The technique of reprise.
I've just finished 'Fingersmith' by Sarah Waters, a remarkably Dickensian book (for my full review see https://davesbookblog-daja.blogspot.c... ) In it she describes a large section of the plot from the perspective of one of the protagonists and then reprises this (with added material later) from the point of view of another protagonist.
Famously this was done by Ian Pears in 'An Instance of the Fingerpost' in which the story is told four times, from the perspective of each of four characters. (If you use this technique is there some sort of rule that the title must include the word 'finger'?)
It is fascinating to see how a sequence of events can be interpreted in different ways and of course it is a tribute to the author's arts of inhabiting the head of different characters so perfectly that the reader can see things through different eyes.
The problem is that this means that the same story is told again. In the Fingersmith I found that this dragged.
Like all techniques, it has advantages and disadvantages, I suppose.
Famously this was done by Ian Pears in 'An Instance of the Fingerpost' in which the story is told four times, from the perspective of each of four characters. (If you use this technique is there some sort of rule that the title must include the word 'finger'?)
It is fascinating to see how a sequence of events can be interpreted in different ways and of course it is a tribute to the author's arts of inhabiting the head of different characters so perfectly that the reader can see things through different eyes.
The problem is that this means that the same story is told again. In the Fingersmith I found that this dragged.
Like all techniques, it has advantages and disadvantages, I suppose.
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