Friday, July 11, 2008

narrative voice

How did you expereince the narrator of the story? Did it ever confuse you, as to who it was?
Shades of journal or memoir, yet obviously not Dahlia. What was gained by this style of telling?
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6 comments:

kc said...

It sort of seemed like Dahlia writing about herself in the third person — the tone and vocabulary, etc.

It's like the author really wanted to tell the story in Dahlia's first-person voice but realized that couldn't be done if Dahlia was going to end up dead. (Well, it could have been done in first person, but then she'd have to use some framing device like a friend found her journal or something and the friend tells us how the story ends.)

It was a little disorienting for a narrator to have so much personality and yet be unknown, but mostly I could roll with it, maybe from having a fair amount of faith in the author's skill. I'd like to find out, though, what her intentions and thought processes were because choosing the narrative voice, for me, would be the most difficult and determinative factor in telling a story. (This is one reason there is SO MUCH written about Shakespeare — because he wrote plays, and plays don't have a narrator or even a single narrative point of view; they have many — hence the endless interpretations.)

9:37 AM, July 12, 2008
Erin said...

I've never seen a narrator quite like it before. It was like a first-person narrative with third-person pronouns. I had some trouble with it at first, thinking the author was being lazily inarticulate, but I adjusted to it just fine once I embraced the narrative voice as Dahlia's thoughts. I would also like to know more about the author's decision about the narrator, but I haven't been able to find anything yet in my Googling.

9:53 AM, July 14, 2008
rev amy said...

I liked the way it kept me off balance, seemed to fit the voice of the book in a very unique way.

I did wonder if it was difficult to write, for the author to stay in the in-between of 1st and 3rd. I don't think she was totally consistant, especially the last few chapters when Dahlia was on hospice care it seemed her voice was almost gone (necessarily so, yes). But I found I missed her. Perhaps that too was part of the book uniqueness. Albert created an almost repulsive narrator that I was mourning by the end.

12:04 PM, July 14, 2008
Erin said...

That's an excellent point. I missed her toward the end, too. And I had been fairly annoyed with her at first. That says a lot, I think, about the author's skill in painting the journey of Dahlia's life.

8:23 PM, July 14, 2008
kc said...

Yes, good points. I think the immense readability of this book and the conversational tone and aura of pop culture tend to mask the great artistry in its structure.

10:15 PM, July 14, 2008
rev amy said...

The pop culture references were part of what tickled me. I guess they hit a sweet spot for me since I am right in between Danny and Dahlia's ages.

Perhaps readers of a different generation wouldn't find the whole thing as endearing.

8:53 AM, July 15, 2008

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