Referring to the predictability of the television sensation Lost (a series that, despite repeated urgings from friends, I have not yet seen), Steve of This Space has this to say about current narrative:
We are meant to be moved. We react by understanding that we are to feel moved. But we feel nothing. Sometimes it’s good to feel nothing. We know where to go when we need to feel nothing. It’s called Popular Culture.
While tropes are an inevitable element of narrative (particularly in film and television), I wonder how much these sentiments apply to literature. How much of contemporary literature is dictated by predictable behavior? Further, when a novelist pulls off a series of successful plot twists (Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith comes to mind), is that novelist, however successful her work, guilty of playing directly to the audience? Is there something innately within the novel form that prevents it from succombing to artifice or is the medium abstract enough to produce more emotional reactions from readers and academics alike?
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
It seems to me that there’s an false distinction here. A trope is merely a plot device that failed to engage or surprise the audience. If Lost were a better show (read: if the writers cared about telling a coherent story or making their characters believable) then the plot twists would move the audience no matter how predictable they were.
For the record, I’ve read plenty of books in which the plot twists were predictable and failed to move me. I’ve also read predictable books that managed to move me because they had something else – good characterization, beautiful writing – going for them.
I’m reading Fingersmith right now. I’m just past the first major twist and kicking myself for not guessing it sooner than I did.