Intro(with clever Inception joke):
Do you remember how in my last blog post I said that Oryx and Crake “definitely has Atwood's writing style written all over it”? As I continue to read I think I am starting to progressively see that. It can get confusing trying to figure out if a character is thinking something, or if it is one character thinking that another character is thinking something. So to be fair, I think Margaret Atwood was for certain all over the whole “Inception” idea before Christopher Nolan even had the thought. Anyway I still find myself often confused with what is going on, I think I am starting to understand more and more of the book as I continue to go on.
Do you also remember how in the last blog I said I wanted to get into tone and style? Previously, I felt that it was important to establish some main characters, so now that I have gotten that out of the way, I can talk about Atwood’s style. As you may remember with reading The Handmaid’s Tale, her stylistic choices of writing and storytelling were critical to the progression of the book. Oryx and Crake is very similar in how it is told, and it is equally similar in how important the style is to the book.
Narration:
One important thing that I would definitely like to talk about first is the narration of the book. Being fully honest, I am still confused on how the book is narrated, and accordingly I am open to suggestions on how to understand it better. The narration is in the 3rd person, I believe that is something that I can say definitively. Through the entire story so far, the book has described actions as “Jimmy wondered” or “Snowman wished for more Scotch”(These are both examples and not actual quotes). The problem arises with deciding if the narrator is omniscient or not. In some cases where a character other than Snowman or Jimmy is thinking something, it is unclear if it is their actual thoughts, or Snowman/Jimmy’s thoughts about what they may be thinking. So this idea puts into question our ability to rely upon the narrator, because if it is Snowman/Jimmy’s thoughts about what they are thinking, then we know the possible bias or unreliability of the narrator. So it's fair to say I may be getting confused.
Sentence Structure:
The sentence structure is very objective and often blunt. Because of the type of narrator we have and because of our main character, we have a narrator that often describes things and explains them simply as they are. When Snowman is narrating, his depiction of his surroundings and his storytelling abilities are limited to his mental capacity, thus it would not make sense for there to be complex, intricate sentences, like that of The Handmaid’s Tale. This combination of the sentence structure and narration of an otherwise complex scene can be boiled down to something like this, “The act involved whipped cream and a lot of licking”(Pg 90). This scene describes Jimmy and Crake watching child porn, but without the context of the reading around it, the reader may be left confused. So this combination of sometimes jarring simplicity and our narrator fits very nicely together for a reading experience.
First, I never thought someone reading this book would be bold enough to put that quote in a blog post, so good job! It does appear the narration is fairly objective, at least when describing the past, which is part of the reason it seems believable, but how does this blunt style affect the question of reliability?
ReplyDeleteThanks! I felt that somebody had to really say something about that casual child porn scene. Anyway I don't think what I was trying to say was that the blunt style affects the narrator's reliability. What I was trying to say was that the objective sentence structure as well as the potentially unreliable narrator lead to a distinct style.
DeleteKeegan, as somebody not reading Oryx and Crake, I found your comparison of its style to that of the Haindmaid's tale a very helpful reference point. The narration in the story seems to be quite hairy, and your analysis left me wondering if there is one narrator--as in the Haindmaid's tale--or if there are multiple narrators, all speaking in the third person about themselves. Perhaps this (and your) confusion is intended by Margret Atwood, and will add some meaning to the book later on. Finally, I find it very interesting that a book by Atwood would have such simplistic sentence structure. The sentences in the Haindmaid's tale were intricate and advanced, so once again that leaves me with the impression that that is her intention. I'd love to read Oryx and Crake sometime to experience this confusion firsthand.
ReplyDeleteYou've made some good points about the style of the novel, though I feel as though an analysis of style might have been more effective if you had chosen a passage to analyze more specifically, rather than just discussing a few specific details or generalized examples.
ReplyDeleteI think that I should have used a more specific passage when trying to describe the bluntness of the writing. I think that readers of the blog who have not read the book would have understood the idea better.
DeleteKeegan, thanks for sharing your observations on "Oryx and Crake" in a manner that helps non-readers (of the book, not in general) understand where you're coming from. Then again, my familiarity with what you're saying is based largely on the fact that we read "The Handmaid's Tale" earlier this year.
ReplyDeleteWill and I were just discussing the use of narration in our book, "All the Light We Cannot See." He made the point that simply identifying who the narrator is—or who it isn't—helps one to better understand the novel. I suggested that authors have the choice of what kind of narration to employ—usually first or third person—and that we shouldn't dismiss his or her selection as arbitrary. It almost definitely means something. The "what" part is harder, though.
I definitely agree with you about narration. I feel that in this case specifically, Atwood is trying to use narration to set tone. Although I think it is more difficult to understand what is going on at times, the choice of an ambiguous narrator makes the reader think more about what is being said as well.
DeleteIts always fun to be confused on what is happening. I feel like I am always confused. But as I remember The Handmaids Tale was pretty confusing at first. But after we got to know her writing and the characters we had a better understanding as to what was happening. I'm sure you will get the hang of it soon. i found that we share similar writing styles in our novels. The Road is also very blunt and simple. in a way I like it because its easier to read, but it doesn't really make for an exiting novel. Thankfully The Road is straight forward however. Good luck on deciding on a POV, those can be tricky at times because the author just decides to change POV in the middle of the story.
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