Point of View Revisited

Auditor and Narrator: The Magic Kingdom by Russell Banks
Not long ago, I wrote in this space about Ann Patchett’s recent novel, Tom Lake. There were many aspects of the novel that I appreciated, but the one thing that prompted me to share my admiration for it was the point-of-view choice that Patchett made. The novel is narrated by a married woman with three grown daughters who is recounting the story of her life and, in particular, her long-ago love affair with a man who became a famous actor. What made this choice noteworthy for me was that it was clear from the outset that the woman was telling this story to her daughters—not some faceless reader, as with many novels—but real people who not only react to the narrative but also help shape it in the way the narrator uses language and makes decisions about what to leave out or emphasize.
In discussing the novel and the notion that in it the reader has a clear idea of to whom the story is being told, I recalled a workshop I took many years ago with Russell Banks (perhaps best known for his novel Cloudsplitter). Banks suggested that writers of fiction should consider the fictional auditor as carefully as they do the narrator. He gave the example of imagining himself as a boy lying in bed at night telling a story to his brother. The identity of the auditor would affect the way he tells the story, the language he uses, and the details he chooses to include.
I’m reminded of this lesson now because I’ve just finished reading Banks’s last novel, The Magic Kingdom, which was published not long before his death. Set in Florida, the book’s title is clearly a reference to Disney World, but also refers to a Shaker colony that preceded Disney World on the same site. The structure of the novel is of the “found manuscript” variety. A fictional writer, Russell Banks, has found a box of reel-to-reel tapes recorded by an elderly real-estate broker, Harley Mann, and invites us to listen to those tapes. At the end, the fictional Banks provides some additional context that adds resolution to the story that the tapes have told.
So, the narrator of the novel is the man speaking into a tape recorder. This, obviously, isn’t quite the same as telling the story of your life to your children. He is telling about a significant period of his life when he lived in that Shaker colony, but how does the recorder shape his narrative?
Fairly late in the telling of his story, Harley addresses this question. “Because I don’t know who I’m telling this story to, I’m unsure of what to say and what to leave out, what to describe and what to pass over, how much background to provide and how much to forgo.” This is exactly the lesson that Banks taught in that workshop long ago. But Harley goes on. “I decided then, as now, that I was speaking to a listening angel of the Lord, though I don’t believe in angels or, for that matter, the Lord. But it’s a useful conceit. . . . [I]t’s as if my words were directed exclusively to a listening angel of the Lord and were merely being overheard, rather than heard, by whoever happened to be in the room.” Given that the whole narrative is something of a confession, this makes perfect sense.
Another Approach: The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Recently, a new bookstore in my town began an International Book Club, which, given my international work and travels, I find enticing. It’s a little difficult to find time to fit another book club’s reading into my schedule (I facilitate my own book club, which has been meeting monthly for fifteen years), but I’m going to try. I was away for the first session, which was a discussion of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgkov, which I’ve never read. The bookstore owner is from Russia, so she led the discussion. I did attend the second session because I had already read the book to be discussed, Prague by Arthur Phillips. (I had read the book, which is set in Budapest, not Prague, at the recommendation of a friend who actually led the discussion at the store.) I missed the next meeting because of travel, when the group discussed One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which I would gladly have reread. Because of a local showing of the movie based on Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, which I read last summer, the group talked about that book next.
For February, the IBC will discuss The Vegetarian by Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature. Because of my experience and long-held interest in Korea, I was asked to moderate the discussion, so I’ve just reread the book and have also read other work by her.
The book is actually three linked novellas that were first published separately in Korea. The three parts have different narrators, all focused on their interactions with Kim Yeong-hye, a young woman who, because of a dream, has suddenly become a vegetarian. In the first part, her husband has to deal with the change that has come over his wife and the mental breakdown that follows. In the second part, we now see Yeong-hye from the perspective of her sister’s husband, an artist who convinces her to be a model in his latest video project. And in the last part, Yeong-hye’s sister struggles to understand and care for Yeong-hye who is now confined to a mental hospital and refuses to eat, believing that she is becoming a tree and so only needs water.
While the auditor of these narratives isn’t clear, what’s interesting to me is that novel’s main character is seen primarily through the eyes of the three narrators. Her dark dreams, which are rendered in italics, do give us some insight into her thoughts and what is behind her descent into madness, but we don’t otherwise know what she’s thinking. She doesn’t even say much. Despite remaining outside of her consciousness, the portrait is literally three-dimensional because of the very different perspectives of the three narrators.
I’m looking forward to the discussion. As part of my involvement, I also provided a blog post that you may find interesting, along with a list of recommended books: Understanding Asia One Novel At a Time.
Flutes Reading Series in Lynchburg, VA
If you happen to be in or near Lynchburg on Sunday, January 19, please join me for the Flutes Reading Series at the Flutes Wine Shop and Lounge. I’ll be joining non-fiction writer Marilyn Bousquin at 4:00 pm for the latest edition of this new reading series. I look forward to reading from and discussing my book, The Last Bird of Paradise.