I'm always stuck on narrative intrusion. I mean how many novels have I read where the POV describes themselves or an object they regularly see, and it is clearly narrative intrusion, but necessary narrative intrusion (albeit badly handled). I tend to just read it as a piece of exposition, log it away, and then continue. I started reading Divergent (purely on the basis that I rarely read the supermarket best seller list and thought I should make an effort to), and there is a scene where the first person narrator is looking in the mirror and describes herself. Her interest in her appearance is explained because mirrors are symbols of vanity so she sees herself rarely... and it all made sense given her environment. However, it read (and particularly the explanation) as authorial/narrative intrusion; basically, the author was telling me that the first person narrator is going to describe herself, but here are all the reasons why it is acceptable for her to do so. In fact, the attempt to explain away the authorial intrusion only highlighted it. It seemed to pile one sin upon another. There is no real conclusion to this, just chucking my thoughts out there.
This is a common discussion here. I think most agree it's pretty much bad writing. Good catch, but this doesn't really belong in this thread ;-)
