew and granting him a deserved gift. Wolfe’s story also brings attention to the grandmother’s Christian heritage and the fact that she—quite suddenly—chose to travel from Earth to stay with her family for Christmas.

Less than five pages, and Wolfe managed to craft a manger story where only a small bit of the narrative relates to the central fact; a messiah is likely being born next door. The grandmother traveled all the way to a different planet to honor that birth. This truth isn’t particularly hidden, but it allowed Wolfe to devote the majority of the tale to mood, dialogue, and descriptions not directly tied to what he was “trying” to get across.

Wolfe is likely the undisputed king of this type of mechanic, but others (Laird Barron, Ramsey Campbell, et al) have also proven themselves adept at it. It can be hard to pull off. But the upside of this tact is, when done well, it looks like wizardry.