I'm a long-time lurker and I just have to say, I love posts and discussions like these! Not only for the insightful conversation between peers, but also because I now have some more books to add to my list...
Someone above mentioned The False Prince. I read the first book and felt that it was like The Thief, if not as polished, but was then disappointed to find that the following two books were also in first person. As some people have said already, most of the characters of this Gen-type are seen through the eyes of other characters. With a character like this, it is difficult to sustain a first-person narration without the character "telling" everything (as was problematic with Prince Jaron; once it was revealed at the end of the first book that he was this great mastermind, he mostly just told the reader what his plans were for the rest of the trilogy) and eventually boring the reader. When seen from someone else's point of view, someone who isn't ten steps ahead of everyone else, we keep the sense of mystery and surprise. For instance, would we think of Sherlock Holmes to be as brilliant as we do now if his cases were told from his point of view and not Watson's?
But the change in narrator and between first- and third-person is something I think MWT uses to great effect in her novels. We're introduced to Gen in the first person; then it switches to third person, but still his point of view (some of the time); then we see him through Costis's eyes, in third person; and then we have a mix of first-person (Sophos) and third-person (still mostly Sophos, but we see Gen). We end up seeing Gen from a variety of perspectives--and that only adds to his mystique because we don't know what he is thinking all of the time. I only wonder what MWT is going to do with the next two books!
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Date: 12/17/14 04:11 pm (UTC)Someone above mentioned The False Prince. I read the first book and felt that it was like The Thief, if not as polished, but was then disappointed to find that the following two books were also in first person. As some people have said already, most of the characters of this Gen-type are seen through the eyes of other characters. With a character like this, it is difficult to sustain a first-person narration without the character "telling" everything (as was problematic with Prince Jaron; once it was revealed at the end of the first book that he was this great mastermind, he mostly just told the reader what his plans were for the rest of the trilogy) and eventually boring the reader. When seen from someone else's point of view, someone who isn't ten steps ahead of everyone else, we keep the sense of mystery and surprise. For instance, would we think of Sherlock Holmes to be as brilliant as we do now if his cases were told from his point of view and not Watson's?
But the change in narrator and between first- and third-person is something I think MWT uses to great effect in her novels. We're introduced to Gen in the first person; then it switches to third person, but still his point of view (some of the time); then we see him through Costis's eyes, in third person; and then we have a mix of first-person (Sophos) and third-person (still mostly Sophos, but we see Gen). We end up seeing Gen from a variety of perspectives--and that only adds to his mystique because we don't know what he is thinking all of the time. I only wonder what MWT is going to do with the next two books!