Fried Green Tomatoes - Fannie Flagg

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".