BEER Ch. 6, 57-61: Reg reports in

[Fiona Shnapple]

Pov, as Booth taught us long ago, tells us nothing, really. Narrative is so
very complex, it is, rhetorical, meaning, everything an author does, puts
on the page, to evoke a response. And the old rhetorical triangle
functions, the shifts are given cues and markers, only they are not tagged
but are far more dependent on an active reader who can identify the style
shifts, by listening to the language, the diction, the arrangements. So,
like Maxine sniffs out the code switching, as more Anglo in named
businesses and business names, she also notes the language code switches to
and away from more Anglo speak. When the lights shift or dim, change color
or shade, a prop is rolled in or out, a word, a dot on the page, these are
the cues and language flows we are tuned into. Or we toss the book, walk
out of the theater.
On Sunday, October 27, 2013, Monte Davis wrote:

> MK> P's jump cuts, like tonal switches in classic dramatic comedy, imply
> the non-linear in a way most ****
>
> tragedies or even tragicomedies do not****
>
> ** **
>
> I was highlighting not the non-linearity (nested flashbacks are old and
> common in all narrative genres) but the absence of  cues to mark the
> transition from Maxine and Reg now, with a quick dip into Maxine’s mind
> (“’..he’s so paranoid,’ yeah, Reg, ‘he only likes to meet face-to-face on
> the subway’”)****
>
> ** **
>
> …to Reg and Eric at an earlier moment on that subway. No line break, no
> “Today [they had met as] an insane white Christer at one end of the car
> was…” I was thinking stylistic, not thematic.****
>
> ** **
>
> Not a big deal. Having been enlightened recently about the simple,
> straightforward third-person narration in GR, I now see that I never
> understood the basics of POV in forty years of professional writing,
> editing and English teaching. So when I go off about what I find to be
> interesting tricks in P’s voice, consider it just my own eccentric
> hobbyhorse. J****
>
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