Five Decembers Q6: Limited third person narration

NeilNjae

I was initially surprised by the choice of third-person narration: a lot of the hardboiled books I've read use first-person narration. I found the difference was jarring until I realised what was happening. Despite that, we only explore the inner thoughts and feelings of McGrady and the book is almost exclusively from his point of view. The prominent exception is the objective account of the firebombing of Tokyo.

What did you think of that stylistic choice of narration? 

Apocryphal

I honestly didn’t notice anything remarkable about it. Since you bring it up, though, I do wonder if the book would have been better or worse in first person. I don’t have an answer. Is it a purely stylistic choice, in this case?

RichardAbbott

It worked for me - but then I've read so little hardboiled books that the choice didn't strike me as unusual. Lots o books follow this particular narrative style, often switching viewpoint character between chapters or sections to give some varying perspectives. Avoiding actual first person allows the author to keep some mysteries about the plotline - it's kind of hard in first person to later on come up with "well I guessed this at the time but didn't bother to tell you the reader" whereas such a withholding device works better (more naturally, I mean) in third person, as it seems more tied to what the observer is noticing about the viewpoint character rather than the characters themselves.

I suppose the switch for the firebombing section might well mirror the way that the event is too incomprehensible and too horrific for people caught up in it to narrate - the switch to less personalised style mirrors (IMHO) the trauma felt by city and occupants.