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Old 04-16-2012, 09:23 PM   #1
elemenoP
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The Unreliable Narrator
The first person POV thread reminded me of this. I love books with an unreliable narrator. My favorites are Lolita ("always trust a murderer for a fancy prose style"), Remains of the Day and several others by Ishiguro. Another one I enjoyed is a little-known book called The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester, which owes an obvious debt to Lolita.

Who is your favorite unreliable narrator?

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Old 04-16-2012, 10:36 PM   #2
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Life of Pi.
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Old 04-16-2012, 11:22 PM   #3
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Life of Pi, definitely!

I didn't care for it, but Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun series, starting with Shadow of the Torturer, is quite popular.
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Old 04-16-2012, 11:25 PM   #4
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One that comes to mind is
Spoiler:
The Murder of Roger Achroyd
by Agatha Christie.
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Old 04-16-2012, 11:33 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by crich70 View Post
One that comes to mind is
Spoiler:
The Murder of Roger Achroyd
by Agatha Christie.
Good one
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Old 04-17-2012, 03:56 AM   #6
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"The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters. It's unsettling and brilliant.
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Old 04-17-2012, 05:58 AM   #7
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Mauriece Leblanc's Arsène Lupin
The first story (and several other stories) in The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar is a good example of this technique.
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Old 04-17-2012, 07:56 AM   #8
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Life of Pi is one of my favorite books ever! And the others I haven't read, so thanks!!

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Old 04-17-2012, 12:32 PM   #9
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I think an argument could be made that most first person POV novels can be seen as having an unreliable narrator to some extent or another. What gets even more interesting is when you have a third person POV unreliable narrator....

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Old 04-17-2012, 03:39 PM   #10
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One problem with first person narration is that it spoils any spoils any sort of cliff-hangers involving the narrator as you know the narrator has to survive otherwise, the narration would not be happening.
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Old 04-17-2012, 03:53 PM   #11
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I was reminded of this list of the Top 10 unreliable narrators. I've enjoyed many of these, not knowing how much to trust the narrator gives the story an edge and I'm drawn to that. Incomplete information is how we operate day-to-day, so it adds realism to a novel.
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Old 04-17-2012, 05:17 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
One problem with first person narration is that it spoils any spoils any sort of cliff-hangers involving the narrator as you know the narrator has to survive otherwise, the narration would not be happening.
Except in the case of The Lovely Bones, where the narrator is already dead at the start!

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Old 04-17-2012, 05:25 PM   #13
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Bill: can you give an example of an unreliable narrator/third person POV? I'm intrigued!
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Old 04-17-2012, 06:12 PM   #14
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One problem with first person narration is that it spoils any spoils any sort of cliff-hangers involving the narrator as you know the narrator has to survive otherwise, the narration would not be happening.
Or it could be like the movie Fallen where you think you know who the narrator is throughout the movie and then find out at the end that it wasn't who you thought (or at least not who you were supposed to think), and that changes the meaning of most of the narrator's dialogue.
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Old 04-18-2012, 01:11 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elemenoP View Post
Bill: can you give an example of an unreliable narrator/third person POV? I'm intrigued!
Well a recent one I just finished was "The January Dancer" by Michael Flynn. though it really is a hybrid of first and third person narrative. (and a mix of two different third person narrators). Most of the story is told in the third person, but from the perspective of one a character who is relating the story to another character in the framing narrative.

But that being said, I think any limited third person perspective can be made an unreliable narrator.

Of course, the key is that people tend to look at third person narratives as being reliable... so they rarely notice them.

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