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What Is The Most Unique Narrative Voice You've Read? (2/10/19)
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Marc
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Feb 11, 2019 10:25AM
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Milkman would be at the top of my list.As I read and fell in love with this recent novel I also was reminded of other novels where I had fallen in love with a unique narrative voice, one that somehow works perfectly, even though it doesn't reflect the way anyone actually speaks:
True Grit
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
Henderson the Rain King
Invisible Man
The Good Lord Bird
Not so much a unique voice as one that has stuck with me over the years: what came to mind on reading your question was the voice of Stevens, the unreliable-narrator butler from ishiguro's Remains of the Day. More recently, I've been haunted by the voice of Miri, the troubled young woman in Helen Oyeyemi's White is for Witching who suffers from pica, a rare eating disorder that compels her to consume inedible objects and materials ("Plastic was usually very satisfying"). Brrr.Great question, by the way.
I like the narrator from Thomas Bernhard's The Loser, but his narration is similar to all the books by Bernhard that I've read. His is just the only firsthand narration I remember of them.Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler blew me away when I read it.
I like all of Sebald's narratives. I think of them as the epitome of grace and class.
True Grit is a good call--I keep telling myself I need to read more Portis, but I haven't gotten round to it yet
I love a good unreliable narrator, but this reached its zenith for me in Trust No One a New Zealand crime story.Our narrator is a crime writer, who is developing Altzheimers. When the murders start to happen, we are not sure if they are scenes from his crime novels, or if they are real crimes, or if someone is trying to frame him but committing copy-cat murders. Our only source is the most unreliable character, sometime lucid, sometimes quite lost. Brilliant fun.
Stephen Florida has one of the most interesting narrative voices I can remember. I was going to say the eponymous narrator, but it sort of is and isn't his name ;)
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Possibly Buccmaster of Holland in The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth. Because he narrates in a language Kingsnorth “made up” to sound like Old English but be readable by today’s English speakers. The narrative has a compelling rhythm and beauty.And I agree with Hugh. Something can't be more unique than something else. It is either unique or it isn't. ;-)
I agree with Lard re True Grit - Maggie Ross's voice is unique. I also think the narrative voice, as I understand the term, was unique in the following books:Mountains of the Moon,
The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax,
Gilead,
The Book Thief, and
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
This is not the most unique narrative voice I've ever read, but it is the most recent voice that was very different than others I've read. A voice that left me bug-eyed, frozen in place, and at the brink of heart palpitations. The unnamed narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' took me for a ride and I white-knuckled it the entire way while reading. My goodness, what a whirlwind! I came up with two scenarios as to what I think was happening/not happening and still, four days after completing the story, I don't know where my head is at. Surprising since it is a short story, one which knocked me out more than I was expecting it to. Yikes!
I found the voice to be reliable, but I think what she told the reader was less nuts than the full craziness that was actually happening. Hard to imagine but I believe the woman was actually holding back. I so wished it had been a novella, if not a full novel.
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This reminded me of my favorite unique narrator, the eponymous Riddley Walker, with his invented language hinting at the realities of the very post apocalyptic world. It was an inspiration for the "Sloosha's Crossin' " section of Cloud Atlas.
Another unique voice I was enamored with in my teens (definitely less so now) was Alex from A Clockwork Orange.
Mod
Bryan wrote: "I like the narrator from Thomas Bernhard's The Loser"Yes to Thomas Bernhard's narrators (the 30th anniversary of his death today), Sebald's narrators, Middle Sister, Buccmaster and Stevens.
Some others:
The narrator (who is it?) in Martin John
The narrator in A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing
Jack in Room
Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The ọgbanje in Freshwater who narrate as "we"The young girl who sprang from her father's head and who inhabits her madness lightly in The Helios Disaster
Merricat in We Have Always Lived in the Castle for her delicious unreliability
By far it was Stephen Florida. Has anyone else read it? Oh, I see Nadine mentioned it. That novel has really stuck with me. I feel it was really overlooked by the critics. Very powerful.
Erin wrote: "By far it was Stephen Florida. Has anyone else read it? Oh, I see Nadine mentioned it. That novel has really stuck with me. I feel it was really overlooked by the critics. Very powe..."I'm reading it at the moment :)
Robert wrote: "Erin wrote: "By far it was Stephen Florida. Has anyone else read it? I'm reading it at the moment :)."I'd love to hear what you think of it Robert.
