Literature Through Different Lenses

Every book, poem and play has its own creative way of opening a new doorway through which the reader is able to experience a world far removed or eerily close to their own. However, every once in a while you’ll come across a book where the author’s unconventional choices add a new lens for us readers to be able to weave between different narrative threads. Have you ever read a book written from the perspective of death? A book so poetic, it flows like an extended poem? Or a novel you can’t trust completely because of the unreliable nature of the narrator? These are all additional twists to a storyline that have the ability to cast a veil over the main plot and keep the reader on their toes, or pull us into the plot so well that our consciousness becomes a part of the ever-changing and often unpredictable narratives.

Spoiler warnings for the following novels: The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, The Book Thief, Atonement, The White Tiger, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and The God of Small Things

Music and Death

A small but noteworthy note. I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me. - Markus Zusak, The Book Thief.¹

In the first time I read The Book Thief, I was completely fascinated by the idea that a story could be told from the point of view of an omnipresent entity shadowing the tragic lives of the protagonists. Zusak uses ‘death’ as a narrator, creating a constantly ominous atmosphere. Despite the narrator expressing regret and wishing alternate life paths for the deceased/soon-to-be dead souls, Zusak’s use of death as the narrator is a reminder that no matter what we wish, the end of life is inevitable and often unexpected. The presence of death created constant tension by underscoring even the wholesome mundane moments of the novel. In the readers’ view, the added perspective could highlight the tragedy to come in the novel because death had watched the protagonists throughout life create a connection between the reader, the narrator and the characters that – since the very beginning of the novel – was foreshadowed to have an unhappy ending. You can’t help but feel insecure and the weight of the sadness even in the happy moments because death is always looming and is – in fact – narrating the whole tale.

“All humans are musical. Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?”― Mitch Albom, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto²

The Magic Strings, similar to The Book Thief, is narrated from the perspective of ‘Music’ and focused on our exceptionally gifted protagonist ‘Frankie Presto’. Albom brings our narrator to life by highlighting the omnipresence of music and it’s ‘magic’ in everyone’s life. The narrator insists that ‘music’ is gifted to everyone at birth – some more than others –  but what makes Frankie stand out is that Frankie received more of this gift than others to the point that it became almost magical. Albom’s portrayal of the power of music and how it influenced not just Frankie’s life but those around him was a refreshing perspective on life, ambition and how passion can manifest itself in different ways. The mystery of Frankie’s death is so intertwined with his musical superpowers that it only makes sense that the novel be narrated by music itself.

Epistolary novels

Another way that authors choose to add multiple perspectives into a first person narrative is through the use of letters. Through letters the audience gets a glimpse of the characters’ personality and how they interact with others and the world around them, creating additional depth to the world they are based in.

What makes Ian McEwan’s Atonement so interesting is that it is a partial epistolary novel and it brings into question the reliability of a narrator and their perspective. Atonement follows Briony, a young girl caught between the security and oblivion of childhood and the adult world slowly infiltrating her innocence, as she tells her perspective of a tragedy that occurs one summer at her childhood home. Later on, the reader questions the reliability of much of what we have read because of McEwan’s meta-literary criticism of the age and naivety of Briony at the time as she witnessed and experienced what she did.

McEwan also creates emotional depth in the relationship between Briony’s sister Celia and the groundskeepers’ son, Robbie, by integrating their love letters into much of the second part of the novel. Through their letters McEwan highlights how much damage Briony’s confused and childish perspective caused the two adults and how it ruined the future they had dreamed of together. The letters are an intimate part of Robbie and Celia’s relationship which allows the reader to form a connection to the characters and their struggles, the added perspective makes what they endure more relatable, and the plot twist at the end of the novel all the more heartbreaking.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga is an entirely epistolary novel with our protagonist starting every chapter with a letter written to a visiting Chinese official, Premier Wen Jiabao. Adiga’s interesting structure of the narrative highlights our protagonist’s – Balram Halwai – climb up the social ladder from a poor village boy to a successful ‘entrepreneur.’ The way that the narrator often addresses Jiabao as if he were an old friend that he was telling his life’s struggles and triumphs to makes the readers ultimately root for or commend him despite the controversial and desperate actions Balram takes to break free of centuries-old stereotypes about caste and how it affects intelligence and ability. Adiga’s simultaneous use of a retrospective tone and a letter – albeit an informal letter – format brings Balram’s unofficial autobiography to life, making his efforts to attain a better future and his desperate actions all the more human and almost justifiable.

Poetry/ Prose

Some authors integrate a poetic structure into their writing so well that the entire time one reads it, the writing feels like an extended free-verse poem. These works are often layered with metaphors and symbolism that add so much emotional depth when you are able to understand what is being said. Writing in a poetic manner often soothes or accentuates the harsh edges of the situations being described; love can be liberating and yet devastating, grief blurs the edges of reality and happiness is superficial or short-lived. A poetically structured narrative can evoke the abstract and introduce an entirely new perspective with which to view any narrative at hand.

“If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.”― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things³

The God of Small Things is a novel that is an extremely moving portrayal of the difficult lives of two twins and a tragedy that ruins their family. The narrative is one giant butterfly effect which gradually unravels into a web of tragedy.

Roy features analeptic shifts throughout the novel which makes the story difficult to understand at first. However, the symbols associated with each character and the contrasting themes of sound and silence, love and law as well as rebellion and safety ensure that each character’s perspective is well understood. The narrative features two at first indecipherable twins, Esta and Rahel, who are blamed for an accident that was out of their control, and their mother, Ammu, a natural rule breaker confined by the expectations of her family. Roy never explicitly mentions what each character is experiencing or feeling, but instead uses a poetic writing style with extended metaphors to illustrate what each character is experiencing and how it leads to the climax of the story. There is much left unspoken and the readers are left to infer based on the context and snippets of imagery, which adds to the poetic lens that pervades throughout the novel.

“I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly.”― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous⁴

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is another example of a novel so beautifully written it leaves readers with a bad case of a ‘book hangover.’ Vuong describes the tragedy and hardships that overshadow the trajectory of ‘Little Dog’s’ – our protagonist – life in a heart-wrenching letter format addressed to the protagonist's mother, Rose. The author uses imagery of monarch butterflies and migration to show Little Dog’s longing to move on from the trauma ingrained into his family’s history with the Vietnam War and how his identity as a person of color and a Gay man continued to bring hardship throughout the novel. Through Little Dog’s nostalgic retellings of his mother’s and grandmother’s struggles we see him accepting himself slowly and apologizing to his mother for not being more understanding or accommodating while she was alive. Vuong’s use of poetry to evoke the complex emotions that often remain unspoken make it an all the more powerful and emotional read that readers are left to interpret as they wish with its uncertain yet fulfilling open ending.

Conclusion

All of these novels have touched my heart at different stages in my life, and a big part of their impact was due to the creative use of perspective to accentuate the narratives at hand. I feel the omnipresence of Death currently with the constant and inhumane political warfare that costs us millions of innocent lives and leaves us as a society with lasting scars. We see different perspectives in news articles, YouTube videos and hear them from people around us based on their own beliefs and opinions. The use of perspective is another way to shock the senses and channel strong emotions in ways that catch people off guard and to highlight the different aspects to an average narrative that the average reader doesn't normally get to see.

¹Source: Goodreads

²Source: Goodreads

³Source: Goodreads

⁴Source: Goodreads