Reader's Response #2

The narration in the book is real masterpiece. Very often we have 3rd person narration combined with character thoughts and dialogues. Each of them gives only a piece of the plot. The perfect example of this can be found in chapter 9 of the part called “summer nights”, where Griff has just returned from his first date with a man and his sense of guilt does not allow him to enter the house and meet his wife.
The passage starts with the narrator introducing the situation. Than Griff tries to search for excuses in his own mind. He remembers the moments from his past. His father and his words. For the reader it all seams very distant and undefined. Here joins the 3rd person narrator again to give necessary facts from the past. The simple remembering evolves into the self-talk, where he is both his prosecutor and defender. During the lecture of this paragraph we slowly discover what have happened between Jonathan and Griff. Timothy Findley dosage the facts carefully to create suspense. Beginning from the general description of the past which indicates that an important event took place, he proceeds with the phrase: “Oh, Jesus. What have I done?”. In this moment reader is almost sure what have happened, but author transforms the focus point from the plot to spiritual sphere just by stating one word: ‘cocksucker’. In this point it is no longer about the character in the book, but a thought-provoking reference to readers set of values.
The similar pattern is repeated many times. The plot is just a medium through which reader can reach deeper into his own soul. This process has similar purpose to ancient plays where ultimate goal for the audience was to experience ‘catharsis’- the restoration, which could be achieved only be better understanding of oneself.