• The epistolary form is the epitome of what a novel is due to its ability to create such realism and accounts of events (Fiction or otherwise).

But why this topic idea?

• nothing was really written on it (although this was bad and good)
• fact that I become so immersed in this type of novel form

Questions that helped to support the paper:

• What can this type of novel do for the reader?
• How does this form create effect?
• What’s the deal with the anonymous author?
• What’s the ideal format? Is there even one?
• Where and why did this form begin?
• Why is it still so popular?

Work Cited:

Duyfhuizen, Bernard. “Epistolary Narratives of Transmission and Transgression.” Comparative Literature 37 (1985): 1-26.

Duyfhuizen, Bernard. Narratives of Transmission.  Cranbury, NJ: Associated UP, 1992.  23-203.

Field, Trevor.  Form & Function in the Diary Novel. Totowa, NJ: Roman & Littlefield, 1989. 1-158.

The novel is only one of many possible prose narrative forms. It shares with other narratives, like the epic and the romance, two basic characteristics: a story and a story-teller. The epic tells a traditional story and is an amalgam of myth, history, and fiction. Its heroes are gods and goddesses and extraordinary men and women. The romance also tells stories of larger-than-life characters. It emphasizes adventure and often involves a quest for an ideal or the pursuit of an enemy. The events seem to project in symbolic form the primal desires, hopes, and terrors of the human mind and are, therefore, analogous to the materials of dream, myth, and ritual. Although this is true of some novels as well, what distinguishes the novel from the romance is its realistic treatment of life and manners. Its heroes are men and women like ourselves, and its chief interest, as Northrop Frye said, is “human character as it manifests itself in society.”

It then goes on to talk about the development of the novel, reasons for the novel’s popularity, experimentation with the novel, and proliferation of types.  One of my favorite things that this person states is that the novel “represents the lives of the majority of people”.  This I think is quite true and creepy at the same time.  It’s true because in a sense it much easier to interpret then lets say poetry and shakespearean plays. However, it’s hard to think about how much it represents peoples lives especially in the novels that we have read this semester.  I personally cannot relate to a sex change or fabricating my own abduction, but I do suppose that this has to pertain to some people, otherwise how would we have such stories come about.  I think I might look into this idea of what other people think about the novel because it is definitely helping me to start getting a firm grasp on what I think the novel is.

"a circle so related to any given triangle as to pass through the three points in
which the perpendiculars from the angles of the triangle
      upon the opposite sides (or the sides produced) meet the
      sides. It also passes through the three middle points of
      the sides of the triangle and through the three middle
      points of those parts of the perpendiculars that are
      between their common point of meeting and the angles of
      the triangle. The circle is hence called the six points circle."

This has to be some sort of ironic senario considering the fact that if you fold a six piece circle in half it will always match with it’s complement.  hm odd.  I could be reading way too much into this but I am sort of convinced that Mitchell’s intent may have been to create a puzzle out of a novel.

Going with that idea, I am inspired to look up other reviews of this novel and see what they had thought about this form of a novel.  This is what I found:

• “Cloud Atlas is a singular achievement, from an author of extraordinary ambition and skill, setting himself challenges that would drive most authors to madness” (reviewsofbooks.com)

• “David Mitchell entices his readers on to a rollercoaster, and at first they wonder if they want to get off. Then – at least in my case – they can’t bear the journey to end. Like Scheherazade, and like serialised Victorian novels and modern soaps, he ends his episodes on cliffhangers and missed heartbeats. But unlike these, he starts his next tale in another place, in another time, in another vocabulary, and expects us to go through it all again” (guardian.uk.co)

• “What is interesting is the way the author deliberately chooses a symmetric nested structure so that you have to read the entire book to see what happens to each of the characters. Each chapter until he middle of the book ends abruptly but returns in the second half of the book to continue the plot. The writing styles are wildly different, requiring a prolific writer to master the nuances” (Bonjournal.com)

I have to agree with the idea that this novel is much like being on a rollercoaster in the sense that just as the section builds up you drop back down or drop off and start up with another hill of a section.  I don’t like what the last quote says, however, in the sense that I do not need to be tricked into reading to the end of the novel and I do not think that Cloud Atlas has done that.  I suppose I feel this way because I think that writing in journal form is a cop out to an extent (as I have written in previous posts), especially when the author does so and just leaves mid sentence.

Anyways,  I did enjoy the Luisa Rey chapter since it was very mystery like and I thought I was trying to discover something.  I am understanding a bit more of the connection between the stories or chapters since they following at least one string of the previous one.  In terms of the character Luisa, she again showed me how easily it is for people to take on another identity. Even thought I wrote in my exploratory paper that people form false identities in order to gain attention, I don’t think that in the case of Luisa.  She is simply trying to figure out the whole plant thing and get to the bottom of the Sixsmith murder.

