The Storyteller

   

A FIVE YEAR OLD BOY is the protagonist of the Booker nominated book ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue. The story is narrated from his perspective which is pretty constricted as he is imprisoned in a room with his Ma since he was born. For him the outside world, fresh air, flowers, other people are just fairy tales. His reality is a eleven square foot room and one other human being - old  Nick, the man responsible for abducting Ma and continually raping her. A transition from the room to the world outside is a shattering experience for him and his Ma. What makes it utterly poignant and avant garde for the reader is the narration from the boy’s point of view. He is the triumph on which the book rides high. Structuring of a book is an art ever so subtle and masterful in the hands of great writers. The craft is prevalent, though superbly restrained, and holding the entire work seamlessly together. The narrator who tells the story is distinctly chosen by the writer, after great thought. Unusual narrators have contributed to the uniqueness of a book of fiction

 It happened yet again. Nilanjana Roy, the journalist and literary critic released her first book – ‘The Wildings, in which the narrators are CATS, cheels, dogs and tigers. Successful people don’t do different things , they do things differently. Imagine hearing the story from the perspective of cats, which she set out to do initially but later with the progression of the book other interesting animals too found a voice in the narration.

A masterstroke would be ‘My Name is Red’ by Orhan Pamuk in which the first narrator is a CORPSE. The book is narrated in 20 different voices, with a dog, a horse and the colour RED, too, taking turns to narrate the story of a miniaturist illuminator who is murdered in medieval Turkey. Here, we cannot but talk about DEATH as the narrator of ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak. The over busy death, weary and cynical of retrieving souls during World War II in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, is a humane entity, devoid of grotesque monstrosity, serving its purpose with great empathy. If I say a grandfatherly figure, I wouldn’t be far from it.

To take the conversation further, the first section of ‘Sound and Fury’ is from the point of view of an AUTISTIC  33-year old man Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a source of shame to the family due to his autism. The narration is a series of non-chronological events and shifts haphazardly. Limited by himself he cannot interpret time, cause and effect and conceives happenings through visual and auditory stimulus. Moving on to the autistic brave boy Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old boy who describes himself as "a mathematician with some behavioral difficulties” is a deserving mention here, from the book ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.’ Finding a keen grasp of his social fears, he solves the mystery of the murder of the dog and then goes on to find his mother. An appealing, quirky novel. A great feat, using a narrator with asperger syndrome.’ The chapters are numbered according to prime numbers; the book is filled with mathematical puzzles, maps and illustrations.

‘Metamorphosis’ by Franz Kafka is told by a GIANT INSECT– a young lad morphed into an insect. A symbolic, multi-layered story of human complexities.  ‘The Art of Racing in the Rain’ by Garth Stein uses brilliant narrative device. The narrator is the know-all old dog Enzo, who has mastered human behavior by watching TV when his master is away. The story of the master who is an aspiring car-racer is relayed from the perspective of his dog, who is as good as human except for opposable thumbs and no speech. He takes us through the joys and pains of marriage of his master, meddling in-laws, illness, highs and lows of a race-car driver. A catchy read with emotional strings attached to it. You will never be able to look at a dog in the same way again.

‘The Screwtape Letters’ by C.S Lewis is in the voice of two DEVILS who exchange letters between themselves. The letters appeared during the dark days of World War II and later came out as a book dedicated to his friend TRR Tolkien “The secrets out. You've stumbled upon a mysterious series of recorded conversations between two demons tasked with securing the demise of their human patients.” Delightfully disturbing (and often diabolically humorous) entertainment, The Screwtape Letters will open your eyes and ears to the devil's schemes — and to the One who has overcome them.”

 Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist in Invisible Man ushers readers to the stare and gaze of racial American society. A society who sees and yet does not see the black man as an individual in his own right. This looking without registering  impacts the victim and reduces him to a non entity with psychological repercussions of withdrawal, suppression and violence.

No doubt all the books mentioned above have been a great success of their times. Next time you set out to write a book, think hard who is going to do the talking.