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  1. jim onion

    jim onion New Member

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    Roadside Picnic - the switching of POV and tense

    Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by jim onion, Dec 20, 2018.

    Bored at midnight, I've decided to see if anybody wanted to play with me, and start a thread on the Strugatsky brothers' sci-fi "Roadside Picnic". If you haven't read the book, stick around, because you may still be able to add something of value to the conversation.

    I haven't seen the film adaptation by Tarkovsky, "Stalker", although that's something I plan to do soon. If you don't already know, this novel (and I assume the film) is also the inspiration for the STALKER video games. I figured I'd mention this, just in case you've seen the film or played the video games but haven't read Roadside Picnic.

    Getting to the point here: I was very surprised when Roadside Picnic not only switched the POV character but went from first person to third person, and also from present tense to past tense. It isn't necessarily that I haven't experienced this before in my reading, but I hadn't experienced all three used and combined in a single book.

    The story actually starts as part of an interview on Harmont Radio with Dr. Valentine Pillman, Nobel Prize winner in physics, presumably for his research involving the Zones (areas where the aliens had landed and since gone away). Here's how it begins.

    "Interviewer: … I suppose that your first important discovery, Dr. Pillman, was the celebrated Pillman radiant?

    Dr. Pillman: I wouldn't say so. The Pillman radiant wasn't my first discovery, it wasn't important, and, strictly speaking, it wasn't a discovery. It's not entirely mine either."

    It isn't completely clear whether this interview is happening in real-time or not, but the title of this introduction starts with "An excerpt from an interview with..." So it seems safe to say that either this had already been aired and we're presently listening to a recording, or we're presently tuning in and catching a segment of the broadcast.

    Then chapter one starts off on page 7 inside the head of our main character and protagonist, Redrick Schuhart, or Red.

    "The other day, we're standing in the repository; it's evening already, nothing left to do but dump the lab suits, then I can head down to the Borscht for my daily dose of booze. I'm relaxing, leaning on the wall, my work all done and a cigarette at the ready, dying for a smoke -- I haven't smoked for two hours -- while he keeps fiddling with his treasures. One safe is loaded, locked, and sealed shut, and he's loading yet another one -- taking the empties from our transporter, inspecting each one from every angle (and they are heavy bastards, by the way, fourteen pounds each), and, grunting slightly, carefully depositing them on the shelf."

    This is written as if Red himself is telling us the story right now, like we're sitting at a table in the Borscht. Of course the story he's telling is one that had already happened "the other day", but he's telling it in the present.

    For example, on the next page:

    "No, friends, it's hard to describe this thing if you haven't seen one..."

    Then when we get to the dialogue, we have the use of "says" instead of "said", "repeats" instead of "repeated".

    So if I'm correct, these events that *already happened* are being retold by Red in first person, present tense.

    ---

    Chapter 2 jumps in time five years. Red is now 28 years old. And this is how it starts.

    "Redrick Schuhart lay behind a tombstone and, holding a tree branch out of the way, looked at the road. The patrol car's searchlights darted around the cemetery, and when they flashed into his eyes, he squinted and held his breath."

    If I am correct, we have now made the switch to third person, past tense.

    I must admit that initially this put me off balance, but after a couple pages I adjusted and was fine. However, I'm still curious. Why was this done? What are your thoughts? I thoroughly enjoyed the book; it isn't often I read a ~200 page novel in two nights. It's the only work by the Strugatsky brothers that I have read, but I think it's fair to assume they are masters of their craft, and the translation is good. Therefore, I believe that there must be a method to the madness.

    My theory is that the first chapter was told in first person, present tense so that we could become more intimately acquainted with Red. We could hear his voice and thoughts because we were thrown right inside his head. It gives us, the reader, an excellent understanding of his motivations and how he thinks and acts. For a time we get to be Red himself, and experience this alternate reality how he does. This all helps the reader build a strong, emotional connection with Red. He likes beer, he likes to smoke, he's hot-headed and tough but there's some good in him, and we know he has a soft spot because he loves Guta and cares for Kirill, who he considers his friend.

