What do you think about the way that the story is being told?

Use this forum to discuss the January 2021 Book of the month, "The Vanished" by Pejay Bradley
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Re: What do you think about the way that the story is being told?

Post by lavkathleen »

lavenderbooks20 wrote: 18 Jan 2021, 04:29 It wasn’t the most effective method. I wished the author just stuck to either Lady Sougyon’s first person narration or the third-person narration entirely. Having Lady Sougyon as the sole character who gets to narrate in the first person feels a bit pointless. Towards the last quarter of the book, her point of view just disappears.
Someone said that Lady Sougyon's perspective gives some sort of justice for women in that time when they weren't given a voice. And not only is she the closest to Embon and therefore the only one who can tell his story, the author also has to show how different the life of a royalty to everyone else is—her voice is vital for this. And in the last part, she wasn't a part of it anymore and the story of being a royalty wasn't relevant anymore, too; it makes sense that she wasn't narrating that part.
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Post by lavkathleen »

Eriny Youssef wrote: 20 Jan 2021, 14:41 It broadens the perspective and offers a complete story. But, personally, it was tyring for me to read that way. The jumps were just too frequent and the characters were too many regarding the length of the book. Maybe if the author reduced the number of alterations or POVs it could've been better.
I think it was necessary for this story to cover this many characters and perspectives. It's broad and complex like that, and so we would miss a lot of things if the author took a different way to tell it. However, I understand that it could be confusing and dragging for some.
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Post by Lucille27 »

In this particular book, I think it works amazing. I really enjoyed this because the narrator changes from character to character and each of them has their own style. I think the more aristocrat characters dwell more on their feelings than on material things. I think that is very clever and amazing. If all the characters used a similar narrative voice, I don't think it would work in the same way.
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Post by Damian Keyes »

I actually like books that are constructed like this when they have various characters. It's like trying to fix a puzzle, your main objective is to see how Mr. Seoh's early storyline of seeing Embon as a younging, fits into Embon's life in the future.
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Post by TheMazeRunner »

I think that switching between the first and the third person is a good thing. I like the story being told that way because I clearly get to know the main character in the book. There are people who find this way of writing distracting, which is normal.
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I think the book is an examination of society. It explores issues from various perspectives of the characters. It is interesting to see how the views differ depending on the social status.
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Post by Sushan Ekanayake »

cristinaro wrote: 02 Jan 2021, 08:25 Lady Sougyon is the only character who tells her story from the first-person perspective. The third-person narration is employed when focusing on different other characters like Mr. Seoh or Embon. I think the use of alternating narrative perspective was a smart choice as it managed to provide a broader perspective on things. However, since we only follow Lady Sougyon's thoughts, we tend to be subjective and take her side, at least when it comes to her son, Embon.
I agree. The author could have given at least few more important characters the chance to talk. So the reader would have the chance to peep into the thoughts of other characters as well. Yet, with the separate view points of various characters, the reader gets the chance to see a wide picture
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Post by Sushan Ekanayake »

nikkiloveskiwi wrote: 05 Jan 2021, 03:06 I think it was a great choice for the author to make use of this style. At first, I get to understand the feelings of Lady Sougyon. Later on, as different characters are introduced, I get to see how they also feel and think differently.
Do you actually get to know all the characters well as Lady Sougyon? It is true that we see the thoughts of Lady Sougyon since she gets the chance to narrate her story in the first person perspective. But the other characters we see only from a third person point of view. So, though we see the actions of the other characters, we don't get a chance to see how they think
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Post by Sushan Ekanayake »

Fozia RYK wrote: 05 Jan 2021, 23:29 The different characters in the book have different stories. and describing the various characters can only be possible by the method the writer has used in the book. So I think that the method of writer for explanation of the characters in the book is appropriate.
I do agree with you. If the author had a single narrator for all the characters, if that narrator was telling stories that happened with various characters in various places where even the narrator was not involved, the story would have lost its natural quality. The author has chosen the most appropriate way since she chose Lady Sougyon as the main narrator
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Post by Sushan Ekanayake »

VernaVi wrote: 10 Jan 2021, 20:07 I like the omniscient way the author chose to narrate this work. It gives the reader a way to see inside each character and hear their thoughts. I appreciated how the early scenes of the book described the different elements of the Korena family society and how they interact with one another.
It is a good thing that the author has given some background information regarding the Korea those days, since it helped for a better understanding of the events that occurred later. Though this made the book bit slow at the beginning, it was a valuable investment.

But, regarding this question, do we actually see the thoughts of the characters other than Lady Sougyon? Though she has given the chance to speak in first person view, the others only get a third person point of view. So they can't tell their story but only to let the reader see their actions
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Post by ankushavhad »

Yes, the POV matters in this kind of story.
What I feel about the flow in the story The Vanished:
The author smartly used the mixed views of narration; Lady Sougyon, for that matter, narrated her story in the first person is acceptable whereas those in 3rd persons view, say by Embon or by Seoh's approach is to bring the scene in focus followed by describing the actions. The story balanced the prose that way without making a monotonous.
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Post by Sushan Ekanayake »

Bridgetbruso99 wrote: 11 Jan 2021, 09:41 I disliked that the only part told in 1st person is told by Embon's mother. And it is a bit difficult to understand why we are reading about Mr. Seol until so much later on. I did enjoy that you get multiple perspectives from several characters though
I agree. Only one character was given the chance to narrate. The rest were only actors and we could only look at them from above. It is good that the author chose this style, so the reader can get a wide picture, but he can see the inside of only one character, Lady Sougyon, because she describes her emotions through her narration, but no one else
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Post by Sushan Ekanayake »

Julehart1 wrote: 12 Jan 2021, 02:40 I don’t always love this style of writing, but in this book it makes sense to tell this story from multiple perspectives. There are many characters in the book, and it does widen the scope. I was glad to be able to see the views of the other characters even when they were narrating in third-person.
I agree. The author has appropriately chosen the way to tell her story. We get a wide picture and it makes sense to see different people in different views and scenarios since they do not act together in all of the situations. And also, instead of giving all the characters a third person view, the author has given Lady Sougyon the chance to speak as well. This adds more uniqueness as well as it makes that character more close to us
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Post by raj_nandani_poet »

I think the use of different perspectives kind of view to the story gave it a new outlook. Only one person perspective limits the view of the readers whereas in this book a lot of themes and ideas were explored. Also, the characteristics of other characters were somehow felt by the readers while reading.
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Post by Josephe-Anne »

I didn't mind the fact that the story was told from different perspectives. I liked seeing the events unfold from the third-person point of view, and I also enjoyed reading Lady Sougyon's opinions. She was telling her side of the story.

This writing style can be very effective in conveying emotion. Also, I didn't think that the book was too short to employ that writing style.
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