March 2, 2015 - 21:39
Our conversation in class about the braided narration/narrative voices of this novel struck me as I continued to read and delve into The Hungry Tide. The “perspective switching” the Celeste names and can be seen in the novel, or the appearance of one thing which is shown up (or not) to be another, extends beyond the characters. I think that the reader implicated as well in the telling of these complex and interwoven stories. This has occurred several times, most notably when one character is telling another character a story of their own. A lot of liberties can be taken with third person omniscient storytelling, and this gives an author a lot of choices. When Kusum, for example, is describing to Kanai how her father died, we do not get her exact words. We do not even get his interpretation of her story, for instead the omniscient quality of the narrator takes over and the event is relayed to us in vivid, present detail with actions and intent spoken for. Even the tiger appears known, as “it was skilled in dealing with the wind, and it knew that the people on the other bank were powerless against these gusts” (90). This switching often went unnoticed for me when reading, and, if anything, it drew me in further, as a description of a scene as action is often more engaging than personal narration. It was only when I looked back, that I had to think a little harder about how some information had been relayed to me as the reader.
Did anyone else notice this switching? I think that it goes back to the question which we brought up in class but did not fully answer, which is to ask who is this omniscient narrator? Who do we assume they are? And how is it that they speak on every detail of a particular moment, down to the thoughts in a tiger’s head?
That reminds me of another quote that I had noted as I was reading, when Piya listens to Fokir singing. She wants to know the lyrics, “but she knew too that a river of words would not be able to tell her exactly what made the song sound as it did right then, in that place” (83). Initially, I thought that this quote was ironically a good depiction of what it feels like to be in a specific moment and not just struggle with representing it, but to not even want to, especially when paired with the reality that representing it will inevitably alter it. I know I at least have been struggling with this with my site sits, and even Nirmal cites this concept as he grapples with the impermanence of a particular time and place and putting it onto paper (58-59).
I guess I’m interested in this idea of switching between narratives, and who gets to speak for a particular moment in a particular narrative. In other words, I think that these two ideas (the switching--sliding?--of narrative perspective and the daunting near impossible task of representing reality) are connected in this text, but I’m still thinking about how exactly.