Incognito First Person POV

[Homer Potvin]

I mentioned this in another thread about the POV in Less by Andrew Sean Greer and forgot to come back to it when I finished the book a while back. In the novel, there is a first person POV but only four or five "I-guy" references in the book until the end. You forget it's there for forty or fifty pages at a time and then a random "I" appears for no reason at all. The net effect is that the book reads as objective POV because we're never able to get inside the head of the protagonist, Arthur Less, who is in every scene. Yet the first person narrator, who is not personified, will offer observational opinions and thoughts about situations and other characters, but not from Arthur Less's perspective, which you would think would play wonky but does not.

I should add that it's a capital L literary novel that won a Pulitzer... one of those books where every bit of prose is so perfectly executed it's almost annoying.

Toward the very end it is revealed that the I-guy narrator is actually one of the recurring characters in the book, yet that character is framed as all the others are. It's like the narrator has been disembodied, is looking down on himself, and talking about himself objectively in the third person. "Incognito" (to even himself) is the only word to describe it. Or maybe "inverted." I've never seen anything like it before but it works perfectly.

I don't really have a question... just wanted to mention how messed up it is. I guess I would ask if anyone has seen anything like before? It would be like Watson narrating Sherlock Holmes but referring to himself as Watson in an objective POV with only an unrelated I-guy reference to remind us there was a first person narrator sitting somewhere, but never clueing us in that it's really Watson.

 

[Naomasa298]

I've seen a fair number of stories with an unnamed protagonist who participates in the scene and narrates in first person, yes. I think Lovecraft does that a lot. But it's not quite the same as what you're describing.

Maybe it's a dissociative, or out-of-body narrator, and kind of self-observer?

 

[Banespawn]

It sounds like 3rd-omni with an intrusive narrator. The conceit, though, seems to be that the narrator is also a character in the story and refer to him/herself in the 3rd person, and you don't find out until the end that the narrator is that character.

I can't say I've read anything exactly like it. The only thing similar that I've read is Tress of the Emerald Sea. It's omniscient with an intrusive, 1st-person narrator who is also a character in the story. The 3rd-person parts feel more like 3rd limited, though, and the narrator reveals early on who he is. IIRC, the narrator as character was referred to in the 3rd-person, but only from the FMC's perspective.

My attempt so far to write something similar has been fun but challenging.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

I read a book where the first person incognito turned out to be either a green or black mamba. Wish I could recall title or author or even the plot, but all I recall is the snake. Bite! Bite! Bite!

 

[Naomasa298]

In the short story, Learning To Be Me, by Greg Egan, the narration is first person. It appears to be by a man who is considering having his organic brain removed, and it being replaced by the "jewel" all people have implanted in their heads as children. This jewel eventually replicates the thought patterns of the person, and once the organic brain is removed, functions as their brain, greatly reducing cases of vaious diseases. As the story progresses, he starts losing control over his body.

He (and the reader) discovers that he is, in fact, the jewel. When the person has their organic brain removed, they will die, and he, the jewel, will remain in control of the body. This is another unreliable narrator, I think, but isn't this whole POV another form of an unreliable narrator?

 

[Homer Potvin]

but isn't this whole POV another form of an unreliable narrator?

If you mean the one in Less that I mentioned, no, it is not unreliable, at least not overtly. I suppose you could make a subtextual argument for it, though, in the sense that he does not reveal himself when he is taking about himself by swapping the "he" for the "I." Actually, maybe he is unreliable? I just cracked the book open to find a scene where the first person narrator, Freddy, is narrating himself in the third person to see how he uses pronouns because I had a feeling he used the name "Freddy' as much as possible to duck that contradiction. For the most part, he does, but then I found this paragraph:

Freddy seemed about to say something mores, then stopped himself. He was silent, but his gaze was that of someone memorizing a photograph. What did he see there? He turned from Less and reached for his glasses. "You should kiss me like it's good-bye."

