BtZ42 ye olde unbelievable story

[Mark Kohut]

Joseph said:
In that sense I see all narrators as unreliable.  But what did the concept
mean when it was introduced? To me it has always implied that the narrator,
who is usually a major character is being  deceptive, dishonest, lying  to
whoever is hearing/reading her/his story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

This article is maybe too too for me, but ya gotta judge yourself if you
even think it worth reading.

One of the major 20th Century, post- overt- Depth psychology discoveries
pervading the West
is this aspect of narrating unreliably: We are unaware, cannot see things
as they are, because of psychological blinders, passions, obsession,
repressions that blind us and as we talk/see honestly, not lying, we are
seeing unreliably; others without our 'hangups' can see all around us and
therefore us too straight.

One of the best novels with that theme is not on the list above. It is
Ishigura's *Remains of the Day*.

Many contemporary novelists, many who write in Englsih at least that I've
read about, think *The Good Soldier *
*and Remains of the Day.....*and others I don't know.....are increasingly
important for artists as
the extent of our own self-deceptions may be growing....at least in the
world they see and want to write about. An early John Irving novel was
inspired by *The Good Soldier, *he has said.

PS:
Like his fellow Swiss Max Frisch, in *Homo Faber*(1957), Stamm [in *Agnes*]
chooses a narrator who seems trustworthy but whose view of the world is
revealed to be deeply flawed." - Peter D. Smith, Times Literary Supplement
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