Narrative Distance: Why does it matter?
If you’ve been listening to the R&W podcast discussions of Crossing the Mangrove, or even if you read last week’s post on note-taking, you probably noticed I’m on a narrative strategy kick right now.
There are reasons for this: considering it for my own novel-in-progress, for one. But, I’m also interested in it as a reader who desires to honor and “read well” the stories in front of me.
Here on the R&W, we’ve been reading some novels with unique and vastly different narrative styles: The Screwtape Letters, written in epistolary form; Crossing the Mangrove, with a multitude of narrators (19!), some in 1st person p.o.v. and some in 3rd and all contributing to the story; and finally, War and Peace, our year long read, written in classic, 19th century omniscient style.
The thing I’m noticing with each of these novels, is the distance I feel, or don’t feel, between myself and the characters of the novels. I notice I have emotional investment in particular characters over others; even in the characters of entire novels over others. I also find I trust particular characters’ perspectives over others, which, in turn, affects my emotional investment in particular characters over others.
Why do I feel this way? Is this intentional on the part of the author? (It is.) If so, how is she doing this? More importantly, why??
All these things are affected by the narrative style of a novel. And the narrative style is shaped by the author’s narrative strategy behind it.
I believe I gave a definition of narrative strategy in my last post. If you’ve been following along on the podcast as Rhea and I discuss Crossing the Mangrove, you’ve heard me explain it there, too. But, I will offer it one more time, because—well—repetition is the key to adult education. ;-)
In his craft book, The Art of Perspective, Christopher Castellani says narrative strategy is:
“…the set of organizing principles that (in)form how the author is telling the story. If perspective is a way of seeing, and narration is perspective in action, then a narrative strategy is the how and why of that seeing.” (p. 16; italics mine)
How and Why. Those are biggies in the “5W’s and an H” question line-up. The “why” especially gets to the heart of understanding the story’s ultimate concerns, which is another way of discerning its overarching themes. Recognizing the author’s “how” can help you get to the answer of his or her “why.”
If this all sounds a little ephemeral, here is a short, non-exhaustive, rundown of how narrative style affects your experience with a story:
It determines who you connect with in the story; whose eyes, heart, and intellect you’re going to inhabit as you read.
It determines how close you’re allowed to get to the characters. Are you allowed inside their skin? Or confined to walking along at their side?
It determines whether or not you trust the narrator and his or her perspective.
This, in turn, affects what your judgements are about everything in the story from the characters, their motives, choices, relationships, and ways of working through their problems.
This, finally, will affect much of the meaning you take away from the story.
Let me offer an example:
In Crossing the Mangrove, we receive different characters’ perspectives on the dead man, Francis Sancher, who seems to occupy the center hub around which the entire narrative is turning. With each chapter, we get a new character’s perspective on who Francis Sancher was, his/her interactions with and opinions of him.
But we also get much more: we get that character’s own personal narrative of his/her life. We get pieces of the history of the island, Guadaloupe, the town in which they live, Rivière au Sel; as well as information (or opinions) about other characters, their home, their culture, etc.
By the end of the novel, we’ve heard from 19 different individuals; one of them we hear from twice. Never do we stay with one person’s perspective for more than 4-6 pages. In addition, only the women’s and one child’s narrative do we receive from “inside them” — in the first person p.o.v. All the men’s narratives (at least as far as we are in the book, which is three-quarters) come to us from 3rd person p.o.v.—mostly close, but sometimes the narrator pops out of the character’s head.
All this jumping in and out of heads creates emotional distance between us and the characters. Even if we’re feeling a deep connection with a particular character told from the most intimate, “I” p.o.v., we aren’t allowed to develop that connection, because within pages, we’re yanked from that person’s head and plopped down into some, quite opposite, kind of character’s perspective.
This kind of narrative distance isn’t an accident on the Condé’s part. It’s working (along with other craft elements) to vivify the story’s, and thus the author’s, ultimate concern(s).
I love what Christopher Castellani says about narrative distance. In discussing the narrative distance in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, he writes:
“The book’s success doesn’t depend on whether we love or understand [the characters]; we just need to know who they are. What’s much more important to the narrative strategy is that we know what they mean.” (p. 43; italics mine)
Did you catch that? The difference between connecting with the characters of a story emotionally, versus “knowing what they mean,” is a fairly significant difference!
My guess is most of us who read literary fiction (character driven, rather than plot driven) come to a story expecting to develop some personal connection with at least one of the characters, and maybe more than one. This connection is what gets us invested in the story itself, as we root for our characters’ ultimate success.
My other guess is that sometimes when we complain that we never “connected with” the characters, it might be because we missed the narrative strategy of the author. We misunderstood the lack of connecting as a flaw of the story, when it was designed to be a feature. Maybe that distance means something. Maybe it’s meant to lead us into the heart of the author’s concerns.
Of course, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes we don’t connect with a story’s characters because the narrative strategy is inconsistent and haphazard. In less-skilled hands the perspective may shift when it’s not meant to, or the narrator may pop out from behind the curtain at jarring times and throw you out of the story’s “vivid and continuous dream,” as John Gardener put it.
But, when the narrative strategy is woven tight and strong (not perfect, there’s no such thing), the distance we feel with the characters—whether that distance is felt throughout the story, or only at particular points—is, as Castellani suggests, rarely an accident. Instead, it’s indicating a significant thematic moment. (p. 60) We would do well to take notice and tuck these moments somewhere safe for later consideration.
This brings me to an important off-shoot of the narrative distance discussion: that is the omniscient narrator and its seeming “extinction” around the mid-20th Century. I want to have this discussion. ;-) But it needs it’s own space. Coming soon.
In the meantime, I’d love to know what your thoughts on anything you read above. What resonates with you? How do you see narrative distance affecting how you understand the story’s ultimate concerns?
And what about the omniscient narrator? If your reading War and Peace, you have a perfect case study in the narrative distance created by an all-knowing, all-seeing, always head-hopping narrator.
There is sooo much to consider with narrative distance and its affect on our experience and meaning-making of a story. I hope you have fun rolling around all these ideas in your mind and in discussions with other bookish friends.
Until next time: Read wide and read well!
Much Love,
Shari
I would be very interested in your thoughts in the narrative in the Agatha Christie story, ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ - considered shocking at the time.