My post about The Human Stain yesterday has prompted the following comments. Wendy James, of Troppo Armadillo, writes from Aus:
I haven’t read the Roth in question, but as to whether it matters “that the convention of Nathan as the narrator requires, as Mullan says, ‘peculiar suspensions of disbelief’”: I would say that if it’s in the context of a novel set in the real world, then yes it does. I remember in a graduate writing class a student – whose novel has since been published and was reasonably well-received – read a scene in which the narrator told of a journey made while the protagonist was unconscious. If it had been told by an omniscient third person narrator, well, no problems. But when the novel’s being told in the first person, that point of view’s just not possible; the first person is a very limiting perspective (the novel I’m currently writing is first person – you get sick of the ‘voice’ apart from anything else), but readers know and expect these (human?) limitations.
Then again, if it didn’t bother you… I s’pose if you’re Philip Roth, you can get away with anything. (p.s. The author of said novel did remove the scene in question before publication.)
Luke Weiger writes from Michigan:
“…However, this man (Nathan Zuckerman) narrates things which he cannot possibly know about through direct experience, research or anything else.”
Roth does the same thing, and does it more noticeably, in American Pastoral (an even better book than The Human Stain). It’s his way of drawing our attention to what authors are in the business of doing (i.e. narrating “things which [they] cannot possibly know through etc…”). Much of Roth’s work during the ’80s and ’90s reflects his deep scepticism towards narrative building (a process which, of course, all reflective beings engage in)…
I shall mull this over before making up my mind. It’s similar territory, I guess, to the question about whether it matters or not – whether it spoils the novel – that John Fowles gives The French Lieutenant’s Woman two alternative endings. Someone I know well thinks it does, but I wasn’t troubled. I just chose the ending I preferred.