Blog #4 - Barbara. Perspective: Up-Close or Far-Out?

Blog No. 4 – Barbara
Perspective: Up-Close or Far-Out?

Reading Olive Kitteridge has given me a joy-ride through space. I feel like I’ve circulated around a character via other characters and events. Through thirteen episodes or chunks of writing, Strout gradually presents Olive, the main character. In “Pharmacy” she’s in the background as Henry’s better (or worse) half; in “Incoming Tide” she takes center stage as the savior of two suicidal people, young man and a young woman. In “The Piano Player” Olive blends into the woodwork as Henry’s amenable dinner companion; in “A Little Burst” she again takes center stage as the fury who’s going to teach Suzanne a thing or two. In “Starving” she plays a vital role in turning an anorexic around (temporarily) by telling Nina that she’s breaking Olive’s heart; in “A Different Road” she again plays savior, this time to a thug about to shoot himself. In “Winter Concert” she comes briefly across the page as Henry’s beloved wife; in “Tulips” she shows up as a failed ambassador to the internal, twisted world of Louise. In “Basket of Trips” we see Olive as the empathizer to a widow who never did travel but did dream about traveling with her now-dead husband; Olive does not feature in “Ship in a Bottle,” about another family with an insane mother. In “Security” Olive goes to visit her remarried son, Christopher, and he gives her big doses of truth about herself with both barrels; in “Criminal” she’s absent. In “River” a new Olive emerges, though still fighting, and starts a relationship with Jack, whom she learns to trust. I greatly appreciated cruising through Strout’s unique piece of work.

For my novel, The Way Things Work Out, I want to stay in the first-person to guarantee the limited knowledge of my protagonist. She depends on God for the successes in her life; her limitations play into the development of the plot. For my other book, a combination of non-fiction and fiction, I’m altering the perspective from third-person limited, in the biographies, to first-person, in the poetic prose. I present two famous people and their work in one chapter, and in the next I have them meet through an accident or a time warp, because either they lived in different times or were contemporaries but never met.

Whatever I do, I the writer need to remain flexible, and my work needs to engage and even touch the reader. In fact, in writing Artists Connect, I thought, “OK, so I present two famous personalities who have something in common. How do I make these people more interesting for the non-professional artist?” I thought, “Why not make them meet? If they lived in different centuries, use an unobtrusive time-warp; if they lived at the same time but never met, create a fluke (also self-effacing) so that they do meet.” So the biographies give information on the times, the home, the circumstances, the personality, the philosophy, and the output of each individual. I write them in third person, from the point of view of a researcher who has found information and made some connections. The poetic prose that follows these biographies tells a story from the point of view of the latest living artist (or my favorite artist, if contemporary), in first-person. So, in the style of a dramatic monologue, I climb into the skin of the person I choose, and, based on what I know, I relate an experience from his/her perspective, where s/he meets the other artist. This work has meant equal parts work and fun for me. So far I’ve presented Flannery O’Connor and Franz Liszt (both Catholics), and Herman Melville and Norman Rockwell (both from New York City). I’m currently presenting Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare, both from the 1500s, who knew about each other’s work but never met. I’ll write the poetic part from Cervantes’s perspective. He will wake up one morning in London, at William’s favorite tavern.

I do think perspective plays a crucial role in a narration and in the assimilation of a narration.