I have frighteningly little time on my hands...
Something has just occurred to me, as I wandered the floors collecting books to send out. It has to do with the novel.
I realise now that the book isn't one single narrative, but a mix of at least three perspectives. (I'm reluctant to call them points of view because that takes me into a whole minefield of problematic considerations).
Firstly, there is the action of the "current" events, those that take place in the hotel
Secondly, there is the past, the back story. The bit that ties all those references to mud and trenches, and the smell of corruption. (This is the most straightforward bit, the bit I'm about to start writing - a series of letters, one side of a correspondence sent back from the trenches of the First World War)
Thirdly, there's Brian. Now, I'd always (or at least for the last two years) thought that Brian - or at least the Brian that survives the events of the book and reports them from a position in the narrative future, acting as interpreter, reporter, histor - was the narrative focus of the book. The lense through which the action is expressed.
Now, I'm not so sure.
Brian, I've realised, is a bit… risky. I don't even know if that's going to be his real name. I don't even know if I want his identity to be "known". Certainly, from the point of view of whoever is doing the 'actual' narrating - the figure sitting at the end of the novel and collecting all the facts together in order to relay them to the reader - his name is Brian. But this might not be true at the time. Put it this way; nobody in the whole of the novel is going to call him Brian.
So who is he?
Well, I've been wondering about this. I think I've successfully set up a red herring - the flatmate Ciaron. I think he may not be real. Or, he's only real in Brian's head (a bit like Tyler Durden, but without all the fighting). Which would kind of give away the ending, really. But that might not be it. The flatmate might be real enough, but have a variety of personae. At the moment, he could also be Jean's boyfriend, or Jackie's boyfriend (or both) and Big Jake's dealer. I think it's unlikely that Brian would have the capacity to fulfil all of those roles by himself, so I'm turning away from the "Tyler Durden" idea. Besides, I don't really want to have to read Fight Club until I'm reading it for pleasure, and I've had time to forget the film.
Nonetheless, I still don't want anyone to call him by name. I want that to be one of the 'reveals' at the end.
In fact, if I have my way, the ending(s) that has(have) been in my head for the whole time I've been writing this are a series of reveals, stripping back false identities, and using the power of naming and revelation to redeem the characters. There will be at least one death. Brian might be a serial killer. There will be Bad Car Sex.
I just have to get on and write it…
The realisation, though, is that the majority of the reporting that goes on, where the narrative is presented in standard style, is done from the point of view of the hotel. That is to say, what takes place within those walls is seen from an external and (apparently) objective standpoint because it is a viewpoint that belongs to the building and not to the characters. This strand of the novel has access to both the public and the private, and the ability to read the hearts and minds of the people within its walls. The hotel, in other words, becomes the "floating narrator".
Whether all this will work or not is yet to be seen. I suppose we'll find out - possibly sometime towards the end of May.
Yup. That's the deadline. End of May. Leaves me three months for the Great Re-Write, where I shall be plunged into a morass of large scale editing the like of which has Never Been Seen Before. I'll be up to my hairy monkey pits in it.
Eeek.
_
I realise now that the book isn't one single narrative, but a mix of at least three perspectives. (I'm reluctant to call them points of view because that takes me into a whole minefield of problematic considerations).
Firstly, there is the action of the "current" events, those that take place in the hotel
Secondly, there is the past, the back story. The bit that ties all those references to mud and trenches, and the smell of corruption. (This is the most straightforward bit, the bit I'm about to start writing - a series of letters, one side of a correspondence sent back from the trenches of the First World War)
Thirdly, there's Brian. Now, I'd always (or at least for the last two years) thought that Brian - or at least the Brian that survives the events of the book and reports them from a position in the narrative future, acting as interpreter, reporter, histor - was the narrative focus of the book. The lense through which the action is expressed.
Now, I'm not so sure.
Brian, I've realised, is a bit… risky. I don't even know if that's going to be his real name. I don't even know if I want his identity to be "known". Certainly, from the point of view of whoever is doing the 'actual' narrating - the figure sitting at the end of the novel and collecting all the facts together in order to relay them to the reader - his name is Brian. But this might not be true at the time. Put it this way; nobody in the whole of the novel is going to call him Brian.
So who is he?
Well, I've been wondering about this. I think I've successfully set up a red herring - the flatmate Ciaron. I think he may not be real. Or, he's only real in Brian's head (a bit like Tyler Durden, but without all the fighting). Which would kind of give away the ending, really. But that might not be it. The flatmate might be real enough, but have a variety of personae. At the moment, he could also be Jean's boyfriend, or Jackie's boyfriend (or both) and Big Jake's dealer. I think it's unlikely that Brian would have the capacity to fulfil all of those roles by himself, so I'm turning away from the "Tyler Durden" idea. Besides, I don't really want to have to read Fight Club until I'm reading it for pleasure, and I've had time to forget the film.
Nonetheless, I still don't want anyone to call him by name. I want that to be one of the 'reveals' at the end.
In fact, if I have my way, the ending(s) that has(have) been in my head for the whole time I've been writing this are a series of reveals, stripping back false identities, and using the power of naming and revelation to redeem the characters. There will be at least one death. Brian might be a serial killer. There will be Bad Car Sex.
I just have to get on and write it…
The realisation, though, is that the majority of the reporting that goes on, where the narrative is presented in standard style, is done from the point of view of the hotel. That is to say, what takes place within those walls is seen from an external and (apparently) objective standpoint because it is a viewpoint that belongs to the building and not to the characters. This strand of the novel has access to both the public and the private, and the ability to read the hearts and minds of the people within its walls. The hotel, in other words, becomes the "floating narrator".
Whether all this will work or not is yet to be seen. I suppose we'll find out - possibly sometime towards the end of May.
Yup. That's the deadline. End of May. Leaves me three months for the Great Re-Write, where I shall be plunged into a morass of large scale editing the like of which has Never Been Seen Before. I'll be up to my hairy monkey pits in it.
Eeek.
_