This is a very entertaining book, full of interesting characters and stories. The movie is different - of course - but the book is much better I think.
I read this because I want to write a novel that takes place in two different generations, much like this novel does, and I was unsure how to proceed. After reading this I'm still not sure. Flagg's technique is to tell very short scenes, jumping around in time from scene to scene. No scene is really longer than a few pages, some are a single page or less. Interspersed are newspaper accounts of some of the events. Although there are many characters, we are really only privy to the thoughts of one of them - Evelyn, in the "present" time.
I have to say that the rest of the scenes are written in a more omniscient viewpoint, something that is not done much in modern fiction. Those scenes that consist entirely of Ninny narrating are written in the third person. Those scenes that take place in the earlier time are also in third person, but are not restricted to one viewpoint, changing quickly within the scene, and rarely showing us any interior monologue. This is why I think those scenes are really omniscient, although there is quite a bit of distance from the characters.
Writing the novel this way was understandable, of course, since the novel as a whole seems to be a story, or sequence of stories, told to us by the omniscient author. For instance Ninny never knew who killed Bennet, and could not tell Evelyn, but the reader knows.
Looking at that particular scene as an example, the chapter dated Dec 13, 1930, at first it seems to be in Sipsey's viewpoint, since Artis is asleep, then Artis, then we get a glimpse of what Frank Bennet was thinking. Then it returns to Artis and stays until the end. It's not really confusing though, and flows easily and quickly.
I have to say there are some errors. For instance, early in the novel, in the chapter dated Oct 15, 1929, Davenport Iowa Hobo Camp, there is an opening paragraph that we assume is in Iowa, then a long flashback to fill us in on Smokey's early years. When we return from the flashback we are in Alabama. Elsewhere in the book there are repeated words and typos. None of this really distracts from the enjoyment of the book however, and you have to be really paying attention to catch them.
I can't write my novel like this. I prefer well established viewpoints, close psychic distance, and a clear, unconfusing sequence of events. I am still unsure how to hadle the jumps between time though - I do like the dates at the beginnings of the chapters, and will definitely use something like that - see my short story "Alabama 1910".
Friday, April 15, 2005
Thursday, April 14, 2005
A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
I started reading this novel right after I finished Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!", and it was as if my fever had broken and I had risen from my sick bed and walked again. The contrast between the two cannot be greater. Wolfe's prose is clear, powerful and engaging.
The book is huge, over 300K words, but it is not repitition that fills the pages, it is detail. Super-realistic detail about the lives and surroundings of the characters continues untiringly to the end. It is not considered a Southern gothic novel, although I could make an argument that it is. Scenes like the breeding stable and the prison, characters like Conrad Hensley and Charlie Croker, and the examination of race and greed are worthy of the rest of the Southern gothic genre. It is a novel about the South, set for the most part in south Georgia and Atlanta. The plot is not especially complex, but it is detailed. The story revolves around the wealthy businessman Charlie Croker and those people in his sphere of influence.
It is very interesting to examine how this huge novel is constructed. It is 3rd person POV with five viewpoints. For the most part the viewpoint changes occur at breaks in the narrative, but beginning in about the last third of the novel Wolfe starts to speed things up and viewpoint changes occur within scenes more and more frequently. In the last full chapter (not the epilogue) the viewpoint changes 20 times between the five characters, sometimes just for a short paragraph to tell us what someone is thinking. This is all done very smoothly and seamlessly.
In a novel this size pacing has to be important. I have to admit the first half seemed to drag. The only character I really felt empathy for was Conrad, the young man laid off by Croker's business decision that ended up in prison, etc. etc. I was hoping he would have a major part to play in the novel and I was not disappointed. The strange coincidences involving Croker and Conrad and the stoic philosophy underline the whole moral point of the novel.
One of those coincidences, the earthquake that occured at just the right time to free Conrad from prison was almost too much for me to swallow. I started questioning the whole point of that deus ex machina. Cynically I wondered if Conrad had been placed by the author in California instead of the South just so that he could be freed by the earthquake. It doesn't matter, I suppose, but that was the weakest point of the plot.
I was also disappointed by the ending. I thought that Charlie would do something different and his attempt at evangelizing the audience just did not seem right to me. I always thought the stoics spread their beliefs by example?
Tom Wolfe has gotten somewhat of a bad reputation by having an ego, and after reading this book I am surprised by some of the things I have read in his interviews and essays. It seems that a man with a large ego would not write a book like this, espousing the stoic philosophy. The paperbook copy that I have gives you a good example of his ego though. In large red letters on the front "Tom Wolfe" - the title of the book seems almost an afterthought, in small black text, appearing almost as a nickname - Tom "a man in full" Wolfe.
It's an excellent book though, and I highly recommend it - if you have the time to read it. For the student of the craft of writing novels it is an excellent example to study.
The book is huge, over 300K words, but it is not repitition that fills the pages, it is detail. Super-realistic detail about the lives and surroundings of the characters continues untiringly to the end. It is not considered a Southern gothic novel, although I could make an argument that it is. Scenes like the breeding stable and the prison, characters like Conrad Hensley and Charlie Croker, and the examination of race and greed are worthy of the rest of the Southern gothic genre. It is a novel about the South, set for the most part in south Georgia and Atlanta. The plot is not especially complex, but it is detailed. The story revolves around the wealthy businessman Charlie Croker and those people in his sphere of influence.
It is very interesting to examine how this huge novel is constructed. It is 3rd person POV with five viewpoints. For the most part the viewpoint changes occur at breaks in the narrative, but beginning in about the last third of the novel Wolfe starts to speed things up and viewpoint changes occur within scenes more and more frequently. In the last full chapter (not the epilogue) the viewpoint changes 20 times between the five characters, sometimes just for a short paragraph to tell us what someone is thinking. This is all done very smoothly and seamlessly.
In a novel this size pacing has to be important. I have to admit the first half seemed to drag. The only character I really felt empathy for was Conrad, the young man laid off by Croker's business decision that ended up in prison, etc. etc. I was hoping he would have a major part to play in the novel and I was not disappointed. The strange coincidences involving Croker and Conrad and the stoic philosophy underline the whole moral point of the novel.
One of those coincidences, the earthquake that occured at just the right time to free Conrad from prison was almost too much for me to swallow. I started questioning the whole point of that deus ex machina. Cynically I wondered if Conrad had been placed by the author in California instead of the South just so that he could be freed by the earthquake. It doesn't matter, I suppose, but that was the weakest point of the plot.
I was also disappointed by the ending. I thought that Charlie would do something different and his attempt at evangelizing the audience just did not seem right to me. I always thought the stoics spread their beliefs by example?
Tom Wolfe has gotten somewhat of a bad reputation by having an ego, and after reading this book I am surprised by some of the things I have read in his interviews and essays. It seems that a man with a large ego would not write a book like this, espousing the stoic philosophy. The paperbook copy that I have gives you a good example of his ego though. In large red letters on the front "Tom Wolfe" - the title of the book seems almost an afterthought, in small black text, appearing almost as a nickname - Tom "a man in full" Wolfe.
It's an excellent book though, and I highly recommend it - if you have the time to read it. For the student of the craft of writing novels it is an excellent example to study.