Case Study - First Person Narratives

I don't normally write about books I'm in the middle of reading, although in some ways this is the truest response of all. Once I've finished a book, I reinterpret the experience in the light of my assessment of the whole. Very often this means I undervalue a book which has kept me enthralled for 400 pages but then lost me with a weak ending. The emotional experience of 'reading', rather than the analytical one of 'having read', is found only when we are in the process of reading the book.

That prologue aside: I'm about halfway through Philippa Gregory's The Boleyn Inheritance, the sequel to The Other Boleyn Girl, about which I wrote last week. Gregory has adopted a different narrative strategy for the later book: rather than a single first-person narrative, there are three intertwined first-person stories. First-person is usually discouraged by creative writing gurus (and certainly it imposes considerable technical challenges and limitations), but handled well, it's an immediate and intimate viewpoint.

The Other Boleyn Girl was relatively straightforward in its narrative stance. Virtually the entire book is from the viewpoint of Mary Boleyn: the reader identifies with her, and Gregory doesn't play unreliable narrator games with us. The approach reinforces the claustrophobia which is the dominant atmosphere of the novel.

The Boleyn Inheritance takes more risks in giving us three narrators: Gregory has to ensure that the voices are kept distinct, and there is a danger that in giving us three viewpoints the reader identifies with none. So far, at least, the risks are paying off. All three characters are clearly defined: Anne of Cleves, cool and dignified, intelligent and reflective; Katherine Howard, a brilliant rendering of a giddy flirtatious girl given added poignancy because the reader knows her fate; and Jane Boleyn, a calculating, ambitious character resurrected from The Other Boleyn Girl.

Anne is perhaps the easiest to identify with. She is a stranger to Henry's court, a victim of her brother's intrigues (and repressed incestuous desires), and the reader learns about the environment through her. Her stoical intelligence as she tries to avoid being Henry's second murdered wife engages our sympathy. I found the repeated references to Anne intending to live her own independent life without men overdone, and anachronistically 'feminist', but it's a small objection.

Katherine is the most clearly rendered voice. Those of us who have daughters will recognise the tone. Without being a modern 'teenager', she is idenitifiably adolescent. The reader can only look on in horror as her vanity and boy-mania lead her down to a destruction she cannot see coming. She is not exactly a sympathetic character, but the reader hopes against hope that she will see sense.

Jane is the most interesting of the viewpoints. In The Other Boleyn Girl she is presented through the eyes of Mary, who strongly dislikes her; and even when we see her through her own reflections, she is not an attractive character: manipulative and ambitious. But she has self-awareness, and a conscience of sorts. This conscience is a flexible friend: she genuinely likes and admires Anne, but is willing to give false testimony against her on trumped up witchcraft charges. Jane's character development is the best thing in the novel, and while I know what happens to her at the end, I can't see how she's going to get there--which keeps me turning the pages.

The initial chapters are relatively lengthy: Gregory wants to give us a foundation for all the characters before moving on. Once she's established character, the chapters become much shorter, sometimes only a page. This risks fragmenting the narrative, but is probably unavoidable with all three characters often commenting on the same event (such as the chilling scene where Anne is set upon by a drunken lout, spitting out his foul kiss--only to find it's King Henry in disguise). This triple-retailing approach would be unworkable if we had to wait twenty pages to switch viewpoint characters.

The two major decisions a novelist has to take is: "who are the viewpoint character(s)?", and "first or third person?". Gregory's work shows that, while first person is often discouraged, it has more flexibility than is often acknowledged. By giving us three viewpoints, she avoids the limitations imposed by a single character's perceptions, but she doesn't sacrifice the intimate, confessional tone. The Boleyn novels can be read as a terrifying study in tyranny, but we never see inside the tyrant's head at all. What we're shown is the effect his actions have on his powerless court. It's technically highly accomplished, and should make any writer think twice before rejecting the first person narrative.

