Thursday, May 11, 2006

Narrator's ally too contrived?

How crucial is Siobhan to the form Christopher's story takes? Is Siobhan too good to be true? Too artificial a device to get the story told?
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9 comments:

Ben said...

I don't think Siobhan is crucial. If she weren't there, or if she didn't tell him how to write the story, the novel could just be internal dialogue or something.

I think Siobhan is realistic. She has the job that the author has in real life.

The artifice of it doesn't really bother me. But of course in school I focused on 18th century and earlier English literature, so I'm very forgiving of artifice, "as I heard my author say."

10:09 PM, May 11, 2006
Ben said...

Allow me to correct myself: the author used to work with autistic people -- he doesn't anymore.

10:19 PM, May 11, 2006
george said...

I agree with Ben: the character is realistic, adn you get the impression that she more than anyone is molding Christopher into the person he needs to be -- she's his moral center.

But no, she's not essentially to the story. Christopher never really considered going to her when he decided he couldn't live with his father. He said she was neither family nor friend (I think; books in my car).

10:40 PM, May 11, 2006
Ben said...

It's a great sentence: "And I decided that I couldn't go and live with Siobhan because she couldn't look after me when school was closed because she was a teacher and not a friend or a member of my family." (129)

10:50 PM, May 11, 2006
kc said...

I think the book might be unreadable without Siobhan, or that's what we're supposed to think. Like she keeps track of "how autistic" the book can be and still be of interest to readers. Like she tells him to put the math problem in the appendix and gives him similar guidance throughout. I sort of see her as essential, not just because she's the moral compass of the book and a primary caregiver (what she does for him really exceeds his parents' contributions in many ways), but also because she's his literary compass, constantly pointing him in the right direction.

11:03 PM, May 11, 2006
george said...

Yeah, that's a point I didn't consider. She's not essential to the actual story, but she's essential to the storytelling. It's certainly an unusual dynamic for a character.

11:12 PM, May 11, 2006
Erin said...

I love Siobhan. And the setup makes sense to me because even the very high-functioning autistic kids who I've known had a teacher/mentor like this at school. And my thought is that likely the book was the latest in a series of projects Siobhan encouraged Christopher to work on, to keep him occupied and content.

8:41 AM, May 12, 2006
cl said...

I think she sounds like a special-needs educator and, if she does sound too good to be true, she's still a contrast to all of the other adults who keep letting Christopher down.

9:46 AM, May 12, 2006
george said...

We might also keep in mind that she helped Christopher write the book. For all we know, she edited out the part about her meth lab that she ran in the cloak room.

6:01 PM, May 13, 2006

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