And just for anyone that is still confused (mostly for me) I wiki’d the plot and here it is:

The book consists of six nested stories that take us from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to the far future after a nuclear apocalypse. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or watched) by the main character in the next.

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing

Pacific Ocean, circa 1850. Adam Ewing, an American notary‘s account of a voyage home from the remote Chatham Islands, east of New Zealand. The next character discovers this story as a diary on his patron’s bookshelf.

Letters from Zedelghem

Zedelgem, Belgium, 1931. Robert Frobisher, a penniless young English musician, finds work as an amanuensis to a composer living in Belgium. This story is saved in the form of letters to his friend (and implied lover) Rufus Sixsmith, which the next character discovers after meeting Sixsmith.

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery.

Buenas Yerbas, California, 1975. Luisa Rey, a journalist, investigates reports of corruption and murder at a nuclear power plant. The next character is sent this story in the mail, in the form of a manuscript for a novel .

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

United Kingdom, early 21st century. Timothy Cavendish, a vanity press publisher, flees the brothers of his gangster client. The next character watches a movie dramatisation of this story.

An Orison of Sonmi~451

Nea So Copros (Korea), dystopian near future. Sonmi~451, a genetically-engineered fabricant (clone) server at Papa Song’s diner, is interviewed before her execution after she rebels against the society that created and exploited her kind. The next character sees this story projected holographically in an “orison,” a futuristic recording device.

Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After

Hawaii, post-apocalyptic distant future. Zach’ry, a tribesman living a primitive life after most of humanity dies during “the fall,” is visited by Meronym, a member of the last remnants of technologically-advanced civilisation. This story is told when the protagonist is an old man, to seemingly random strangers around a camp-fire.

I apologize if this may have ruined the connecting bits of the novel for anyone, however, it might be quite necessary to see how the rest of the novel plays out.

On the other hand, it makes me a bit upset that he hides behind this mask of journal entries.  It’s here that I agree with Brandon in the sense that you don’t have to make everything connect, since the next journal entry can be however long away from the previous one.  I like the journal entry set up in Myra because you were hit with so much fucked up brilliance, that it was nearly a relief to have a few days pass before Myra’s next conquest.  Ewing does not have this sense of …well anything entertaining…that we either need to not have such long boring entries or we need an actual fluid novel where we learn about problems and issues (not just the idiots guide to tooth hunting).

As we trod through the rest of the novel, there is something quite ingenious about this whole monkey-to-novel chronology that is going on.  I think that it is a good opportunity to really see how things have changed and formed throughout the history of literature, possibly giving us a key to who we are as readers (which is what Dr. Middleton said).  Also, I kind of like how it is forcing us to look elsewhere for information, prior to reading a section, just so we know how to approach it.  Never before have I really had to do this for a novel, and while it might be more work, I feel as if I may get more out of the novel as a whole.

Then there is Armstrong, whom I would love to use if I did do a novel by Jane Austen or one of the Bronte sisters.  I like the idea of looking at the “new woman” and what it means then and now.  I agree with Maegan in the sense that although this new woman is not the new woman in the sense of Myra, it is still quite empowering for women in general.  I find it interesting to see how the typical woman’s role has evolved and how it possibly has not changed at all.  In terms of a novel, such as Jane Eyre, it would be good to look at sexuality through this perspective.  Lucaks is interesting because I would be able to get a sense of the form of the novel and whether or not it helped or hindered the final product.  I love the use of transcendental homelessness and how it directly relates to the form as well.  The example given in class about Myra was perfect to because could we really deal without the Buck Loner Reports?  I’m not so sure.

Thinking back about English 330, I’m not even sure how I got through it.  But I suppose the more that you are exposed to theory the easier it gets?  I know that I, much like Lauren had said in class, have a difficult time in reading theory.  I think it’s best to make sure and get some background research (even wikipedia) so that it’s easier to understand what the hell we are reading.  When I began to read Jameson, I was completely dumbfounded, mostly due to the vernacular that I have never heard, learned or read.  After I looked up the words, this became a little bit easier.  It is quite true, however, that you must read a theory piece many times before you can extract the information that the author is trying to convey.  I found myself not only resourcing wikipedia, but a couple of other college resources and JSTOR.  I suppose I also would have had an easier time in reading this article if I read it solely with the novel in mind the first time, rather than realizing that’s what I should have done the 3rd time through.  Silly me.

• not want to become an Arsonist (until quite recently and mostly thanks to Myra)
• look at the world in a different perspective (such as seeing how a young girl can fabricate a fabrication of a story…good going Mary).
• want to keep reading (determination to figure out the plot of the story, or who is lying or telling the truth).
• want to go back and read portions of the novel again (I’m curious to go back and read Uses of Enchantment to see any clues that I may have missed that would lead to such an ending).