From Page to Screen

The Other Boleyn Girl (2001)
Philippa Gregory

In previous blogs I've looked at the relationship between novels and their film adaptations (a strange preoccupation, you might think, given the vanishingly small chance of ever seeing The Dog of the North on the screen). Films are often criticised for "not being the book"; a curious objection, since it's clearly implied in the word "film". I've tended to be more forgiving of film-makers, who don't have the scope to explore interior states which novelists have.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a generally favourable review of Justin Chadwick's film, The Other Boleyn Girl, not having read the book. This defect I have now remedied, and readers of the blog might be interested in how they differ.

Chadwick's film, of necessity, considerably simplifies the plot. Mary Boleyn has only one bastard by the Henry VIII in the film, but two (including a son) in the book. The existence of the son has a major effect on the dynamics within the Boleyn family, but also adds complications which a 90-minute film could not have accommodated. The film also attenuates (almost to invisibility) Henry's struggles with the Pope to grant his divorce from Katharine of Aragon.

The film also all but removes Mary Boleyn's romance with her eventual second husband, William Stafford (but then confusingly drops it back in at the end, in a way which makes very little sense unless you've read the book). This, for me at least, was a good decision: the courtship phase of the relationship was a bit Harlequin Romance for my taste, and jarred with the assured realpolitik of the rest of the novel.

The point of view is also dramatically shifted. Gregory's novel is first-person, something film always struggles to replicate. Without the insight into Mary's thoughts--and particularly growing disillusionment with the "family business"--the film struggles to present the "good" sister as anything other than insipid. Anne, on the other hand, is more sympathetically treated in the film; but the film is less successful at displaying Mary's highly ambivalent feelings towards Anne--one of the finest elements of the novel.

Despite having a smaller canvas to work with, Chadwick does interject some new material not found in the novel. A final scene in which Mary pleads to Henry for Anne's life is introduced (in the novel, more plausubly, Mary is keeping her head down in case she shares her sister's fate). Indeed, the whole business of Anne's trial and execution is given much greater attention in the film: the novel dismisses it in a curiously perfunctory fashion. A scene early in the film in which Anne and Henry hunt together is also introduced (Anne botches her chance and the torch passes to Mary: it's there to show the Boleyns utter opportunism which the book can do more indirectly).

The character of Mary and Anne's mother, Lady Boleyn, is also entirely different in the film. Played by Kristen Scott Thomas, she is an appalled and powerless victim as her family's ambition prostitutes her daughters. The performance is one of the best in the film, but it's there because Chadwick has no other way of reflecting a sensibility which Gregory can reveal through Mary's first-person narrative. Gregory's Lady Boleyn is a chilly "Howard girl" with no maternal feelings at all.

The major difference, and the one which lifts the book far above the film, is in atmosphere. Gregory's portrayal of the Tudor court is frighteningly claustrophobic: Mary soon realises she wants no part of it, but she cannot escape. Even Anne, who stokes the claustrophobia in keeping Mary by her side, falls victim to it. As her own downfall becomes inevitable, she realises she is trapped. Henry's descent from selfish playboy to tyrant contributes to and explains the context (this psychotic king is much better realised by Jonathan Rhys Meyers in The Tudors than Eric Bana in The Other Boleyn Girl).

Readers and viewers who enjoy the Tudor period will no doubt be entertained by both incarnations of The Other Boleyn Girl. But those who prefer their historical drama to have emotional depth as well as opulent costumes are steered towards the book first.

Macmillan New Writing Focus

Three Things About Me (2006)
Aliya Whiteley

I'm not an expert on the anatomy of the brain. I assume there's some kind of mechanical apparatus contained within, flanges, wheels, cogs and the like. When the brain is not fuctioning within the usual parameters it's invariably described as 'having a screw loose', which is valuable empirical insight into the construction principles under the bonnet of the cranium.

