BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 07:54 PM

First person the way to go. Novels are just egos interacting, so be honest and have POV through one character's ego. And avoid character name McGrath. Kiss of death. Toad of tedium.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 08:26 PM

Uh, "Song of Himself" by Walt Whitman. His mind boggles.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,Seiri Omaar
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 08:51 PM

I've always preferred third person narrative myself, because looking through someone else's eyes alone always seemed rather boring (is sure as hell boring to write). And one sided. BUT, if you're looking to lead the reader in a certain direction through a certain viewpoint, first person is more effective (or maybe easier?). Also, 1st person can also be very effective in short stories.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 08:57 PM

McGrath - Does someone not like you, or is that GUEST actually you writing in the third person as an imaginative exercise?

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 09:19 PM

"Actually, maybe we are involved in collectively writing something on those lines here on the Mudcat."

Or maybe we are all characters in a novel being written by someone who has yet to, and may never, reveal himself. Or herself. Or myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 08:15 AM

Or maybe we are all characters in a novel being written by someone who has yet to, and may never, reveal himself.

I think that about sums up our situation, not just on the Mudcat, but in this world. Nameless GUESTS are punctuation rather than characters.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 09:22 AM

Sexist. "Song of Oneself," by Walt Whitperson.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 09:25 AM

Or maybe we are all characters in a novel being written by someone who has yet to, and may never, reveal himself. Or herself. Or myself.

It's been done before At Swim-Two-Birds

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 10:17 AM

"Her descriptions are so lush they make you want to eat the pages"

As fine an example of descriptive prose as anyone might care to meet.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 10:18 AM

sorry that was me _ I must remember to sign in

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Lox
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 10:18 AM

there we go

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 10:56 AM

Why, thank you for the compliment, lox. But then again, someone with your handle might appreciate a food metaphor ; > ) A little cream cheese, a poppy seed bagel and a song of yourself, lightly toasted, might make the pages taste better. However, a croissant and apricot jam would be culturally more correct, in Colette's case. On the other hand, her last husband was Jewish, so a bagel with lox and cream cheese might be okay. Oh, the hell with it. I'm getting hungry. This could be a whole new thread: what to eat while reading specific books. It certainly would combine two of my favorite activities.

Elmer

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Lox
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 11:02 AM

Ah!

More lox and bagel's jokes.

I retract everything nice I might have said previously. ;-)

Tough if you're into pornographic stories about lox and bagels this is the site to find them.

I'm not sure it constitutes literature, and you would neither be the 1st, 2nd or 3rd person to show an interest so don't be ashamed to try it out.

If you find that lights your fire then JennyO (jenny bagel to those who relly know her) is the person to talk to next. >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Lox
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 11:03 AM

"Tough if you're into pornographic stories"

should read

"Though if you're into pornographic stories"

Though, not tough.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,Pesky wabbit
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 11:04 AM

'Watership Down'?

Oh noooooooooooooooooo!

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 12:19 PM

"It's been done before At Swim-Two-Birds"

Indeed, but nothing to say it can't be done again, like the novel in the form of letters, re-writing Tritram Shandy in the third person, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 12:20 PM

You think I was joking?

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 12:29 PM

Add "re-writing Tristram Shandy deleting all lower-case s's" to my previous list.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Grab
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 12:41 PM

Description is the road to tedium

Better avoid anything more complex than your typical airport thriller then! ;-)

Description is where you *really* tell who's a good writer and who isn't. Check out Gerald Durrell for example, who can happily cover 3 pages describing a single moment in Corfu - and I wouldn't change a word of it.

Back to the main question, it's like asking whether we prefer food or drink. They both give different styles and different ways of approaching the story. The one thing that I *don't* like though is a totally god-like third-person approach, where the author thinks they can dip into every character's head at random. That just doesn't work, and it's a sign of a bad writer. For third-person to work, if you're describing what people are thinking/feeling then it has to be from a limited set of characters or not at all.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 12:48 PM

Lox, fee free to make some Elmer Fudd jokes; everybody else does, including him, her, and me!

In the meantime, here are some brief but devastating descriptions by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, suitable for devouring straight, no chaser:

The cat is the animal to whom the Creator gave the biggest eye, the softest fur, the most supremely delicate nostrils, a mobile ear, an unrivaled paw and a curved claw borrowed from the rose-tree.

Truffles must come to the table in their own stock and as you break open this jewel sprung from a poverty-stricken soil, imagine - if you have never visited it - the desolate kingdom where it rules.

Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: "It's four o clock. At five I have my abyss... "

January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 03:35 PM

"For third-person to work, if you're describing what people are thinking/feeling then it has to be from a limited set of characters or not at all."

That's far too broad a statement. This matter depends on the "contract" the writer has made with the reader: if by the end of the exposition, the author has told you that she is only going to get into the head of the protagonist, then it is certainly weak writing on her part to jump into the head of a passerby on page 89; if, however, she has made it clear from the outset that she's going to be inhabiting the heads of (potentially) all of her characters, there is no particular criticism that can be made on that count other than that you don't like it, or that it wasn't the right choice for the novel in question. There is certainly weighty precedent for the busybody omniscient narrator - Fielding, for example, in Tom Jones, delves into the thoughts and feelings of almost every character that enters the story. And to go back into the era preceding the novel, Shakespeare gives the otherwise most-insignificant spear-carrier asides that reveal what's going on in his head ...

