narration

[Rob Jackson]

>> >> Who narrates Coy's history in this chapter?
>> >
>> > Certainly not Doc. which is what you have been saying.

It's third person detached narration which is filtered through Coy's  
pov (pp. 299-302). The transition comes at the bottom of p. 299. Doc  
and Coy drive into a tunnel under the airport where they 'lost the  
music for a minute', Doc asks about the Boards, and then Coy begins to  
launch into his story, which then morphs into a flashback which gives  
details of Coy's history, jumping back occasionally to the current  
time conversation between Coy and Doc. It's a narrative technique much  
used in film but this mode of flashback narration in literary prose  
goes back at least to Ambrose Bierce (see 'A Horseman in the Sky'). As  
Mark has been pointing out, it corresponds directly to Henry James'  
notion of 'effaced narration'. The same technique is used in Lot49,  
where the narrator has insight into Mucho's perspective ('But at least  
he had the cars ...', pp. 8-9), Roseman's ('But Roseman had also spent  
a sleepless night ...', p. 11), and later those of Hilarius and  
Arrabal as well to fill in the details of their back stories. In this  
way the omniscient narrative vantage can shift back and forth between  
different characters' povs.

The dialogue between Coy and Doc is reported accurately by the  
narrative agency.

The events in Coy's past history are reported accurately. Coy's  
perspectives on those events are also reported accurately.

In V., there are deviations from this standard technique where the  
notion of an 'unreliable narrator' might be applicable. Stencil's  
narration is first person (though Stencil uses the third person to  
refer to himself), as are Fausto's confessions.

saludos
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