It's almost a cliche to say that writers must of necessity have a screw loose: brains that work with smooth efficiency don't go to the kind of places that generate fiction. Readers who ask 'where do you get your ideas?' have all the screws fully tightened, or they wouldn't conceive, let alone ask, the question.

If writers do have a screw loose, then writers of comedy must have two; and those who write black comedy can only do so with a minimum of three screws at below optimum tension. Which brings us to Aliya Whitelely...

I missed my opportunity to meet Aliya at the launch of her latest book, Light Reading, so I didn't get to listen for the telltale clatter of screws loose in the brainpan. But Three Things About Me rattles quite loudly enough...

In very brief summary, Three Things About Me is the story of six customer service trainees and their corporate trainer. This is too close to the kind of environment I occupy in real life for it to exert much fictional appeal, but I gladly make the journey in this case. The novel is, among other things, a lacerating destruction of the kind of management gobbledegook which infects the modern workplace, as well as a cruel lampoon of people we all know. At once bleak, embarrassingly acute and curiously redemptive, it's also a considerable technical achievement.

Three Things About Me is only 300 pages or so long, but Whiteley crams in seven different points of view without losing clarity or control of tone. All the characters are grotesques in some way (even those who end up engaging the reader's sympathy, like washed-up actress Alma or retired superhero--you really have to read the book--Sam) and the different viewpoints are pin-sharp in their definition. Rose, the frankly terrifying uber-chav, is a magnificently realised monster, and the not-quite-romance between the acerbic Hilary and rocker-manque Gary is at once embarrassing and poignant. The trainer Rob and star trainee Charlotte communicate in management-speak (Charlotte even thinks in numbered lists), but Charlotte's professional veneer conceals...well, you really will just have to read the book).

Three Things About Me has been compared to The Office, which considerably understates its ambition. Whiteley can go beyond the everyday into a rip-roaring world of surrealism (when we find out why Sam's superhero identity is 'the Death-Defying Sputum', it's worth the wait). She's able to meld the horror of everyday banality with an ability to make curious linkages: Three Things About Me starts where The Office stops.

Aliya Whiteley is a writer with unusual talent: her flair for penetrating everyday observation is matched with a free-wheeling imagination which goes one step further than it should. The result is fiction which teeters on the edge of lunacy. Let's hope those last screws hold...

The Strangeness of Blogger

Today's post, with its upload of a Dog of the North proof page, has appeared with last Sunday's date (because that's when I started it). OK, it shouldn't have taken a week to write 70 words, but even so, that's a software glitch by any standards...

To find the original post, just scroll down the page, or click here

On the Big Screen

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
Dir: Justin Chadwick

Regular readers of ::Acquired Taste will know that, while I write fantasy, I also have a partiality for historical fiction. Before Christmas we looked at the BBC series The Tudors, a piece of highly entertaining froth looking at Henry VIII's struggle to divorce Katharine of Aragon and marry Anne Bolyen.

The Other Boleyn Girl, adapted from Philippa Gregory's novel, covers broadly the same period but from a rather different perspective. Where The Tudors was primarily an ensemble piece (if it had a lead character, it was King Henry), TOBG is a more tightly focused domestic drama, with the Boleyn family at its centre. This makes at times for a curiously unbalanced narrative--Henry's break with Rome is casually squeezed into five minutes of a badly flagging fourth act--but the film is not attempting to provide a nuanced portrait of the high Tudor period.

Instead, the film's focus on a single, crassly ambitious family considers the human cost of political intrigue. It's taken for granted by the Duke of Norfolk (a smoothly repellent David Morrissey) that his brother-in-law will not object to the Duke prostituting either or both of his daughters in the cause of family advancement. In the film's political dynamic, women exist to be manipulated, trophies and tokens to be enjoyed and cast aside. Anne (Natalie Portman) believes that she has learned to pull the strings at the French court: events prove her sadly optimistic.

