In my recent reading, it’s been as much about how the story is told as it’s been about the story itself. This certainly isn’t a new idea—these examples span three decades—but sometimes the phenomenon is more prevalent in my stacks.
Maybe you’ve read some of these, or maybe you have other favourite examples of works by authors who have arranged their narratives so that you, as reader, experience the work differently than you would have if they’d arranged things in a more conventional manner.
Here, experiments with form and pacing and voice work to change the borders drawn between readers and writers.
Whether pushing us to the margins or drawing us close, whether heightening the sense of urgency or weighting the prose with history, whether drawing attention to gaps in the historical record or to gaps in our understanding of the world.
Interior Chinatown muscled past the short story collections Charles Yu has written, which I thought I’d read first – How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe (2010) and Sorry Please Thank You (2012). Coming to this full-length work with thoughts of his being a short story writer worked, however; presented as a series of short pieces, structured like teleplays, Interior Chinatown was perfect for toting around on public transit, reading a “scene” between destinations. In some ways, it’s a celebration of the fragmented view on this community: “Tiny, anonymous parts for each of them, an undercurrent of social or political relevance. Hard to see the big picture from their vantage point, but they knew that behind them was a historical backdrop, that they were part of a prestigious project, with the sweep and scope of a grand American narrative. So they do what it takes, make the best of a small role, just to get it.” But the narrator’s relationships to family members are so moving that the culminating effect is novelistic, supported by numerous “flash-backs” which require deft handling of time and memory. It’s also very funny, particularly the representation of the generic Asian roles the narrator plays as various guest star appearances on television shows.
Brannavan Gnanalingam’s Sodden Downstream (2017) unfolds over the course of a day in Sita’s life as she prepares to go to work in what will later be recognized as the margins of tropical Cyclone Evelyn. Sita, who emigrated from Sri Lanka to New Zealand and now lives there with her husband and young son, cleans office buildings and helps her family cope in the wake of their wartime experiences. This story is quietly propulsive as the question of how Sita can find her way through the city, which is shut down to cope with the weather, remains unresolved. The crisis compounds all the social and economic issues which divide the community, but the story is not a soapbox song, simply a detailed and vibrant account of the landscape Sita inhabits. Small exchanges with people she meets along the way, quotidian phone communications, arrangements and negotiations: these alter readers’ investment in Sita’s success (and what success means under these circumstances) and, in fewer than 200 pages, this woman’s life shifts from interesting to fascinating. The irony being that her story is one that remains largely unheard.
The whole of Toni Morrison’s A Mercy (2008), I read aloud like an epic poem. “In short, 1682 and Virginia was still a mess. Who could keep up with the pitched battles for God, king and land?”
This doesn’t read like a seventeenth-century story; it feels relevant and vivid. It’s a meditation on how we find mercy, how we offer and receive it, and it reminds me of Paradise. Here, readers meet “three unmastered women and an infant…alone, belonging to no one, became wild game for anyone” after we have met another woman: “Take the girl, she says, my daughter, she says. Me. Me. Sir agrees and changes the balance due.” After we have met Sir. And another Sir.
The narrative is arranged like chapters but with empty space denoting breaks so that it’s easy to imagine how the threads can be drawn and pulled through those spaces, how the different narratives align and collide.
Thus readers have a twinned sense of restlessness and rootedness, for while we are immersed in one character’s, the others fall away, but every single character’s story is connected to other characters’ stories: there’s a sense of lightness (a focus on one voice at a time) and heaviness (all these voices, so many needing mercy).
If you’re already loved Sarah Leavitt’s memoir Tangles (2010), you’ll be fascinated by Agnes, Murderess (2019) immediately; how does one move from telling the story of their mother’s dementia, experienced intimately and concretely, to telling the story of a 19th-century serial killer who barely exists in the historical record. I imagine the impetus came from the idea that Agnes expresses near the middle of her story, when the setting shifts: “I had thought most people would choose to live far from the city, hidden in the woods…as I dreamed of myself. […] We often think of people being just like us…until we realize that’s just not true.
A tour of 108 Mile House in British Columbia, a roadhouse Agnes owned in the mid-1800s, sparked Leavitt’s interest although archivally speaking there is no evidence of Agnes McVee’s existence. Leavitt’s pen-and-ink drawing style is simple and stark, facial expressions comprised of dots and lines and everyone seems to be wearing the same hats and shoes.
Most of the oversized pages are divided into nine panels (frequently two of those are combined, to create more of a scene, before the focus returns on the people once more, with the occasional foray into an unexpected perspective, to resituate a bird or a house). Rarely they’re bound by squiggly lines (for a dream sequence). Sometimes Agnes is so small that she is the size of a single stair, other times she is barely contained in the panels. It’s an extensive invention with an impressive bibliography. And if that statement surprises you, it’s just the beginning in a series of surprises as Leavitt makes this story both uniquely Agnes’ story and entirely her own creation. Published by Freehand Books.
