The Weekend...

[stoutfellow]

was pretty much wasted. The sore throat had subsided by Friday evening (though I still had a cough), but it was succeeded by sinusitis, congestion and headache. I didn't get much sleep Friday night, and spent most of Saturday in bed. When I wasn't in bed, I was eating. (I always overeat when I have a cold; I justify it as "stoking the furnaces".) Oh, I spent a fair amount of time in the bathtub, too; colds tend to make me feel cold, and the tub is one of the few places I'm comfortable. But the worst was over by this morning. I still spent a lot of time napping, but I did walk the dogs and run over to Shop'n'Save for groceries. Tomorrow I'll get to the yardwork I was planning to do on Thursday...

I finished The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, and have started on The Robots of Dawn. I don't have much to say about The Naked Sun; I toyed briefly with an analogy between Asimov's picture of Solaria and today's  e-world as it's developing, keying on rfmcdpei's post on the social disabilities of people with their own webpages, but I think the analogy is superficial. Asimov's attempt at depicting culture clash - e.g., Lije's reaction to the mores associated with "viewing" as opposed to "seeing", and the general Solarian reaction to Lije's casual use of words like "children" and "affection" - was interesting, but rather obvious. Compare, e.g., Miller and Lee in Local Custom; the reader gets to see the misunderstandings developing, while the characters remain unaware of them. (sunlizzard, is it a matter of the type of POV, or just that M&L use multiple POVs where Asimov stays with Lije throughout? Could this kind of effect be achieved, using a single POV?)

I also finished Moneyball. Now I have to pick a new bus book. Waiting to be read are Ryoma, a biography of one of the leading figures in the Meiji Restoration, and Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe. The latter actually looks more interesting to me, but I know it'll be more demanding; I tried it once before and, after about twenty pages, was already losing track of the various economic concepts involved. Or I could just pull something else off the shelves; I've read less than a third of the nonfiction in my library.

Ah, well. I don't have to make that decision before Tuesday. Tomorrow's Labor Day, so the university is closed. I'm thinking I'll watch "Norma Rae" to celebrate - or, hmm, do I have a tape of "Matewan"? That would be another good possibility.

Comments

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Now I have to pick a new bus book.

You read more demanding books on the bus? Or just something nonfic?

Just wondering how the "bus book" varies from you other reading selections!

I never seem to get into reading non-fiction. Then again, I'm always having to read up on stuff for work, and never getting it all done, so my tolerance for reading stuff that takes brain power outside of what I have to for work is very low.

I tend to only read nice entertaining fiction. Nothing I have to think about too much to read, though I can't say that it's not thought provoking on occasion!! :-)

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

My daily bus ride(s) each represent a block of half an hour or so during which there are very few distractions. (Yes, I might chat with the driver or other riders, but I generally don't.) Reading at home, I have many excuses to set the book down - the computer, the dogs, TV, the kitchen - and if I'm reading something that takes work to understand, I'm likely to seize on those excuses. So, I tend to use bus-time for my heavier reading, and stick to lighter stuff at home. I didn't plan it that way, but that's how it seems to work.

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see! Thanks for the explanation! I really oughta try to read more "real" stuff, or at least read some of the books I've got -- something you seem to understand! :-)

It's unusual to see public transport used in the US, other than the big cities. Cool that you can!?

POV

[sunlizzard.livejournal.com]

> Compare, e.g., Miller and Lee in Local Custom; the reader gets to see the misunderstandings developing, while the characters remain unaware of them. (sunlizzard, is it a matter of the type of POV, or just that M&L use multiple POVs where Asimov stays with Lije throughout? Could this kind of effect be achieved, using a single POV?) <

Oops, well, um. I don't know either of your examples, but I may be able to flail around and manage one or two makes-sense comments anyway. *grin*

POV is somewhat akin to a "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" type of question, since it is so tangled up with story-telling and story structure and Whose Story Is It, Anyway issues. As an author, one has to think these things through and run out all the strategy branches (and various cross-threading thereof) until it clarifies. The example I used when I guest-taught a class on POV for my writer's group was thus:

Think first of what your reader needs to see in order for your story to accomplish its purpose. Then think of your characters as different sets of eyeglasses. Now, through which set of lenses will your story be most clearly seen (and therefore should be told)? Sometimes that's one pair of glasses (single POV, whether first person or single-third); some stories require two or even more pair (alternating POVs); some use none at all (omniscient, or "all-seeing" POV).