Hugh wrote: "Uniqueness is absolute - I still flinch when people use it loosely to mean unusual. I'd agree with Milkman!"Ouch...
Anyway, I'll just mention what Durrell played with in The Alexandria Quartet back when popular culture was becoming conversant with the concept of four dimensions.
But I like what Daphne du Maurier does with narrative voice, particularly in My Cousin Rachel. Ordinary, perhaps. But, still, skillful?
Bryan wrote: "Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler blew me away when I read it...."I haven't read Milkman , so in respect to Hugh's and Neil's semantics lesson, I'd choose Calvino's "If..." among the things I recall this morning for "unique." (Marc does imply within the boundaries of personal memory.) And I thank colleagues here for expanding beyond a single candidate -- Cindle's classic reminds me of Henry James, especially "The Turn of the Screw," but also "The Aspern Papers."
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Hugh wrote: "Mentioning Calvino, Invisible Cities is a strong candidate too..."If on a winter's night a traveler is the better book, but Invisible Cities has the stronger narrative voice.
Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye is one that sticks in my mind. Also, the narrator of Martin Amis' Time's Arrow, a book I think I liked more than most.
Mod
If on a winter's night a traveler is the better book, but Invisible Cities has the stronger narrative voice.
Holden..."
At the risk of turning this into a Calvino thread, both of those are among my favourite books, but if asked to choose one of them, I would say Invisible Cities - such a perfectly realised vision in so few pages. I also loved The Baron in the Trees, but I don't remember the narrative voice in that one...
Hugh wrote: "At the risk of turning this into a Calvino thread...."Some risks are worth taking!
I remember loving The Baron In The Trees when I read it, but recall it as being told in the third person. A quick check tells me it is told by the brother of the Baron, and so probably has more of a voice than I recall. My recollection of Invisible Cities is that the descriptions of the cities themselves were fascinating and brilliant, but that the idea that this was a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan was less significant.
David wrote: "Hugh wrote: "At the risk of turning this into a Calvino thread...."Some risks are worth taking!
I remember loving The Baron In The Trees when I read it, but recall it as being told in the third ..."
I already knew about Calvino as Marcovaldo is a set text over here but If on a Winter's Night surprised me. I would like to read cosmicomics though.
Hugh wrote: "David wrote: "Hugh wrote: "Mentioning Calvino, Invisible Cities is a strong candidate too..."If on a winter's night a traveler is the better book, but Invisible Cities has the stronger narrative ..."
Based on my ecstatic reaction to it at age 18, The Nonexistent Knight is the ultimate Calvino. I haven't reread it in the following 40 years, for fear I won't feel the same.....
To go somewhere else besides Calvino on this discussion of narrative voice, let us remember the discussions about Jane Austen's
Emma
and free indirect style:https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
In something I saw just this morning and can't seem to retrieve again, I saw Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch and Nabokov (which book?) cited for innovative narrative techniques.
I don't think it was
Pale Fire
(or
Lolita
or
Pnin
) that I saw referred to earlier, but here is an article on Nabokov's various uses of the unreliable narrator to manipulate the responses of the reader -- in deliberately chosen ways by the author:https://www.lagrange.edu/resources/pd...
(Daphne du Maurier used such techniques to lead the reader to be forced to trust or distrust Rachel. One's assessment of the story depends on which, if either, one chooses.)
Lily wrote: "I don't think it was Pale Fire ..."I stand corrected. "History" allowed me to find my lost read: "Using interlocking voices and a kaleidoscopic structure, the novel is startlingly innovative, meditative, and playful. Insurrecto masterfully questions and twists narrative in the manner of Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch, and Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Apostol pushes up against the limits of fiction in order to recover the atrocity in Balangiga ..."
Amazon.com entry for Insurrecto.
Mod
Hopscotch was undoubtedly very innovative, but I seem to remember the narrative voice was mostly a conventional omniscient third person - it was the structure, with its multiple reading paths (and some of the digressions in the "expendable appendices") that were most radical.
Hugh wrote: " it was the structure, with its multiple reading paths (and some of the digressions in the "expendable appendices") that were most radical. .."Thx, Hugh. That's my recollection, too, but it has been long enough ago and that was one of those books I probably never adequately read such as to have little conviction myself about the narrative style. Also, thinking about narrative style is relatively new for me.....do kids get taught this in school with reading these days? The LaGrange article suggests how critical being able to judge voice can be to evaluating whether one is reading "false news."
Bryan, I also love Thomas Bernard's ranting and hilarious narrators - in addition to "The Loser" , "Extinction" comes to mind.