Where the film stands or falls--and by large it stands--is in the relationship between the two Boleyn sisters, Anne and Mary (Scarlett Johansson). Johansson, despite a huge amount of screen time, is given very little to do except look demure and victimised (which she manages very well). Portman has by far the stronger role as an ambitious schemer who will betray anyone--including her sister--to get what she wants. Events unravel, of course, and Anne is dragged down to eventual show trial (where her uncle Norfolk is among those who condemns her) and execution. Portman manages to wring a degree of sympathy for her fate in a nicely-rounded portrayal.

The film is interesting in that it concentrates on the viewpoints of the two essentially powerless sisters. The decision to steer away from the court power politics (Wolsey and Cromwell hardly feature, Sir Thomas More not at all) allows the marginalised characters to take centre stage. In this it may be dismissed by some as a "woman's film" (the male characters are generally either weak, callous or both), but in taking a different perspective on a well-known period, it's to be commended. It's not without its flaws, but for those interested in writing fiction about court intrigues in pre-industrial societies, it's required viewing.

And here it is...

The first page of the Macmillan edition of The Dog of the North sees the light of day!

I've now sent my proofing changes back to Will (about 60 in total, most of them italics which disappeared between software versions).

The book runs to 470 pages, which looks much better value for £14.99.

It's quite a feeling to see the whole book set in the MNW format: it's now one step closer to 'reality'.

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Yesterday's Guardian had an interesting piece by John Patterson on how the trend for turning novels into films has a pernicious effect on writers (because it makes them think in 'screenplay' terms rather than exploring things books can do which films can't). It's deliberately provocative, and perhaps goes further than I would - but it's still well worth a read.

Proofs

I had an email from Will last night to say that the proofs of The Dog of the North are ready, and they "look great". I may be biased, but I'm sure he's right. I can't wait to see them; although the book had a brief self-publication run, seeing someone else's typesetting will be a thrill.

It's also the final chance for me to give the book a last once-over, before I let it make its own way in the world. I've read the book so often (apparently I even wrote it, although that's now so long ago I have to take it on trust) that it's unlikely I'll see anything new, but if I pick up even one correction it's worth it.

If I can work out how to use the scanner/printer/fax machine/photocopier/combine harvester combo under the desk I'll post a picture of the proofs when they arrive.

"Why Should I Read...?"

The Book of Dreams
Jack Vance, 1980

For the first time, "Why Should I Read...?" revisits an author, the peerless Jack Vance. I make no apology for this; Vance could easily support forty entries. In our first visit, we looked at his masterpiece of high fantasy, Lyonesse: The Book of Dreams, another work of Vance's rich later period, is an example of his sf. I don't propose today to revisit my earlier analysis of Vance's excellences--instead, I'll let the work speak for itself.

The Book of Dreams is the final work of Vance's "Demon Princes" series, in which the hero Kirth Gersen tracks down and kills the five galactic crime-lords who killed his parents. It sounds pretty grim stuff, an Elizabethan revenger's tragedy set in the far future; but that reckons without Vance's characteristic humour, and his interest in the societies in which his protagonist finds himself. Most Vance novels have an interaction between the protagonist and a local functionary: in this case, Gersen is staying at the prestigious Penwipers Hotel as he tracks down the elusive 'Howard Alan Treesong':

The porters moved swiftly around the room, adjusting the placement of furniture, wiping surfaces with their scented cloths, then departed, swiftly and quietly, as if they had merged into the shadows. The chief porter said: “Sir, the valet will attend you at once to assist with your wardrobe. The water is already drawn for your bath.” He bowed and prepared to leave.
“One moment,” said Gersen. “Is there a key to the door?”
The chief porter smiled benignly. “Sir, you need not fear intrusion at Penwipers.”
“Possibly not. But, for instance, suppose I were a jewel merchant carrying a parcel of gems, and a thief wished to rob me. He need merely saunter to my room, open the door and divest me of my wealth.”
The chief porter, still smiling, shook his head. “Sir, such a terrible thing could never happen here. It would simply not be tolerated. Your valuables are quite safe.”
“I don’t carry any valuables,” said Gersen. “I merely suggested a possibility.”
“The inconceivable, sir, is rarely possible.”
“I am totally reassured,” said Gersen.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He drew back as Gersen extended his hand. “The staff is adequately paid, sir. We prefer to accept no gratuities.” He inclined his head crisply and departed.