    The first reason I could think of is that keeping the story in first person, present tense would have kept the story very immediate, and that this unbroken sense of immediacy would have betrayed the significant jump in time.

    The second reason I could think of as to why they'd switch to third person past tense is because they wanted to switch POV characters, and this switch is easier to execute this way because it's less limited? For example, in chapter 3 the POV character is Richard H. Noonan, who we were introduced to a little bit in the previous two chapters.

    In chapter 3, there are actually a few moments that slip into first person when dealing with Noonan's thoughts, such as on page 109.

    "Noonan turned on his windshield wipers and slowed down. So they've received the report, he thought. Now they'll praise me. Well, I'm all for that. I like being praised. Especially by General Lemchen, in spite of himself. It's funny, I wonder why we like being praised. There's no money in it. Fame? How famous could we get? He became famous: now he's known to three. Maybe four, if you count Bayliss. Aren't humans absurd? I suppose we like praise for its own sake. The way children like ice cream. It's an inferiority complex, that's what it is. Praise assuages our insecurities. And ridiculously so. How could I rise in my own opinion? Don't I know myself -- fat old Richard H. Noonan?"

    In the same paragraph (please correct me if I am wrong) we slide from third person past tense to first person present. My guess is that these brief moments are meant to achieve the same goals that the first chapter achieved, albeit to a lesser extent because they're so short and so few. What's amazing to me here is how seamless this transition is. It felt natural when I read it, at least to me, and I only got hung up on it because I was trying to learn how the magic trick is done. I *think* I got it.

    "Noonan turned on his windshield wipers and slowed down." Narration.

    "So they've received the report, he thought." Combination of 'Inner-thoughts' and narration. Then the rest of the paragraph is Noonan's 'Inner-thoughts'.

    We have: [Narration. Inner-thoughts / Narration. Inner-thoughts.]

    The magic seems to happen where I have underlined, because this is where "the blend" occurs. Maybe I'm thinking about this way too much but it does honestly seem to me that this "blending" is where the sub-conscious slide occurs, easing into the rest of the 'Inner-thoughts', rather than an abrupt, unannounced cut.

    Hold on, it's better than that. Noonan's initial inner-thoughts ("So they've received the report...") are actually in present tense, although this isn't officially clarified until we begin reading the rest of his inner-thoughts.

    So, in my opinion, what we have are two layers here.

    [Narration. ---> Inner-thoughts / Narration. ---> Inner-thoughts.]
    [Third person, past-tense. ---> First person, present tense / third person, past tense. ---> First person, present tense.]​

    ---

    Final thoughts.

    I apologize that this was a little all over the place. I apologize for the length. Please by all means share what you think about anything I said, or any other thoughts on Roadside Picnic.

    I was very impressed by the book. Normally I don't create an entire discussion thread when I finish reading a book, but this time I did, even if it took a week to get around to it.

    After some pondering, I now realize that the story is much bigger than Red, even though he's the main character, the protagonist. The interview with Dr. Pillman in the beginning serves as an excellent way to introduce readers to this new alternate world where we were visited by aliens, and then they left. Pillman also returns later in the story and is the one who refers to the Visit as a roadside picnic.

    It wasn't possible to explore all that they wanted to explore by sticking to Red's POV, and by sticking to first person, present tense. Other characters offered different perspectives and played unique roles, and my best guess is that third person past tense best facilitated exploring these possibilities.

    Regarding a short-story I'm currently working on, I seem to recall being told by some forum members on here that I shouldn't do a POV character switch. I couldn't have read Roadside Picnic at a better time. If POV *and* POV character *and* tense can all be switched in the same book, and in different combinations, then switching POV character while staying in first person, present tense is also possible. It's all about how and why you do it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2018
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  2. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I've not read the novel you mention, but you may well be correct about the purpose of that intro chapter. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on its idiosyncratic tense, in particular, other than that it certainly does feel like a very natural, live, off the cuff, storytelling style where tense is typically an unstable concept.