Another two that just occurred to me - The underground man from Notes From The Underground.Opening paragraph: I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you probably will not understand. Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I can't explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "pay out" the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well--let it get worse!
And Bardamu from Journey To The End Of The Night.
Random passage: And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself.
Tracy wrote: "Tristram Shandy"It took me several attempts over 25 years to finally finish that book, but the reason I kept coming back to it and never abandoned it completely has a lot to do with the distinctive narrative voice. Good call.
Tracy wrote: "Tristram Shandy"One of my desert island books!
There is a term for an author entering the story and speaking to the reader. Pushkin uses it in Eugene Onegin here: "... Without a foreword’s interference,
May I present, as we set sail,
The hero of my current tale:
Onegin, my good friend and brother,
Was born beside the Neva’s span,
Where maybe, reader, you began,
Or sparkled in one way or other…”
A similar technique is used in theater when the playwright steps unto the stage to speak to the audience about the play they are watching.
I thought it was called something like "fourth dimension" or "breaking the curtain" -- and not "second person narration" per se. Google isn't helping me answer my question as to what terms are used for these narrative techniques, whether in literature or in the theater. Anyone here willing to point me in the right direction?
Lily wrote: "There is a term for an author entering the story and speaking to the reader. Pushkin uses it in Eugene Onegin here:..."You are thinking of the term "breaking the fourth wall", which comes from the idea that on stage the audience sees three walls of a room and the fourth one is an imaginary wall that, if it were real, would be between the actors and audience. On occasions when the actors acknowledge the presence of the audience it is thus viewed as "breaking" that wall.
The idea of an author addressing the audience is not new or all that unusual. The novel Tom Jones, for example, is broken down into many books and the first chapter of each book is one where Fielding addresses the reader directly to say something about the writing process. Shakespeare used it in a number of plays as a way of addressing the audience before the play proper starts. In Romeo And Juliet, for example, it's where he tells the audience that the couple are "star-cross'd lovers". In the prologue to Henry V the character just called "Chorus" invites the audience to use their imagination when viewing battle scenes and open fields. The character name there, of course, recalls the Greek Chorus of classical theatre that served the role of commentating on the action by directly addressing the audience.
David wrote: "You are thinking of the term "breaking the fourth wall" ..."YES! Thank you, David!
Is there a term for the technique in literature (as opposed to theater)?
Mod
Marc wrote: "Lily, I believe it is usually referred to as "authorial intrusion.""That sounds painful....
Lily wrote: "David wrote: "You are thinking of the term "breaking the fourth wall" ..."YES! Thank you, David!
Is there a term for the technique in literature (as opposed to theater)?"
It's called the omniscient (All-knowing) third person narrator. Some early novelists (like Fielding) began with that method, before the more suspenseful third person limited gained traction. The limited only sees the story through the eyes of one character, so that you take the journey with him, knowing only what the character knows--like you have in detective novels. The omniscient often is supposed to be thought of as almost another character in the story, trying to influence the reader's interpretation of the story. In Fielding's case, he wanted you to like the rascally Tom, even though he embodied many qualities that were criticized in that culture, like womanizing.
The most modern use of this technique I can think of (that I've read--maybe there's others) is the Lemony Snickets books for kids.
Mod
That sounds painful...."
Ha--I almost spit my drink out! :D
Tracy wrote: "Lily wrote: "David wrote: "You are thinking of the term "breaking the fourth wall" ..."YES! Thank you, David!
Is there a term for the technique in literature (as opposed to theater)?"
It's call..."
There's also Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy which uses this technique.
Marc wrote: "David wrote: "Marc wrote: "Lily, I believe it is usually referred to as "authorial intrusion.""That sounds painful...."
Ha--I almost spit my drink out! :D"
{g} A little stronger, both of you, than the reaction/question mark the word "intrusion" evoked for me!
The most unusual narrator I can think of right now (partly because I just finished the book), is the one from N. K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season. It's both second person and present tense. It takes a while to discover who this narrator is and who they are addressing. The book continues on in the present tense, but thankfully, we don't get the second person stuff for the whole book, or I would have quit. In the end I actually did like the book very much, but despite the literary games, not because of them.
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
Eugene Onegin (other topics)Eugene Onegin (other topics)
Insurrecto (other topics)
Pale Fire (other topics)
Lolita (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Daphne du Maurier (other topics)Julio Cortázar (other topics)
Daphne du Maurier (other topics)
