Sunday Sentence: Wilkie Collins

As inspired by Fobbit author David Abrams at The Quivering Pen, the best sentence(s) I've read this week, presented without further commentary:

It only remains to be added, that 'the person chiefly concerned' in Miss Clack's narrative, is happy enough at the present moment, not only to brave the smartest exercise of Miss Clack's pen, but even to recognize its unquestionable value as an instrument for the exhibition of Miss Clack's character.

-- Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

Unreliable, naive narrators and The Sense of an Ending

The narrator of a novel usually, although not always, also is the protagonist. It's the ultimate "it's all about me" kind of storytelling, epitomized by David Copperfield in the novel by Charles Dickens. "Chapter 1: I am born."

Some narrators are trustworthy. Their world is seen only through their eyes, but they can be trusted to tell all they know and not to skew the facts in order to fool you. And then there are the narrators who either have fooled themselves so well you can't trust them or who are so arch they cannot be trusted. These unreliable narrators are at the core of some of the finest storytelling we've known, from Chaucer to Wilkie Collins to Stevens in Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day.                                                                                      

Just as rewarding for the reader who likes to be involved in discerning who or what to believe is the naive narrator, such as Huck Finn. He accepts slavery as a normal part of his world and recognizes that, in his world, he will go to hell for helping Jim. And decides he can live with having transgressed. His acceptance is not the same as deciding that his world is wrong. Naive narrators are not reliable either, but it's because they don't know the ramifications of everything that's going on. Stevens is this kind of narrator for most of The Remains of the Day. His single moment of near-realization is devastating in the novel, and he backs away from self-knowledge quickly to return to self-delusion.

Sometimes deciding whether the narrator can be trusted takes up a good deal of the reader's attention. This was me when reading Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending, which won the Man Booker Prize last year.

Tony Webster is in his late middle age, divorced yet still on good terms with his ex-wife, the steady Margaret, distant yet polite with his daughter, the preoccupied Susie. His story begins with odds and ends of his time at school and university with his mates and first serious girlfriend, Veronica. Adrian, a newcomer at school, becomes part of his circle. A schoolmate commits suicide after his girlfriend becomes pregnant. At university, Veronica appears to be a tease but Tony says he doesn't mind. He meets her family one weekend and no one appears impressed. His friends meet her and, again, no one appears impressed. After Tony and Veronica break up, he gets a letter from Adrian that he and Veronica are now in a relationship. Tony's life goes on. But Adrian later kills himself.

On rereading

While it's remained high summer in our valley, with temps still in the mid-90s last week, autumn looks a long way off. But I've found a way to turn the leaves their brilliant colors, anticipate a bit of frost on the pumpkin and commemorate the lengthening evenings. And that's by rereading what has become my "autumn" book, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. (To add to this year's pleasures of rereading, we'll be discussing the novel in early October at 4 Mystery Addicts, a marvelous mystery-reading online community.) I don't remember what season it was when I first read this uber-detective novel. But over the years, turning to this story of Rachel Verinder's unlucky birthday present, hero Franklin Blake, the intrepid Sgt. Cuff, tragic Rosanna Spearman and supremely assured narrator Gabriel Betteredge has meant a return to slower times. To me, slower times is synonymous with those longer evenings. It means removing myself from the frenetic, frantic daily schedule of the workday and TV-online overload of information. And I love it. Slower times, longer evenings, time to think, to savor, to make my own meaning out of what I read. Knowing what happens in the story doesn't diminish my pleasure in reading the novel. It's like watching a favorite movie again. I take as great a delight in Gabriel lecturing us about Robinson Crusoe as the font of wisdom as I do in Bogey and Claude Rains discussing Rick's reasons for coming to Casablanca ("I like to think you killed a man; it's the romantic in me.") I've also found different aspects of the story stand out to me in the different rereadings. Rosanna, for example, didn't have as great an impact on me when I was young as she did after I'd loved and lost myself. And the first time it hit me what a nasty old prune Drusilla Clack is and how her interference reminds me of certain "I know better than you" types in modern society, well, it wasn't the first time I read the book. So here's to the pleasures of rereading. Whether it's rediscovering a once well-loved but long-neglected favorite or reading a book you know as well as you know your parents' most-often related tales, just knowing the outcome is only one layer in the joy of reading.

Impressions: 'Jane Eyre' Post 1

Because it is one of those touchstone books in my life, I've joined the Jane Eyre Readathon at Laura's Review Bookshelf: Jane Eyre Check in #1 to see if feelings have changed over the years. As a young teen, this was the first swoon-worthy novel I'd found. But with the passage of (a great deal) of time, would I feel the same?