Not exactly a new idea. Check out Henry Fielding. Or Tolstoy. Of course
assuming that what you take to be the authorial voice is in fact the voice
of the author and not a construct. If that's possible. Is Sterne Tristram
Shandy? Are Paradise or Duluoz Kerouac? We know that a lot of details
coincide, but... Talky narrators are almost a given in the 18th and 19th
centuries--think alse Austen.
At 01:49 AM 5/4/2002 +0100, you wrote:
>(Usual apologies for cross-posting.)
>
>I forward this (with permission).
>
>Lew is particularly interested in authorial intervention in footnotes to
>fictional prose texts.
>
>Any comments?
>
>Robin
>
>*******************
>
>I'm not really sure if I've given this post a proper subject, but here goes.
>
>This week, one of my classes will be discussing Tim O'Brien's IN THE LAKE OF
>THE WOODS. For those of you who do not know, TIME called this novel by the
>Viet Nam vet the best work of fiction of 1994. It is the most powerful 20th
>century novel I've ever read, if not the most powerful novel in my entire
>reading experience.
>
>One of the elements of the relentlessness of the work's truth is O'Brien's
>periodic insertion of himself as author in the footnotes of the novel. Here
>are two examples:
>
>"Why do we care about Lizzie Borden, or Judge Crater, or Lee Harvey Oswald,
>or the Little Big Horn? MYSTERY! Because of all that cannot be known. And
>what if we did know? What if it were proved--absolutely and purely--that
>Lizzie Borden took an ax? [...] The thing about Custer is this: no
>survivors. Hence, eternal doubt, which both frustrates and fascinates.
>It's a standoff. The human desire for certainty collides with our love of
>enigma. [...] The truth is at once simple and baffling."
>
>[.... and then later]
>
>"My heart tells me to stop right here, to offer some quiet benediction and
>call it the end. But truth won't allow it.... the inconclusiveness of
>conclusion . . . ambiguity ... All secrets lead to the dark, and beyond the
>dark there is only the maybe."
>
>Now I know that a lot of writers write about writing. But how often do they
>insert themselves so often, so personally, so integrally into their own work
>of fiction?. (Stendhal does so on a couple of occasions in Le Rouge et le
>noir but certainly not to this extent.) (Wouldn't it have been fascinating
>to read Shakespeare on Hamlet within the very context of the play?)
>
>How often is this done? By whom? With what force?
>
>Cheers!
>
>Lew Kamm
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