During the Reign of the Queen of Persia is narrated by a young girl in a small town in Ohio in the 1950s. Or her sister. Or her cousins. Possibly the cousins collectively. Possibly all four girls independently; I never could tell. The second page of Joan Chase's novel states, directly enough, "There were four of us then, two his daughters, two his nieces, all of born within two years of each other. Uncle Dan treated the four of us the very same," and then adds, "sometimes we thought we were the same-- same blood, same rights of inheritance."
Clearly, Chase doesn't want us to consider that narrator an individual. All four of the "we" are observed by the narrator. The narrator's not Cecelia, because "we were very conscious of Cecelia." The narrator can't be Jenny, because "we" watch her getting the easy spelling words while Neil saves the hard ones for "us", his daughters. Neil's daughters are Katie and Annie, but neither can be the narrator because "we're" afraid when "Katie and Annie" fight, but we leave them to it. Both of "our" mothers are called "Aunt" throughout. Aunt Grace is married to Neil and Aunt Libby is married to Uncle Dan. "We" just keep telling the story.
This unease about who is telling the story bugs me far more than it should. Apparently, I really appreciate knowing who is relating a personal story. I like to be able to judge the narrator's credibility based on his or her age, experience and bias of relationship to other characters. The indefinite "we" doesn't allow for such judgments.
The Jane Austen Book Club (read last year) used a similar structure. By the end I had to assume that "we", the first person plural narrator, was the club, and that a club could have snarky personal asides. A club with a first person plural personality makes some (very small quantity) of sense.
I finished During the Reign of the Queen of Persia without any good idea as to why Chase used the unusual voice or why she messed with the chronology and overall structure of the book so much. Perhaps the devices, along with the sad ending made DtRotQoP feel like a much weightier book than it really is. I'm not sure. Anyone read it?
Certainly, I have friends who would enjoy reading DtRotQoP, but I also can't think of anyone who should put forth great effort to track it down.
I'd like any thoughts about other works written in first person plural. In particular, other books in which all members of the collective are separately viewed in the third person, thus ruling them out as an individual choosing to represent the collective.
Ideas?
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7 comments:
I think Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides has a 'choral' narrator or something like it -- the neighborhood boys seem to tell the story as a kind of collective memory. I like the effect and it adds to the uncanniness and the voyeuristic quality of the book. I can't think of any others, though.
Madame Bovary begins with a "we," the classmates of Charles Bovary, but it's dropped after a few pages, just one of many points of view in the novel.
We can't think of anything. Janet did try her best to think of a book.
Marieke- My recollection of the movie of the virgin suicides is that the voice overs were of "we" the boys of the neighborhood, and it worked well because the story wasn't about the boys and it was plausible the collective boys experienced the girls the same way.
What was intriguing/disturbing about DtRotQoP was that the story was about the girls and how they grew up. "We" didn't experience things way. The third person discussions of individuals make that clear, but the first person plural narrator suggests consistency of experience that didn't happen.
Last year, I started reading a memoir of a couple journeying around the world. It, too, used a first person plural narrator and then spoke of each individual in the third person. After many pages of "our" travels and what "we" (we being very clearly the couple who wrote the book), I hit the first passage where the individuals were named. It sounded like this, "We sat down to make a plan over some wine. Carol suggested Bali. Mike had the a great idea of frequent flier miles. We poured more wine and kept planning well into the night." It took a few moments to realize that Carol and Mike were the authors and nobody else was present at the big planning dinner. Annoying as that was, it was just an editing choice. In DtRotQoP, Chase is trying to use the ambiguity, but I'm still not sure to what end.
AR- Should I add Madame Bovary to my list?
Janet- we appreciate your efforts and sparkling squirrel will thank you personally some day.
Should I add Madame Bovary to my list?
What list? List of the greatest novels? Yes.
AR- It is already on the list of books I would like to read someday, but not on the list I plan to read in the next year or so. Relative to all the other books you have suggested I read, is it great enough to make the priority list?
I don't know! For the reader neurotically reading nothing but the 25, or 2500, Greatest Novels of All Time, Madame Bovary should be very near the top of the list, one of the first books you read.
But I don't read that way, and I don't recommend that anyone should. So, I don't know!
It is by no means a warm book. It is exquisitely written, in every detail. Few readers like many of the characters - few readers like any. It's not very long. The plot is surprisingly forceful and engaging, given that Flaubert claimed to want to write a novel about nothing. So, if you're in the mood for that bundle of characteristics, yes! Otherwise, what's the hurry?
I should update my Humiliation post, my list of books I "should" have read, but haven't. Since I wrote that, I've read a few of them. No hurry for the rest.
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