Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Narrators

Did you have a particular favorite narrator? Were there any you thought didn't particularly work?

Why do you think most chapters were in first person but some weren't?
Posted by at

11 comments:

kc said...

I thought the narrative of the streetwalker — Tillie Fuckup Henderson, as she calls herself — was genius. I couldn't tear myself away from it. Her language. Her outlook. Her emotions. Her narrative is the one that really deepened and humanized the whole for me.

I'm not so sure I got much out of the judge's story, but I suppose his courtroom was an important physical nexus in the book — where several of the novel's characters actually came together, including the man on wire. The judge himself, though, remained sort of an uninteresting blank to me. His story and his wife's were both told in the third person. Not sure why. They seemed more removed from the heart of the story, I guess, even though the wife eventually develops that important tie with Jazzlyn's kids.

The wife's story was more absorbing to me than the husband's because she was so bereft of human connection. Her story was more interior. He went out into the world every day, interacted with it, found sufficient comfort drinking wine with his restaurant-owner buddy, while it was a struggle for her to find even one human being with whom she could truly bond.

I also enjoyed the story of the two artists living out in the country, and the realizations the woman had in the wake of the car accident. It reminded me of that scene in "Friends With Money" where the Catherine Keener character realizes that her husband of many years doesn't really truly care about anyone but himself. "You don't care about people," she weeps as the revelation sweeps over her. They have this whole life together, and one incident that could just as easily not have happened gives her this life-changing insight into his character.

11:34 AM, January 13, 2010
Erin said...

Tillie's chapter was one of my favorites, too, which is why it surprised me to see the NY Times reviewer say, "That prostitute, boldly rendered in the first person, feels disappointingly clichéd from a writer of such imaginative gifts."

I thought he did an amazing job with it. Especially considering I don't know how familiar a young Irish novelist would be with the internal dialogue of a South Bronx prostitute in the '70s.

I also really enjoyed the Park Avenue housewife and the artist woman. I found their emotional journeys really touching.

The weakest of the stories for me was the young photographer obsessed with graffiti on the subway. Why do you think he was included? He didn't seem to have any connection to the other characters.

11:36 AM, January 14, 2010
kc said...

"Disappointingly clichéd"? Seriously? What are the similar literary antecedents that would render Tillie's narrative a mere cliche? I really can't think of any. Honestly! Where are the heaps of first-person tales from Bronx streetwalking grandmas?

I mean, as cliches go, the New York avant-garde artist and the New York Irish immigrant and the New York socialite are far better candidates, aren't they?

Jeez.

Not sure what the photographer kid was about. I thought maybe we were supposed to juxtapose his artistic quest with the tight-rope walker's. Both involved bodily and legal risk. The kid's, though, was exclusive, private, underground, in the dark tunnels where few would see or appreciate, and the tight-roper's was totally out there, public, high up in the air, where everyone would see. Not sure exactly what we're supposed to make of this juxtaposition, though.

What did you think of the guys calling the pay phone near the towers?

12:26 PM, January 14, 2010
Erin said...

Oh, excellent thought about the photographer. His art is a total contrast to the tightrope walker. But yeah, I don't know what that added to the story as a whole. I didn't find it particularly interesting.

Good question about the guys on the payphone. I actually forgot all about them. I suppose that showed that this wasn't a strictly New York phenomenon, that the rest of the world was watching, too. Also that with technology and hacker-type guys, the world was getting smaller.

3:06 PM, January 14, 2010
cl said...

Oooh. I forgot about the photographer. And unlike you, I didn't read this all so long ago. Hehe. I guess he failed to register with me. No, I think I also assumed he would come back around in some splashy 9-11 storyline where he finally took his great image or whatnot. And then I forgot him.

I enjoyed the hackers, too. Actually, I thought there were in NYC but pretending to be calling from someplace else? But it was a funny way to finally "hear" what the man on the wire did. It was the only story where we were there with it and not hearing about it later or secondhand. Plus I hoped The Kid would look up the librarian. I don't know why. There was something random and sweet about it. The antithesis of what brought Ciarnan and the artist together.

7:21 PM, January 14, 2010
cl said...

Tillie's story touched me the most, I think. It was hard to read how she lost her daughter to the same fate. And her berating herself.

Claire was a tough read, too. Not just the loss of her son but her inability to reach out to anyone, much as she needs it.

7:32 PM, January 14, 2010
kc said...

"Plus I hoped The Kid would look up the librarian. I don't know why. There was something random and sweet about it. The antithesis of what brought Ciarnan and the artist together."

Great observation, cl. The phone call was so random, literally out of thin air, but there was a sweet spark there. What are the chances that you hack into a pay phone and someone totally charming and personally appealing to you picks up? Astronomical. (Though I suppose one could make the argument that the hackerboys would have been enthralled with just about any female who indulged them).

Do you think the author was getting at the notion that ALL of our connections to other people are, whether they seem like fate or crazy coincidence, just as random as the phone call? I mean, how our parents get together (just happened to be at the same diner on the same day), how we make friends (If JT had hired someone else instead of either of you, I wouldn't know you at all. If one of the other candidates just happened to be a huge Cardinals fan or something,or JT didn't like your blouse, he could have given someone else the nod, and my social life would be completely different right now).

So the coincidences in the book — Ciaran and the artist getting together; the Park Avenue lady befriending Jazzlyn's kids — seem kind of unlikely, but all relationships are kind of unlikely.

9:36 AM, January 15, 2010
kc said...

Also, Claire's son was a hacker guy before he went to Vietnam. Did you think these guys were connected to him somehow? It was implied, but never explicitly stated, was it?

9:40 AM, January 15, 2010
Erin said...

Great ideas, guys. I like the theme of crazy coincidences changing lives.

I did notice the hacker connection with Claire's son but wasn't sure quite what to make of it.

11:17 AM, January 15, 2010
cl said...

Oh, that's really interesting, kc, the connection of the hackers with Claire's son, if intended. I think there was a connection, right, that one of them had served there? I need to reread that part.

12:41 PM, January 25, 2010
cl said...

Yeah, that was a throwaway segment, but I really like what you're saying about the randomness of connections. There wasn't any resolution to that subplot, and there didn't need to be -- just a brief and tenuous connection based on the event they were all living together. In most cases through the rest of the story, this led to a lasting connection, but here it may not have.

12:42 PM, January 25, 2010

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)