Eduardo Galeano’s The Book of Embraces (1989; Trans. Cedric Belfrage and Mark Schafer, 1991) is a hypnotic volume, arranged a little like Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch, so that you can read straight through, if you wish, but you might also be guided by the index (which records the page numbers for multiple pieces on the same theme).
Most pieces are a few paragraphs long, although some occupy more space with woodcut-styled illustrations. Some read like poems, others like fables, others like newspaper headlines.
Some themes appear in sequence, like “Forgetting” and “Television”. Others are interrupted, like “Resurrections” and “Indians”. Others seem deliberately arranged, like the two on “Art and Reality”, flanked by “Celebration of Reality” on one side and “Reality is Mad as a Hatter” on the other.
There are a lot of “Celebrations…”, easy to identify in the Index (“Celebrations of Courage” and “Celebrations of Contradictions”, for instance) and a lot of “Chronicles…” too.
It feels strangely like a perfectly arranged display and a series of intimate confidences: it’s a good jumping-off point for exploring the work of this remarkable Uruguayan author.
I’ve heard such good things about Agnes Murderess, but I still can’t get past the graphics in graphic novels. I find them very distracting. I have “This Place: 150 Years Retold” out from the library right now, because I really want to read it, but whenever I pick it up to read it I lose my patience with it because the pictures are in my way. I don’t know what is wrong with me. Child #3 is reading right now, though – she loves graphic novels.
I love the title “The Book of Embraces”.
Aww, I know, isn’t it a beautiful title?
I’ve got that out from the library right now, too! (I haven’t started!)
My suggestion is that you find an illustrator whose artwork appeals to you immensely and then turn to their stories, so that you are enjoying the art for its own sake. I do understand what you mean about how the pictures can seem to get in the way; I’ve had that experience too. But I also know that you would absolutely love some of these stories, and if you can just train your brain to see the pictures as part of the story, rather than interfering with it, you are in for a world of wonders!
Yes, that’s a good way of looking at it. I’m going to try 150 Years again before it goes back, but right now child #1 is reading it. At least two of us here are enjoying it!
And if you’re like me, sometimes the idea that SOMEone in the house has read a library book is good enough, I’m more content to return it unread myself, even if I was the reader who’d intended to read it.
I often like writers who play around with language a bit. These are probably not the books I want to read all the time, but I appreciate the art. Novels like Ali Smith’s Winter, and Bernardine Evaristo ‘s Girl, Woman other spring to mind. I also loved how Virginia Woolf uses the passage of time in her novels.
I’ve just finished reading one which uses absurdism instead of realism, and it took a bit of thinking to work out what was going on!
BTW Sodden Downstream is such a good book, I really liked it too.
That’s one I struggle with too. Mainly, I think, because I tend to just read along at my usual pace, whereas often you have to muse over the parallels/connections at work.
Oh, I’m so happy to hear you say that: I’m so glad that others have discovered this story too. Have you read any of his others? They’re difficult to find here.
Interesting choices! For me Hopscotch comes at the fore due to its visual/structural form, but also Selimovic’s Death and the Dervish, or Kafka’s The Trial are great examples of this phenomenon. I think generally the technique of the unreliable narrator makes the reader question the way he perceives the story.
I’ve never heard of Death and the Dervish but it looks like the kind of story and theme that I’d enjoy. I see you’ve marked it as a favourite (on GR) and the description there suggests there are misquoted passages from the Koran; would I need to be familiar with the text to appreciate what the authors’ up to? Or could I still enjoy the story without that layer of experience, do you think?
At the time I read that book it was a revelation to me. My version included the correct quotes in footnotes; but I read it in Polish, so I can’t vouch for the English version. But you’d still be able to enjoy the story without them, I’m sure.
As a side note, as I remember you were interested in how WP works/doesn’t work from the inside, for some reason I can’t directly reply to you through the WP functionality; I need to go to your page and reply from here 🙂
You and I both posted about experimental forms today! I focused on three memoirs I’ve read recently that are in short essays, and two of them in the second person. I tend to struggle more with experimental fiction, but I do love some of the techniques you’ve highlighted here: fragments, linked stories, a circadian narrative, a graphic novel. It’s fun to mix things up and not just read straightforward tomes all the time, especially when these zingers are short and can be sandwiched in between other books in the stack. I’ve only read the Morrison from your selections, but I’m drawn to Agnes, Murderess.