The underline is mine, but that's the real kicker sentence. The "I-guy" is talking about himself in the third person from an objective POV where he never penetrates his own thoughts or anyone else's. Maybe that's unreliable in a sense? But it's not like the "I-guy" is hidden. He reminds us that he's here every now and then. And there are two mini chapter breaks with the Freddy in full "I" persona speaking with Less, though we have no idea who he supposed to be. I eventually guessed his identity correctly, but there were like five pages left before the reveal so I don't think that counts.

I get that all POV is a spectrum that waves in and out of scene and subtext, changing it's hat whenever it wants, but I've never seen anything quite like this.

The book is a solid B/B+ and worth a read if you're into the whimsical literary sledgehammer style. It's short and not purple-y at all, but like I said, every phrase and sentence is so perfectly executed that I kept muttering "I hate you" to the author every other paragraph or so. And, yeah, that is unabashed petty jealousy on my part. The one line that made me drop the book was something like, "He wore a look like a man that had just won the bronze medal in a three man race." That line is so perfect and evocative that I wanted to puke.

 

[Stuart Dren]

Interesting.

I've read a book where at the end it's revealed the story is actually told by a different character who modified the narrative to give it a happy ending, but it was still presented as a first-person story until then.

There's also first person with an anonymous character, like a murderer in a whodunit.

None of those fit what you mean though.

Freddy seemed about to say something mores, then stopped himself. He was silent, but his gaze was that of someone memorizing a photograph. What did he see there? He turned from Less and reached for his glasses. "You should kiss me like it's good-bye."

That's 50/50 either unreliable (withholding information) or merely a self reflective rhetorical.

 

[Homer Potvin]

That's 50/50 either unreliable (withholding information) or merely a self reflective rhetorical.

I think the withholding of information part is kind of like perjury... it has to be relevant and intended to deceive or exculpate to be a "crime" on the part of the narrator. Which it very well could be in this case, but it doesn't have that particular feeling. The self-reflective rhetorical, as you put it, is interesting. But you get the feeling that narrator Freddy and character Freddy are disembodied from each other.

I read a bit of the critical analysis on the subject, and one dude mentioned that the POV was chosen to give a light-hearted, whimsical, and emotionally detached view of what was actually a tragic story of a middle-aged manage suffering through failure, identity-crisis, loneliness, and an increasing pessimistic view of his ever shrinking future. I don't care much for literary analysis because it often assumes a level of intentionality on the part of the author that they themselves dismiss, but that's pretty accurate in this case. So maybe the unreliability of is the narrator framing a tragic story as a fun, global romp?

Not sure. Tell you what, though... I'm getting lots of whacky POV ideas now. I've always liked to be agile with it but there's some sick shit left to be done.

 

[Stuart Dren]

I think the withholding of information part is kind of like perjury... it has to be relevant and intended to deceive or exculpate to be a "crime" on the part of the narrator. Which it very well could be in this case, but it doesn't have that particular feeling. The self-reflective rhetorical, as you put it, is interesting. But you get the feeling that narrator Freddy and character Freddy are disembodied from each other.

Well it could be intended, or it could emerge from denial (which I think you're possibly hinting at with your mention of the analysis). He might be attempting to withhold information from himself as well. In my first novel, one POV's mother dies, but she just can't handle it. She decides her mother fled somewhere. She never reconciles this. The clues are there but it's up to the reader if he wants to draw a conclusion.

So maybe the unreliability of is the narrator framing a tragic story as a fun, global romp?

I mean, slay, that's good shit if so. Could see it going over most readers' heads for better or worse.

 

[Banespawn]

The one line that made me drop the book was something like, "He wore a look like a man that had just won the bronze medal in a three man race." That line is so perfect and evocative that I wanted to puke.

I wrote the following line the other day:

Mavaric looked him over like he was a fourth-prize pig.

I initially had it as third-prize, but thought fourth worked better because there typically are no prizes for 4th place.