A key factor that made this novel so unique was the extreme use of writing in a non-chronological order. Every time a new chapter began, its setting was different from the previous chapter. In my opinion, this method of writing was extremely effective for this type of book. Because there were so many characters, and all of their lives were entangled in some way, the non-chronological order kept me continuously interested in finding out more.
"The Biscayne firing into the intersection just as an old black pickup truck- headlights off, gunned at the last minute by another drunk driver trying to make a late-amber light- streaked in from the left, thundered, then crumpled Alvis's car door, T-boned the Biscayne, and then drove it through the intersection, an endless screech of steel and glass" (Walter 269).
After reading this passage, one would automatically assume that this character, Alvis, is out of the story for good due to his death in a car accident. The non-chronological writing technique however, allows for Alvis to still be in the book after his death. The very next chapter actually takes place 5 years before Alvis's death while he is alive and well. In this specific instance, I found the author's writing technique to be especially effective. This type of writing impacts the readers style of reading greatly. Knowing that he is going to die in 5 years, the reader feels like they have been let in on some sort of secret that only they are aware of. It also forces the reader to pay close attention to the details of the person's life to see if maybe there is anything that foreshadows their death. This technique of writing makes Alvis's untimely death even more difficult to bear because you have to read about how he meets his future wife, while knowing that he only has 5 more years to live. Overall, I believe the author made an excellent choice in piecing his novel together like this, and I do not believe it would have been as successful had it been written in chronological order.
I agree with this, and believe that the unique time frame Walter used allowed us to make even deeper connections with the characters and find out more about them than we would have with a chronological order of writing. This style of writing made it possible for the reader to follow the stories of numerous characters, yet at the same time avoid feeling overwhelmed. The way Walter jumped back and forth from various settings and time frames made the reader continue to question the characters involvement with one another the entire time. Walter rarely, if ever, came right out and told the reader about the complicated relationship of numerous characters. Instead, he gave us the opportunity to figure the relationships out on our own by piecing the individual stories together.
ReplyDeleteFinding out the connection between Michael Deane and Dee Moray was one of the first and most important relationships the reader discovered. After I became aware of this I feel as though I was able to make more accurate inferences about the future connections that would be made and how the story line would pan out. Although by no means was I always correct, however, having the ability to make these connections and infer relationships among the characters, the book was even more intriguing and interesting to continue reading.
I also really liked the way the book was written in a non-chronological manner. In the beginning when i started reading it, i really didn't like how in almost every chapter there were different characters being introduced because it just got to be so overwhelming and confusing. I would get frustrated because I thought that some of the characters are just there to fill the pages and didnt really have any importance to the main story of the book, but as I kept reading, i realized that all of the characters are in some way connected and without the information from each character, in the depth in which they were described by Walter, the book would have not been as interesting as it is.
ReplyDeleteI think that it really takes a skilled writer to have such a large number of characters in a 340 paged book. Not only did Walter describe each and every character enough so that the reader could build a personal relationship with them (because thats what makes a reader keep reading the book), but she also told the story in a way that switched back and forth from the past and the present time. Even though it was confusing at times and I sometimes wanted to just read all about one person first and then move to the next character, each chapter had something interesting about each character which kept me from skipping chapters and reading about the characters in the previous chapter so that i could keep the chronological order in my head.