I think you’d like that one too, and possibly would enjoy Sarah Leavitt’s first graphic narrative even more (related to her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagosis). As you say, a combination is rewarding. There were in my stacks over recent weeks, so there were plenty of more straightforward short stories and novels and non-fiction in the mix too. Years ago, I know I would have resisted some of these more than others and I feel like I would have been missing out, but, even now, there are plenty of books that I peek into and replace on the shelf thinking either “not for me” or “not for now”. We have to listen to those inner voices at least some of the time, right? 🙂
I’m interested in both the method of telling and what’s told. Why choose? 😉 I’ll happily read good mystery plot told in a straightforward and maybe even boring style. What I really like, though, is when the way the tale is told reinforces the tale that is told. It sounds like the Charles Yu may be especially good on that score: an actor’s stories told in teleplay format. Or say newsreel novels for political content like Dos Passos or Fearing. Or investigating a social problem and the mock scholarship of The Handmaid’s Tale or The War With The Newts.
I’m making my first library curbside pickup tomorrow! Woo-hoo!
And, Hopscotch. I see it’s on your mind…
Variety is a great approach to take and, like you, I find stories whose structure mirrors the themes of the story very interesting. Those are terrific examples you’ve cited. I also admire the writers who change their voice to reflect themes in their work as well. I think that’s why Atwood can be a confusing reading experience for some readers, who expect that a writer has only a single writing style/voice.
How did your pickup go? Did you start reading your borrowed items straightaway? I have until the end of the month to pick up my earliest-dated holds. Part of me would have preferred to have cancelled them (but they were already en route) but another part of me will be glad to get to my final round of Flannery-reading.
Yes, let’s make a plan to begin. We’ve left it long enough that I have some month-end stuff to tidy up. Could we begin the first Monday in July?
The pickup was easy! And seemed quite safe. (At Palmerston.) They have the books ready in a paper bag, where they have been resting for a day and have already been checked out. I put my library card down on a table in the doorway; I stepped back and she examined it without touching it; then she stepped back and I picked it up again and she disinfected the table where the card was. I’m not entirely sure how this will work when it gets colder and the librarian doesn’t want to sit in the doorway, but for now it’s great.
The first Monday in July should work for me. Do we want a formal schedule?
My pickup went much like that as well. The person in the time-slot ahead of me was nowhere to be seen and I grabbed my bags (ahem, two) and skedaddled. I’ve requested another lot and just hope that I can figure out how to return the current loans in enough time to get them through the quarantine on their end (and taken off my card) before I must pick-up the next lot. To my thinking, a single (larger) borrowing monthly would be better than several smaller ones, but my plan isn’t foolproof.
Can’t say as I’ve read any of the books you mention, not surprising as even after three quarters of a century there are so many books I haven’t happened on. In my youth on a remote Wyoming ranch there wasn’t much access to lit (beyond the outhouse wish book), the county library being some two hundred miles away. The books we had were tattered old classics and some contemporary like The Hardy Boys. Strangely, I remember a novella about an Inca youth that was a runner. Of course later, when I was in the military, I discovered a world of books.
Fast forward to some years back, more pertinent to your question, was Santayana’s metaphysical naturalism. Also, picked up because of all the educational dogma about show and tell, I still have Santayana’s Dialogues In Limbo. Strange to me how people get lost in the dogma of writing, the art of storytelling washing over us. Makes me wonder about the illusions I harbor 🙂
I think the telling of the the tale was often the most important part of a book all through my reading life, but it seems to have become more important. The writing is so important to me nowadays, and even if the plot is slim, luminous writing will make me want to read it. I do love experimental writing and so thank you for the hints….
On the scale of experimental, most of these are probably “light” on that score, especially compared to many of the writers you favour. But the one here whom, if you’ve not already been collecting him, I think you would truly love, is Eduardo Galeano. I’ve only got three of his books (and am missing his memoir) but the one I’ve just started, Walking Words, might appeal particularly, because of the woodcuts by José Francisco Borges. Poetic politics!
I LOVED Agnes Murderess, it was just so creepy, and the whole inspiration for the book mysterious. I don’t think I would have been so captivated by the story if it wasn’t told in graphic form, Leavitt just made it work so beautifully.
Sodden Downstream sounds really interesting to me. There’s something about natural/weather related disasters that seem so suspenseful and scary, probably due to our lack of control around them!
It certainly heads in some unexpected directions, that’s for sure! I think it would make a good choice for a book club, actually, especially for readers who aren’t necessarily inclined to pick up graphic narratives but who find crime stories compelling.
I think you’d like Sodden Downstream; its prose is streamlined and the plot moves along nicely from scene to scene. But I also think you’d really like the Charles Yu novel. I think you’d really appreciate the wit of the “TV scripts”!
Sodden Downstream sounds particularly appealing, an attempt to reconstruct a significant day through the experience and exchanges of an ordinary person. I’ve just finished a novel which unfolds the story of an unnamed young woman in a series of episodic vignettes told in the second person, a perspective I always struggle with but usually seems to pay off for me in the end.
Second-person is always disorienting at the outset but they often turn out to be memorable reads. Maybe because, in order to move ahead with that kind of project, a writer has to defend their choice of that narration so fiercely with various editors that, by the time it’s a work in print, we’ve got an exceptionally polished product.