—The Book of Dreams, Chapter 3

I'm not even going to explain why this is wonderful. If you don't see it, I don't think I can tell you. Our brains are just differently wired up. The only clue I can give is that it's not just the quality of the writing; it's also the context. Can you think of another science-fiction writer who would try to deploy something of this sort in an adventure story? It's the kind of passage which helps us to understand why one of the 20th century's greatest science fiction writers cites his own favourite author as P.G. Wodehouse.

How has it influenced me?
This one's simple. One day I'd like to write a passage this good--and be able to repeat the trick, as Vance does in every novel after about 1960.

Lessons for the aspiring writer

• read the passage a couple more times; you'll find the lessons
  
• look particularly at the dialogue tags and adverbs
  

Breaking the Rules

Jim Crace's The Pesthouse rejects all the advice given to aspiring writers--but does he make the risk work?

In our last blog entry, I set out my current reading list before plunging in to what fellow writers seemed to agree was the most promising choice, Jim Crace's The Pesthouse. It's not a long book, and already I've had the chance to read and digest.

The Pesthouse is part of the long tradition of post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction, the brand of speculative fiction most likely to find a mainstream audience (think, for instance, of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale). Technology, and even the memory of technology, are long gone from America as the unlikely couple of Franklin and Margaret pick their way to the east coast through famine, pestilence and marauding robber bands. The Pesthouse is a self-consciously mythical journey, the journey east deliberately reversing the western spread of the original European settlers.

Many of readers of ::Acquired Taste are themselves writers. You will all have heard the 'rules' (and almost certainly questioned their validity). Show don't tell. Reveal character through dialogue. Tell us what characters do, not what they're like. Crace knows these rules better than the rest of us: The Pesthouse is his ninth novel. So, in choosing to ignore 'the rules of fiction', he's making a deliberate artistic choice.

The most obvious of these choices, and the biggest risk, is to all but dispense with dialogue. In a novel of over 300 pages, there are perhaps five pages of it, half of that in a conversation between one of the protagonists and a minor character. Crace has foregone the most common, and most useful, way of conveying information, and to replace it, he simply tells us what the main characters are thinking, and why they act the way they do. It's an extraordinary decision, and not one I would dare take in my own (unusually dialogue-intensive) fiction.

So how does Crace get away with it? His main weapon is the sheer beauty of his prose. If you can write with the muscular lyricism Crace commands you can probably make your shopping list into compelling reading. And the lack of dialogue is curiously appropriate to the story: it's a quiet book about a quiet place. America is huge, and empty. The survivors are concentrating on staying alive, and mistrustful of their neighbours. When people do get together, there's a wary truce as they tell their life stories over a shared meal. The Pesthouse can be seen as an extended version of one of the stories, a story told and not shown.

Crace also has a facility for the creation of place. The decayed, toxic America with its ruined highways and towns beyond the inhabitants' memory or understanding is realised with stark clarity. Occasionally we'll see a bizarre institution from the new America. The Finger Baptists, a luddite sect whose arms have atrophied because they believe using their hands is the devil's work, would not be out of place in Jack Vance. The ships on the east coast, taking a select few to Europe, are sail-powered, and the careful reader can infer that it's not just America which has sunk into a dark age.

