Extollager
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- Aug 21, 2010
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Surely the right speed at which a story moves along should move along depends on other considerations, rather than "fast-moving" being itself a term of praise -- although in the 20th century it did become an often-unquestioned term of praise.
A good reader and a good book should "agree" on narrative pace. And, of course, within one given story (say a novel), the right narrative pace might vary, but usually it is indeed possible to refer to an entire story (novel) as fast or as slow, or not to refer to the pace at all, which means, I suppose, that one isn't much conscious of the pace.
I see this thread as focused on stories (usually novels, but perhaps also biographies, etc.) that seem to move along at what seems to be an appropriately slow pace. These will likely be stories inviting or, indeed, requiring the reader to think about moral issues; they may (Peake's Gormenghast books) lavish great attention upon the accumulation of descriptive detail; they may emphasize character (Henry James's novels).
This thread is intended for people prepared to grant that, with some stories, a slow pace is right, and for discussion of stories that seem slow-paced and good.
The one I'm finishing now is an example: R. C. Hutchinson's Testament (1938). The principal characters include Captain Otraveskov, whose little boy, Vava, suffers from a spinal malady, and whose beloved wife, Natalia, has had a breakdown because she believed him to have been killed at the front, Anton Scheffler, who fell foul of the tsarist authorities when he refused to certify as fit for service some convalescent soldiers, and his wife, Lisaveta, who adjusts to a radically new social order as the revolution proceeds. One of the novels' many accomplishments is the sense of the gradual "revolutionification" of life in Petrograd and Moscow as well as villages.
Some Good Reads remarks:
This huge novel is set in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. A prefatory note by “R.C.H.” in Testament purports to explain that his book is based on a faithful adaptation, although with names changed, of a memoir given him in Paris by Captain Alexei Otraveskov. The vision in Testament is personal, from the ground up ...and it gives a vivid sense of the sheer chaotic muddle of the revolution, and its dislocating and destructive terror.
Testament is a ‘proper novel’ of just over 700 pages. It is worth every one. It and its protagonists trudge from one catastrophe to the next throughout – but always with a human warmth, rugged hope and a sense of morals which transcend their situation. It is a novel of survival, but one in which the author is firmly on the side of the protagonist, rather than arrayed cynically against him!
One of Hutchinson's neat touches is to make the two main characters both sympathetic to democracy and social justice and with an aversion to the tsarist regime. This makes it all the more effective when they become the tyrannised victims of ...Bolshevism.
Now here are some remarks from critics, taken from an annotated bibliography of items by and about Hutchinson.
"...enthralling...has an irresistible excitingness...[Huntchinson] is unquestionably among modern novelists, in the very highest class, and good enough to make mostof his contemporaries look trivial" -- Frank Swinnerton, The Observer
"...a victory of imagination" -- Kate O'Brien, Spectator
"A book of extraordinary richness and diversity" -- C. Day Lewis, Book Society News
Several reviewers objected that the book was too long. As I approach the end, I would say, it does seem long, but not padded. It's "immersive." I certainly intend to pick up another of his novels before too long, perhaps Elephant and Castle or A Child Possessed.
I wonder if this novel has a future, though. If someone has grown up on rapid-clicking devices, would he or she be able to stick it out?
A good reader and a good book should "agree" on narrative pace. And, of course, within one given story (say a novel), the right narrative pace might vary, but usually it is indeed possible to refer to an entire story (novel) as fast or as slow, or not to refer to the pace at all, which means, I suppose, that one isn't much conscious of the pace.
I see this thread as focused on stories (usually novels, but perhaps also biographies, etc.) that seem to move along at what seems to be an appropriately slow pace. These will likely be stories inviting or, indeed, requiring the reader to think about moral issues; they may (Peake's Gormenghast books) lavish great attention upon the accumulation of descriptive detail; they may emphasize character (Henry James's novels).
This thread is intended for people prepared to grant that, with some stories, a slow pace is right, and for discussion of stories that seem slow-paced and good.
The one I'm finishing now is an example: R. C. Hutchinson's Testament (1938). The principal characters include Captain Otraveskov, whose little boy, Vava, suffers from a spinal malady, and whose beloved wife, Natalia, has had a breakdown because she believed him to have been killed at the front, Anton Scheffler, who fell foul of the tsarist authorities when he refused to certify as fit for service some convalescent soldiers, and his wife, Lisaveta, who adjusts to a radically new social order as the revolution proceeds. One of the novels' many accomplishments is the sense of the gradual "revolutionification" of life in Petrograd and Moscow as well as villages.
Some Good Reads remarks:
This huge novel is set in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. A prefatory note by “R.C.H.” in Testament purports to explain that his book is based on a faithful adaptation, although with names changed, of a memoir given him in Paris by Captain Alexei Otraveskov. The vision in Testament is personal, from the ground up ...and it gives a vivid sense of the sheer chaotic muddle of the revolution, and its dislocating and destructive terror.
Testament is a ‘proper novel’ of just over 700 pages. It is worth every one. It and its protagonists trudge from one catastrophe to the next throughout – but always with a human warmth, rugged hope and a sense of morals which transcend their situation. It is a novel of survival, but one in which the author is firmly on the side of the protagonist, rather than arrayed cynically against him!
One of Hutchinson's neat touches is to make the two main characters both sympathetic to democracy and social justice and with an aversion to the tsarist regime. This makes it all the more effective when they become the tyrannised victims of ...Bolshevism.
Now here are some remarks from critics, taken from an annotated bibliography of items by and about Hutchinson.
"...enthralling...has an irresistible excitingness...[Huntchinson] is unquestionably among modern novelists, in the very highest class, and good enough to make mostof his contemporaries look trivial" -- Frank Swinnerton, The Observer
"...a victory of imagination" -- Kate O'Brien, Spectator
"A book of extraordinary richness and diversity" -- C. Day Lewis, Book Society News
Several reviewers objected that the book was too long. As I approach the end, I would say, it does seem long, but not padded. It's "immersive." I certainly intend to pick up another of his novels before too long, perhaps Elephant and Castle or A Child Possessed.
I wonder if this novel has a future, though. If someone has grown up on rapid-clicking devices, would he or she be able to stick it out?
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