    China Miéville's Perdido Street Station employs a similar tool, but with the opposite intended effect (I think). The book opens with a chapter told in 1st person, all italicized, from the POV of a creature/person called a garuda who is entering the city of New Crobuzon in search of a remedy to a consequence he had to pay for a cultural sin he committed amongst his own people. His price was to have his wings literally clipped. He has come to the fabled city in search of someone who can restore his powers of flight. More to the point, the garuda is a creature seldom encountered by the denizens of the city, a creature that is as much fable as real. This opening chapter and another two are told in this way, always from the garuda's POV. Other than that, the book is in 3rd person.

    For me (I don't have Miéville's cell number, so this is all opinion, obviously) the segregation of the garuda in this way is about denoting its alienness to the city, in both directions. The people who come into contact with it treat it with differing levels of awe or suspicion, and in the garuda's chapters, it's clear that the city and its people are equally bizarre and unparseable to the garuda. I think the separation of POV is part of reinforcing that separation of mentality and sense of othering, which we currently engage as a negative concept when it is a transitive action with a direct object, but which is a very real phenomenon and one which should be open to discussion and engagement.

    That's POV.

    As for tense...

    A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham shifts from present to past at the very beginning of those chapters wherein characters are first introduced. It's in present tense for a paragraph or so and then slides into past thereinafter. What it feels like, the net effect, is like presenting the character to you in real time, as an introduction, with the narrator rather more present corporeally, and then the narrator fades away as things slide into past tense, and which remains oddly nebulous and distant, which is also a very beautifully employed tool in this particular novel because the tragedy in play is about lives and loves that are only ever almost successful.

    All of this, and other novels that I think are particularly good, sums up why I cannot espouse the idea of rules or rule-breaking. It's like doggedly holding to a flat-earther dogma when every single bit of evidence points in a different direction.

    At some point in the discussion of nearly all superb works, someone mentions "broke all the rules". If superb works break all the rules, then how can the path to memorable writing have anything to do with rules?

    Tools, not rules. Obviously. At least to me.

    But, for those few who do ascribe to the tools, not rules mindset, it should be equally obvious that asking others (this is going to sound like a remonstration, but I swear it's not) if one should or could Do Thing X is not likely to lead in a productive direction. What's being sought in that kind of query is either permission (worst case scenario) or a right or wrong answer to something that doesn't answer to right or wrong, but instead to why. Why is it being done?

    You have clearly engaged the story above with that question, why, which I personally think is good and has a fruitful direction, but don't expect too many others to join you. I gave that up a while back.
     
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  3. jim onion

    jim onion New Member

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    Whenever it comes to writing, I always like to link this video as soon as people start talking about rules.



    I can see how the switching of POV from first-person to third-person can have that effect of "othering", which can be very powerful if that's part of the theme or message you have in the story.

    And regarding the narrator "fading away" gradually as each character is introduced, do you mean something like the intro from 500 Days of Summer?



    This is kind of what I imagined as I read your post, although in the movie we don't slide into past tense but rather we slide out of it and into the present. I'll be sure to look that book up on Amazon though. Something about the bittersweetness you describe scratches that masochistic itch on my ass.

    It's a shame that more people aren't willing to discuss the "why". I wonder why that is...
     
  4. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Defo read the book. It was made into a film, and the film is actually not bad at all, but there's a character missing in the film who is present in the book, and without that character present, the underlying message of the story is muffled.

    Insecurity? Fear of accountability? It's a lot easier to respond with "Well, that's just how it came to me to write it" rather than "I was trying for this, and that's how I went about it, but I'm guessing maybe it wasn't as successful as I thought?"
     
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  5. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I like to see more authors writing in ways that may be contrary to convention wisdom or generally accepted "rules" of the sort one often sees on internet forums. As @Wreybies notes, Mieville is one such author. I read a book by Nick Sagan (Idyllwild, maybe?) where he switches between past and present tense, first or third person and second person. I've read a number that switch between first and third depending on the POV character.

    I do think there are reasons authors do this, though I don't think there necessarily has to be a reason apart from artistic preference (so long as the author makes it work). In the Nick Sagan book, for example, the second-person POV character is a sort of manic, somewhat unhinged person. The second-person POV lends itself to that, and reinforces the separateness of the character from the others in the book. But if someone did the same thing just as a form of artistic license, it wouldn't bother me so long as they did a good job of it.
     
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