Monday, March 26, 2007

The voice

At first, the narrative voice in this book really bothered me. I thought Hendrickson was injecting himself too much into the book. I wanted a book about the people in the photograph, not about the author’s search for them. But as I read, my view softened a bit as I realized how much good there still was in the book, and how strong and personable the author’s voice was.

I still think the book may have been stronger if it had been written in a more detached way, but I realize that this would have required a totally different approach, one that this author may not have been able to pull off.

Do any of you have any thoughts about the narrative voice? Is it just me, or did it bother any of you?
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2 comments:

kc said...

It's a where-are-they-now? book and, more importantly, do-they-still-think-the-same-now? book. I think it would be highly artificial for the author to make himself "invisible." We NEED to know how these people are reacting to him and his questions, to being confronted with this ugliness all these years later. That really can't be accomplished in a naturalistic way by excising him from the story. Besides, it's his story, too — the story of a man who became entranced with a photo and painstakingly worked his way to the bottom of it.

Besides which, I think he kept his presence to a minimum. He didn't treat us to random details of his life — we really can't say that we know him at all as a "character" in the book — just details of where his life intersected with theirs.

11:41 AM, March 26, 2007
Erin said...

I agree with Kim. I can't imagine this book with an invisible narrator. His experience is a big part of the story.

1:52 PM, March 26, 2007

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