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Throughout the semester we have been discussing the novel as a medium to represent the stream of conciousness of a character in a story. The most blatant example of this I thought were the chapters in Myra Breckinridge entitled the Buck Loner reports. In these reports we were reading the verbal dictation of Buck Loner talking about the events in his life at the time. At numerous points in these chapters, Buck would tail off, talking about something that really had nothing to do with Myra, his school, or anything else pertinent to the overall story at all. I feel like we see this same kind of stream of conciousness through Native Speaker and the novels protagonist, Henry Park. During many parts in the novel, I felt like Henry had wandered from the actual story he was telling, and just went off on a tangent about something else completely. I am not sure if I have fully convinced myself that I think this is strictly a stream of conciousness, or if it is just Park’s day dreaming being put down on paper. The best example of this that we have read so far, is during Henry’s conversation with Jack during his lunch break on his first day back at work. Jack is telling Henry about his next assignment, and sharing some gossip about some of the other employees at the office, when Henry just shifts from his and Jack’s conversation, to stories about him and his wife Lelia. Henry goes on to talk about his phone conversations with Lelia while he was away, why Lelia liked Jack so much, stories about Jack’s neighborhood, and how hard it was for Jack to continue living his life without his wife Sophie who had died quite recently. After all these inner thoughts of Henry’s, we are brought right back into the story where we left it, right at the end of Henry and Jack’s lunch break. I am interested to see how this stream of conciousness or daydreaming style of writing will effect the story. Also, any ideas on what Henry’s job really is!? I am pretty confused on that one.
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The stream of concousness thing here between this novel and the Buck Loner reports in Myra Breckinridge was a very good comparison. The reason why both I think were so effective was due to the fact that they were written in the first person. It’s much easier to understand a character’s stream of conciousness when you get to read it first hand from their perspective. I like Henry’s sort of daydreaming style of thought, it’s lofty in a sense but also very down to earth and I am also curious as to how it will play out in the rest of the book.
Comment by kerrigore March 17, 2009 @ 9:15 pmThat’s a great comparison between Henry and Buck Loner. I didn’t connect those at all, but after reading your post I can see how the two match-up. Nice observation.
Comment by ju1522 March 17, 2009 @ 3:13 amI think that the writing of this novel is stream of consciousness because Henry is thinking and interacting with other characters and when he goes on a tangent it is just his mind thinking about another subject while working on the other current one. I truly think that this novel helps us see how certain characters are portrayed. And Henry’s job is a spy, so to speak. He works with other immigrants and looked into their lives and writes about it. His job appears to be something along the lines of trying to see if these immigrants are there for other reasons then to live and work in the US.
Comment by elphingirl March 16, 2009 @ 2:43 pm