From a Distance

Last night I made a listmania! version of the summer reading list; it is the inaugural link in the "places to go" section at the bottom of the page. I also stayed up far too late reading The Lovely Bones. Alice Sebold pulls off an interesting trick: she begins the book with what most people would read as the climax: "I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973" (5). My first thought was Great. Is she now going to subject me to 323 pages of resolution? But in spite of myself, I couldn't help but continue reading. I'm through chapter seven and I'm struck by the realization that I should have known all along, having just wrapped up the ninth grade study of Romeo and Juliet: what compels me to read The Lovely Bones is nothing more than dramatic irony- I know who killed the narrator, Susie Salmon, and where and how he did it; the suspense comes in watching as the truth is slowly revealed to the living characters.

I'm concurrently re-reading John Knowles' 1959 classic A Separate Peace, in which the adult narrator, Gene, tells of one dramatic summer in his career as a student at Devon Preparatory School (modeled after Philps Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire).

Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I had made my escape from it. (2)

It wasn't my intention, but this current pair of novels contrasts well with King Dork and Speak in the category of what I'll call "narrative proximity." While both Tom and Melinda narrate their stories relatively soon after they've occurred, Gene (of A Separate Peace) and Susie (of The Lovely Bones) speak from a distance- Gene from adulthood and Susie from beyond the grave (which is not the same thing, thank you). How does this affect the validity of what they have to say? Should we put more stock in an account told years after the fact, with time allowed for reflection, or should we favor in-the-moment renditions from narrators still under the immediate influence of the events they're detailing?