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Fwd: tentative question about POV in 'Laughter in the Dark'
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Tentative, because I haven't finished it. I don't know if this is
because creative writing circles nowadays with which I am involved make
one over-sensitive to this issue, but there are various places in
_Laughter in the Dark_ where the point-of-view changes without warning
from one character to another (I'm thinking particularly of the last two
pages of Chapter Three starting with 'He felt silly and sick'), whereas
whole chapters are otherwise
given over to one character, as in the first two
chapters, which are from Albinus's point of view. Being used to reading
more of VN's later work than his earlier, I can't help noticing how
there are no softeners or bridges from scene-to-scene, no easy segues.
VN really does get on with the narrative here. It's all the more strange
to me as the writing is so less lapidary than say in _The Gift_, which
was only written a little later (?) and is so much richer.
Brian Howell
http://www.windriverpress.com/titles/studyofsleep.html
http://www.tobypress.com/books/dance_geometry.htm
http://www.elasticpress.com/sound_of_white_ants.htm
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because creative writing circles nowadays with which I am involved make
one over-sensitive to this issue, but there are various places in
_Laughter in the Dark_ where the point-of-view changes without warning
from one character to another (I'm thinking particularly of the last two
pages of Chapter Three starting with 'He felt silly and sick'), whereas
whole chapters are otherwise
given over to one character, as in the first two
chapters, which are from Albinus's point of view. Being used to reading
more of VN's later work than his earlier, I can't help noticing how
there are no softeners or bridges from scene-to-scene, no easy segues.
VN really does get on with the narrative here. It's all the more strange
to me as the writing is so less lapidary than say in _The Gift_, which
was only written a little later (?) and is so much richer.
Brian Howell
http://www.windriverpress.com/titles/studyofsleep.html
http://www.tobypress.com/books/dance_geometry.htm
http://www.elasticpress.com/sound_of_white_ants.htm
----- End forwarded message -----