10.4.11:
If I were to recommend any book or primer on narrative it would be the collected works of Jane Austen.
“But Jane Austen’s boring!”
Agreed.
For beautiful prose there are better authors. Engaging and intricate plotting? There too there are better writers. Her characters can be so comic as to be cartoonish but all that being said no one showed the base mechanics of narrative, particularly interpersonal narrative as it plays out in the world, nobody did that better than Austen.
Well to quote the Sound of Music: “let’s start at the very beginning- a very good place to start” but better when you start at the beginning already knowing how the story ends- so watch the movie/s first. With any and all anticipation gone one can then simply read the how of the what the author, or auteur, says by showing.
If I wanted to teach and show someone about character in terms of the mechanical structure of narrative I’d first have them watch the film Emma, follow it up with Clueless and focus particularly on Mr. Elton. In terms of both casting and performance the impact/effect on the viewer/reader differed, and didn’t, from Austen’s novel . In one Mr. Elton serves an entirely different purpose per the audience’s perspective.
In the debacle of matchmaking that was Elton, Harriet and Emma there is a great lesson in narrative per personal narrative/s and how they can be chosen, influenced, informed and misinformed. The constant theme in Austen’s books is the non-omniscience of each and every narrative/perspective as it brushes up against other non omniscient narrative(s)/perspective(s).
Plus I like Austen applied to a model such as Albert Brooks’ little film about “what happens when we die”- lines and lines and reams and reams of ones and zeroes. A simple mathematical equation- except that in the mere act of interpreting the data - the data is changed, altered for there is interpretation taking place. It could even be argued from a quantum perspective that the very act of observing and gathering all that information alters the results- oh maybe just a smidgeon here and there but a smidgeon anywhere in the here and there of such matters is the difference between inhabiting different universes and alternate planes.
No one can ever read the book twice and no reader reads the same book exactly and precisely the same.
Emma, of Emma, is the matchmaker, the prospects advisor and in terms of action sets she is Lady Russell, of Persuasion. If their 1z and or 0z were logged in would they register the same?
In a way Anne’s choice, and/or malleability, regarding Wentworth could be seen as exactly like Harriet’s yes or no, up or down, left or right choice/option where her mere farmer was concerned. Except to view these two creatures one can not see the same choice/action set as the same. Why?
Because Austen applied time to that narrative/equation?
Yes certainly.
But that’s not the only difference.
In closing this particular edition of absolutely none of my business:
Austen left her future essay assigned readers the theme/thesis of Emma on pg 396, chapter 48 (Bantam Classic Publishing circa 1981):
“Seldom, very seldom does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken;...”
If I were to recommend any book or primer on narrative it would be the collected works of Jane Austen.
“But Jane Austen’s boring!”
Agreed.
For beautiful prose there are better authors. Engaging and intricate plotting? There too there are better writers. Her characters can be so comic as to be cartoonish but all that being said no one showed the base mechanics of narrative, particularly interpersonal narrative as it plays out in the world, nobody did that better than Austen.
Well to quote the Sound of Music: “let’s start at the very beginning- a very good place to start” but better when you start at the beginning already knowing how the story ends- so watch the movie/s first. With any and all anticipation gone one can then simply read the how of the what the author, or auteur, says by showing.
If I wanted to teach and show someone about character in terms of the mechanical structure of narrative I’d first have them watch the film Emma, follow it up with Clueless and focus particularly on Mr. Elton. In terms of both casting and performance the impact/effect on the viewer/reader differed, and didn’t, from Austen’s novel . In one Mr. Elton serves an entirely different purpose per the audience’s perspective.
In the debacle of matchmaking that was Elton, Harriet and Emma there is a great lesson in narrative per personal narrative/s and how they can be chosen, influenced, informed and misinformed. The constant theme in Austen’s books is the non-omniscience of each and every narrative/perspective as it brushes up against other non omniscient narrative(s)/perspective(s).
Plus I like Austen applied to a model such as Albert Brooks’ little film about “what happens when we die”- lines and lines and reams and reams of ones and zeroes. A simple mathematical equation- except that in the mere act of interpreting the data - the data is changed, altered for there is interpretation taking place. It could even be argued from a quantum perspective that the very act of observing and gathering all that information alters the results- oh maybe just a smidgeon here and there but a smidgeon anywhere in the here and there of such matters is the difference between inhabiting different universes and alternate planes.
No one can ever read the book twice and no reader reads the same book exactly and precisely the same.
Emma, of Emma, is the matchmaker, the prospects advisor and in terms of action sets she is Lady Russell, of Persuasion. If their 1z and or 0z were logged in would they register the same?
In a way Anne’s choice, and/or malleability, regarding Wentworth could be seen as exactly like Harriet’s yes or no, up or down, left or right choice/option where her mere farmer was concerned. Except to view these two creatures one can not see the same choice/action set as the same. Why?
Because Austen applied time to that narrative/equation?
Yes certainly.
But that’s not the only difference.
In closing this particular edition of absolutely none of my business:
Austen left her future essay assigned readers the theme/thesis of Emma on pg 396, chapter 48 (Bantam Classic Publishing circa 1981):
“Seldom, very seldom does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken;...”
