ned kelly

( My verdict )

Btw, thanks for tigs; will reply tomorrow or Monday.

And thanks everyone, who answered my question about the Orchardson picture! I keep meaning to reply to all those tigs but, until I do: here's a collective thank you!

i love you, gérard (gerard genette)

I am still reading Genette. I read one chapter, I summarise it, and then I apply his ideas to two slash fics, one by azewewish and one by novanumbernine. It is tremendous fun, and I'm learning heaps, both about narrative and about fic.

Here's another reason why I love Genette. On p. 198, he writes:

Narrative always says less than it knows, but it often makes known more than it says.

My reading of this:

Says less than it knows: narrator always knows more than what is written on the page. It's the tip of the iceberg principle, which I have often discussed with azewewish and others.

Makes known more than it says: much is implied. As readers, we complete unfinished sentences, fill in ellipses, understand the import of someone's words or actions (he turned away without a word) even when the main character doesn't, and so forth. It is, for example, the wonderful (and difficult, as I'm finding) challenge of first-person pov: sometimes the "I" doesn't get something or misconstrues things, but we, the readers, are clued in -- how to make known more than is actually on the page: one of the wonders of fic.

Give me a few more days and I'll have this narratological analysis of fanfic ready and posted!

I also must, simply must, finish Boring!Orli...