Subsidence
Here is a link to a short story by Pat Barker I think you'll like.
Subsidence
As politicians battle to justify the war in Iraq, Ruth learns her husband has been lying. By Pat Barker
This morning there was a new crack in the bedroom ceiling, another tributary of the great river that snaked away into the shadows in the corner of the room.
"I hope it doesn't mean anything," Matt said when she pointed it out.
"Like what?"
"Subsidence."
"The surveyor would have mentioned it."
"We bought the house from a surveyor. They were probably best mates."
He was over by the window zipping up his trousers. She lay and watched him in the grey light, as he stuffed loose change, car keys, mobile phone into his pockets...
Rain darkened the bleached blond grass by the road side. She thought, It's nothing. He's started going to another golf club and not bothered to mention it.
Perhaps sensing her discomfiture Luke switched on the radio and they caught the tail end of a news bulletin. Weapons of mass destruction, dodgy dossier, 45 minutes, inadvertently misleading the House of Commons . . .
"Do you think they'll find any?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Weapons of mass destruction."
A cynical laugh. "Oh yes. Once they've had time to bury them."
Nobody believes anything they say now, she thought. Drops splattered on to the windscreen, were swept away by the tick-whoosh of the wipers and immediately replaced by other drops. She shivered inside her wet jacket. But people died.
People also die in Pat Barker's wonderful trilogy of historical fiction on the First World War. You're missing some of the best fiction available if you haven't read these books. Regeneration, followed by Eye in the Door, and finally Ghost Road which was awarded the Booker prize.
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Comments
"Nobody believes anything they say now, she thought."
How does Barker know what she thought?
Novelists are as untrustworthy as Prime Ministers nowadays.
Posted by: steve at splinters | July 21, 2003 1:50 PM
I'm not sure I understand. The story appears to be written in third person omniscient. Why wouldn't the author know what the character thought.
I like the Splinters site, by the way. I like the no holds barred approach. Even if I disagree I appreciate the honest commentary.
Posted by: Norm | July 21, 2003 2:28 PM
I was being tongue-in-cheek, almost. I have big problems with third person omnicience. I have a near physical revulsion when I read the first sentence of a story in that mode.
Clearly it's not something many others share! Bit like a golfer being allergic to grass perhaps, but sometimes the best are; like Tiger Woods.
Posted by: steve | July 22, 2003 3:23 AM
I see. It certainly does have some problems. I think George wrote much of the script for the war in third person omnicient.
Posted by: Norm | July 22, 2003 9:41 AM
A very good question would be--among the truly great novels which have been written in plain unrepentant third-person omniscient mode?
There are plenty of great novels in which the narrator tells us things which would be hard for an ordinary observer would know, i.e. thoughts. But that seems to be different from a matter-of-fact telling of thoughts, an absolutely omniscient narrator (the question that lingers with this kind of naration is: why is this Godlike narrator telling me all these thoughts and words? You'd think that such a being wouldn't bother.). It is my impression that of great modern novels that are told in the third person, it is at most like that of the directer of a film, who shows you exactly what can be seen and heard in a given situation, but where thoughts and other inner details of the story are up for interpretation and discovery. Great writers seem to acknowledge an element of unreliablility in every narrator, and recognize in their writing the fact that the characters also belong to the reader.
Posted by: dende blogger | July 22, 2003 12:33 PM
Hi everybody ou there! Please send me as much material of subsidence (by Barker) as you can- including reviews, analyses etc. Need them for study. THANKS A LOT!
Posted by: Tina | December 3, 2003 10:33 AM