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 04:25 PM

Elmer,

Believe me I wouldn't need the invitation. All's good in the Fudd.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 04:27 PM

The author is "god". Keeping out of the heads of some or all of the characters is often a good thing, often an essential thing (for example in a whodunnit), but it can't be a hard and fast rule.

As Kipling put it:

There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays
And every single one of them is right.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 06:03 PM

I've heard of florid restaurant reviews reviled as "food porn," and I suppose pesky wabbit porn might involve Playboy bunnies (although that "Watership Down" reference was very clever, guest.peskywabbit). But wotthebloodyhell is lox and bagels porn? An in-joke from another thread? It does smack of JennyO's humour...

Elmer

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Grab
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 06:08 PM

All plays are third person - they can't be anything else.

But you're right, and I was wrong - I agree that inhabiting all the characters *can* be done. You've reminded me that one of my favourite set of books is Donaldson's Gap series, mainly because he does pull off the trick of having a zillion characters with their own motivations and each only knowing a small fraction of the whole situation. (It's not a "literary" set of books to cite, but by and large I reckon "literary" just means "old" and not necessarily "good. But that's another argument altogether. ;-)

I guess the problem is that it takes a really first-rate author to make it works, and either it works or it fails utterly.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Lox
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 06:15 PM

Elmer

Yes it is from another thread - and it's not pleasant. That's all I have to say on the subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 06:27 PM

Grab, "Cold Mountain" by Charles Frazier is written in the third person with alternating chapters taking the points of view of the two main characters, a woman on Cold Mountain and an army deserter walking back to find her. It depicts the U.S. Civil War from their very different experiences. The book is brilliantly executed.

Elmer

Who wrote the Donaldson's Gap series? Sounds interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,Peskey wabbit
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 06:36 PM

R M Lockley
was the Kinsey of the rabbit world

but Chaucer knew a thing or two as well
"The litel conyes to her play gunne lye"

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 06:58 PM

if you think Chaucer knew a thing or two, check out M'Catterbury Tales, esp. the ones posted by Lonesome EJ!:->

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 09:09 PM

" ... it takes a really first-rate author to make it works, and either it works or it fails utterly."

I think you're right there, and I think it's even more difficult to pull off in the contemporary novel - with the possible exception of those of the Cold Mountain ilk, in which points of view will alternate for entire sections. Barbara Kingsolver used this device to wonderful effect in Poisonwood Bible. But then, each of her sections is in the first person, which isn't quite what we were talking about ...

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 06 - 09:21 PM

I can't see why it should be any harder in a contemporary novel than it always has been. It doesn't really make any greater demands on reader than in the past, which would be the only reason I can see why it might be harder to pull off these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Grab
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 12:32 PM

The "Gap" series by Donaldson, Stephen... :-) Basically it's space opera - save humans from aliens and from a megalomaniac corporation-owner. But you really wouldn't believe the complexity of it. Donaldson is guilty of overwriting in places, but it survives that.

I haven't done much solid reading recently. If Cold Mountain is worth it, might ask for that for Xmas.

My top recommendation for character studies (and you can snigger all you want) is Guns of Navarone. It is to books what Clint Eastwood is to acting - so absolutely stripped-down that you might not see it happening.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 03:16 PM

So how do you all feel about fictionalised autobiographies?

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 03:38 PM

what do you mean?

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Snuffy
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:05 PM

Most autobiographies are mostly fiction anyway, aren't they?

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Lox
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:12 PM

"never let the truth get in the way of a good story" - Ronnie Drew

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:17 PM

"print the legend" - The Man who Shot Liberty Valance

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:27 PM

I dunno. I think we can clever ourselves into the ground debating how "true" autobiographies really are. Of course people prevaricate, exaggerate, combine events, deliberately or innocently misremember things, etc . There are also a lot of writers struggling to find words to express their inner truth as accurately as words can suffice to do the job. That is why they bother to write at all.

Anyone else read "This Boy's Life" by Tobias Wolff? I'd hazard a guess that it comes pretty close to Wolff's emotional truth.

Elmer

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:53 PM

Didn't mean that last post to come out sounding as cranky as it did. I've read some autobiographies that set my teeth on edge with the not-so-hidden agendas of their authors, as well as others so self-revelatory as to be almost blinding in their purity. (The afore-mentioned "This Boy's Life" is one of those.)

I recently had occasion to read a number of books about Jimi Hendrix written by various eyewitnesses. I read about the exact same events over and over, each seen through different eyes, each slanted in a manner designed to make the author (or the person standing in front of the ghostwriter) look good. Almost every "author" had a chip on his or her shoulder about something. The books appeared mostly to be written either to cash in on an association with Hendrix or to vent about wrongs committed by managers, record companies, lovers, etc. Each purported to "set the record straight."

Talk about different truths!

Elmer

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:53 PM

"Turlough" is an excellent fictionalized biography by Brian Keenan

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 07:55 PM

I should say fictionalized "autobiography" - well worth a read

Subject: RE: BS: Novel preferences 1st or 3rd?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 06 - 08:00 PM

It's about Turlough O'Carolan (that's not a correction, Emma, it's an elucidation, for people who haven't read it.)