Narrative Exigencies
I'm obsessed with narrative construction, so most of my pointless ruminations will be about that. How does a book's structure affect the story it tells? How does the story it tells insist on a particular structure?
I only read this book because my library didn't have THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST, which is what I really wanted to read, and this was by the same author. But I'm glad I did. It was a fascinating first foray into literary fiction.
This is a book with very little plot. I had no idea what the payoff would be. After three decades of reading genre fiction, I had no idea how to feel, what to feel, what to expect on the next page, let alone by the end of the book. I didn't know whether it'd be happy or sad or something in between. I didn't know the POINT. And that was fascinating. I wonder if I would have been more in tune with the lack of plot if I'd had more experience with lit fic. I really don't know.
Some of the book was in present tense, some in past. And there were interruptions of overheard soundbites throughout the book. And not just one or two, but pages of them. I think this book was trying to be a capturing of the zeitgeist. I didn't like the soundbites -- because they were so real -- but I see how they fit into the book.
The book started with the ending. The very first scene is Charlie's attempted suicide, so I guess the "tension" of the "plot" is following him through his emotional collapse and the question of will he or won't he succeed. But that really gets a bit lost in the details of the episodes he goes through.
I'm glad I read it. I'm not sure I enjoyed it.