But Crace's choices are not without cost. Because most of the action takes place inside characters' heads, or through a distant third-person narration, the story can be uninvolving at times. Franklin and Margaret sometimes feel more like archetypes than individuals. That's entirely appropriate for mythic tale that Crace is telling, but it takes a risk in terms of reader involvement. What we lose is perhaps best illustrated by thinking about The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood is also a stylist of unusual talent, but she puts us in the action, rather than above it. Tastes will vary, but for me at least, The Pesthouse is an ambitious work which falls just short of the first rank of dystopian fiction.

What Shall I Read?

I have a problem which I share with many writers: too much on the 'to read' pile. Indeed, I doubt that anyone who doesn't have that problem is really a writer at all. Reading is part of the nutrition which we all need to create the kind of links and cross-fertilisations that lead to satisfying fiction.

That said, my reading pile is worse than usual at the moment, something I blame in large measure on my fellow MNWer David Isaak, whose blog spews an endless stream of things which simply demand to be read. His current series on books about writing promises to continue the trend: Lawrence Block's Telling Lies for Fun and Profit was full of good sound practical advice, retailed in the style I call 'American Smartmouth'. A treat from start to finish.

So what's on my reading pile at the moment? I confine myself to books I have in the house, ready to pick up, and which I haven't yet read (re-reading is important too, but would make my current decision far too difficult. How could I justify not picking up Pride and Prejudice or Emphyrio once more?).

1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow
Alex Zamoyski
The title says it all. For anyone with even a glancing interest in 19th century history, this can only be a fascinating topic. Sometimes history books are let down by the prose, but Zamoyski's work has drawn many plaudits. Surely this will be good!

The Gentle Axe
R.N. Morris
Maintaining the 19th century Russian theme, MNW stalwart Roger Morris takes Porfiry Petrovich, the detective from Crime and Punishment, and gives him a new case to solve. I've not yet read any of Morris' work, but I'm looking forward to trying this one.

A Quiet Belief in Angels
R.J. Ellory
A 'Richard and Judy' choice, I picked it up on a 'buy one, get one free' offer with Regeneration (see below). It's set squarely in the 'literary thriller' genre which is very popular at the moment--and doesn't always work for me. Probably one for my summer holidays.

Regeneration
Pat Barker
I've been meaning to read this World War One story for years. Now I can. Penguin have had the excellent idea of returning to their classic cover design for certain of their books--and when the classic design is this good, why not?

The only problem is, the cover doesn't look right on a new book. Orange Penguins should be smashed to buggery, like my copy of My Cousin Rachel.

How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction
ed. J. Williamson
As recommended by MNW's other fantasist, Matt Curran. No more need be said, and my fingers twitch every time I see the volume. This one won't be on the pile for long.

Pesthouse
Jim Crace
This dystopian vision of a post-apocalyptic America was not just recommended but given to me by Will, my editor. Because Crace has a sigificant reputation as a mainstream writer, he can get away with writing fantasy and seeing it published by prestige imprint like Picador. I've not read Crace before and I'm looking forward to this one.

Lord of Light/The Amber Chronicles
Roger Zelazny
As recommended by David Isaak, these stories come from one of the premier stylists of SF's Golden Age. Somehow I've got to 40 without reading any of his longer fiction. This needs to change!

Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football
Phil Ball
Over the past fifteen years, football has finally acquired a literature to rival cricket's. David Winner's offbeat but revealing Brilliant Orange, a history of Dutch football, keeps company with David Foot's more straightforward but equally intelligent Italian chronicle Calcio. The best football books are about much more than football: the world's most popular sport is a revealing prism through which to write social history. In Spain, with the eternal rivalry between Real Madrid (once Franco's house team) and Barcelona, the focal point for Catalan nationalism, one can argue that football is the county's social history. Among the fiction I'd like to write one day--for now, at the bottom of the list--is a history of a fictional European country told through its football. If nothing else, the idea is original...

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So, which of these should I read next? To deflate any possible narrative tension, I should say that I've already decided--but what would you read?