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.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.
What do you think about the way that the story is being told?
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Re: What do you think about the way that the story is being told?
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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.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.
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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 picturecristinaro 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.
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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 thinknikkiloveskiwi 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.
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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 narratorFozia 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.
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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.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.
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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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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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 elseBridgetbruso99 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
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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 usJulehart1 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.
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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.
― Horace Mann