If an author chooses poorly--or simply isn't skilled enough to make her choice work--then the reader will spend part or even all of the story looking through fuzzy, unfocused lenses, and the story will probably fail, or at least be weakened. For example, there was much gnashing about Diplomatic Immunity, with many readers wisting for Ekaterin's viewpoint. I agree; the story was weakened by that lack; important off-stage action was too distant, too lightly detailed, and essentially uninvolving. One of Lois' few--very, very few--poor choices.

Imagine Mirror Dance as a single POV, either Miles' or Mark's. It might've been tell-able that way, but.... it would absolutely not have been the same story, nor carried the walloping impact that it did, without the alternating POVs. Both the structure of that story, and the purpose of it, absolutely required two POV's. Contrast that with SOH, which was single POV. Why choose single? Because only one was necessary. Skilled authors don't over-clutter a story with any more VPs than they need (even if, sometimes, they use less than they needed). Sure, SOH could have incorporated Aral's POV, easily. And while that might've been pretty cool (*major Aral fan waves hand here*), it truly wasn't necessary, and actually might have detracted from the story's impact.

All that said, and to specifically address your question, can a culture clash element be well accomplished with a single POV? One word answer: Barrayar. Can a sense of inevitability, of "seeing the train wreck coming," be portrayed with a single POV? Another one word answer: Memory.

Author's choices. Author's skill. Author's story. Author's lenses. Reader's....

You decide.

Re: POV

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I beg your pardon; I made unjustified assumptions. Let me expand further on the effect I was speaking of. In the course of Local Custom, the two central characters, born in different cultures, come to an agreement. Since we are privy to both of their viewpoints, we know what each of them believes the agreement to be, and they are radically different. Each acts on his/her conception, and is seen by the other as betraying the agreement. Ultimately they do come to a fuller understanding, but not without much angst on both parts.

That specific effect, I think, would be impossible with a tight third person, single-POV narrative such as Lois generally uses. I don't know whether it could be achieved with a less constrained single POV; I suspect it would be rather difficult. (Hmm. Possibly the POV would have to be that of a third party? But that would introduce other complications...)

Re: POV

[sunlizzard.livejournal.com]

Ah. More becomes clear.

From what I understand now, I think you are correct: Tight third-single would be less than effective in portraying the sort of cumulative mis-understandings that you describe. It could be done with a 3rd party, as you say, but then that observer would tend to take over the story, and a good deal of the emotional impact on the main characters would be bled off.

An omniscient narrator would solve the problem of needing to be "inside the heads" of the two main characters, rather than simply observing them from the outside, as 3rd-single would. The drawback there is that using an unseen-but-all-seeing narrator is distancing for the reader; again, emotional impact suffers.

Since the premise of your example story has to be based on the reader seeing both the basis for the assumptions each character makes and in what ways those perceptions are causing failures of communication, about the only choice the authors can make is to allow the VP to alternate. It is not, as with the example of Barrayar, that the culture/perception clash is merely an effective part of the story; in the case of Local Custom, it appears to BE the story. That makes all the difference.

The most useful aspect of any type of viewpoint is in its power to reveal by observation--once one has decided on what needs to be revealed, the choice of VP character(s) becomes clearer. At the same time, that choice can also build in limits for the viewpoint character, particularly in single-VP, as he cannot really observe himself. Lois solves this about as neatly as it can be solved with the internal dialogs she writes, but still.... How completely could we ever really know Miles, for instance, until we saw him through someone's else's eyes? Miles via Miles is truthful as far as it goes (being as accurate as he allows himself to be), but it is an incomplete portrait. Miles via Mark, however, reveals different facets; Miles via Ivan, others; Miles via Ekaterin, still more. And so on.

Playing with viewpoint can be fascinating. Hard work, too, and mistakes are costly. I think even Lois eventually agreed that DI would have been a stronger book with Ekaterin's POV, but she didn't really recognize that until nearly the end. By then, it would have necessitated a rewrite almost back to page one, and she wasn't willing to do that. So she let it go... and DI is her weakest, least satisfying book.

Um, IMO.