2.  John Gardner’s:

A novel is like a symphony in that its closing movement echoes and resounds with all that has gone before. . . . Toward the close of a novel. . . . unexpected connections begin to surface; hidden causes become plain; life becomes, however briefly and unstably, organized; the universe reveals itself, if only for the moment, as inexorably moral; the outcome of the various characters’ actions is at last manifest; and we see the responsibility of free will.

In response to John Gardner’s quote, I have to agree that the novel is much like a symphony in the sense that they are never the same and like the music you get so intertwined and involved with the words that you become apart of it.  Naturally, this would create anxiety until you reach the end of the novel where you will be able to figure out what was going on, and how it happened.  Gardner says that this part is where it “echoes and resounds with all that has gone before”. As a reader you tend to go back (no matter how annoying or painful it may be) to look at places in the text that could have helped for foreshadow the impending closure.  It’s here that you realize that you may have read the novel without noticing these things completely, creating the notion that you really knew what was going on in the novel.  By noticing these things at the end, however, it gives you an opportunity to go back and re read the novel and then form a whole new understanding of it (one of the reasons I think helps to make a great novel).

Gardner then goes on to say that “the universe reveals itself” and “responsibility of free will”.  This alludes to the idea where after reading such a novel you become less oblivious to things outside of your personal world.  Its as if you are finally seeing the bigger picture and everything finally makes sense.  I’d have to say that I see this in that you begin to see how teenage girls can create stories or incidents in order for attention, love, sexuality or some combination.  Not that it makes sense to allow yourself to get abducted or lie about it, but you can better understand why someone would.

Analysis: As for that last line in the paragraph, I must say that this was a bit of a turning point in not only the paragraph, but for the rest of the chapter.  The words “keep their sadness to themselves” indicates that these girls were miserable and would probably do anything to escape and get some kind of attention.  Then there is “materially spoiled” which is just another ploy to shut them up and make them happy.  But what if getting everything you wanted in life (materially) is not going to make things any better.  What if the reality of it all is that these girls are simply not getting enough love to begin with and are being taught to be little adults and emotionless. How damaging.  The fact that she acknowledges a painting (that one can assume she has seen nearly everyday of her life) for so long, might allude to the idea that she is wishing for some kind of attention, even if it’s as bad as what is happening in the painting, and even if she has to make it up.  Then there is the whole grin and bear it idea.  This is just another way of taping the mouths of the girls who wish to speak their mind, but instead are told to smile and act pretty.  These girls, however, DONT” SURVIVE IN THE REAL WORLD.  This might even be related to Mary’s mother and the notion that she has just smiled and dealt with her daughter’s incident (whether it happened or not).

Synthesis: This paragraph brings to the novel the scene where it supposedly all began.  Or maybe it was beginning all the while that the painting was hanging on the wall; poor women begging to be acknowledged.  As it said in the paragraph, the faces of those that were watching had very little imagination.  This is would seem that Mary is trying to find a way to be recognized.  How can she no longer be the average student, the middle child, the okay looking one.  When will it be her turn to be seen by all? This might then be one of the reasons that young girls make up such stories (as bad as it is to create a lie like this).  It could be that a girl who feels that she is being neglected in some way, shape or form, she may look to drastic measures in order to not only get attention but make up for the time that was lost in not getting attention.  The girl may be looking for the thing that will get her sympathy, empathy, love and affection all at the same time.  Or, the girl could be crazy and selfish and just a bitch for doing this. Who knows.

I’m really stuck on the whole getting into a car with a stranger ordeal…if he even is a stranger.  I’m not sure my parents would think it’s ok to get into the car with someone and get a ride home.  BAD PARENTING! And speaking of the parents…what is going on with the Mother…I understand that she has passed away…but she doesn’t like her own daughter?  She yells at the therapists?  Help I don’t get it.  Did her mother believe her abduction story…if so what is the story? Or did her mother also believe that she made it up like Dr. Roz.

Going back to the Myra novel really quick, I definitely think that you should use it in future classes.  And I say this not because I have never read a novel that has made me feel so many different ways and think in some many other ways.  It’s like I was in the twilight zone, all twisted and confused, and while I still am confused, I have learned to look at the world through a new perspective. I think that if a novel is able to contradict everything that you have thought and believed, and actually make you start believing what it says…than everyone should read it.  I can’t really explain how Gore Vidal made a novel do such a thing, other than the fact  the novel is about things taht I do not encounter in my everyday life.  I think that talking about things that are supposedly taboo (even in todays society) can help to transform the reader into an enlightened thinker (or a crazy person).  Either way, I think that difficult novels without distinct answers are a good way to create discussion among students in and out of the classroom.  Also, this will gain the interest of students for research projects since they will want to know more about these inappropriate topics.

Overall, I would have to say that I might not have understood a whole lot about this novel, but I would definitely tell people to read it for these reasons 1) I couldn’t put it down 2) I started to lose it 3) I want you to lose it 4) It’s really interesting and can make you think/feel in a way you control and 5) it might be the most messed up ridiculous thing  you read in your life. Good luck.