"Despite the awful details, his telling must have helped her relax at the wheel, the way music can allow our instincts to take over the countless mechanical operations that you couldn't possibly orchestrate if you had to think through each one."
"Fan drove for another stretch, having no trouble."Okay. Maybe Fan is a naturally gifted and talented 17-18 year old, who, once sitting at the wheel for the very first time in her entire life, feels completely at home and realizes that she knows the gears and controls like the back of her hand...
Wait. That doesn't sound plausible at all.
Perhaps the narrator(s) wanted to create an epic tale of adventure that favors the unlikely Fan, and so embellished the story to give their heroine an extra boost. But what happens when the story becomes embellished and sensationalized to the point of dishonesty and falsification?
Across the novel, certain phrases and details like Fan's driving often make me stop and wonder. Like in my last blog post about OSAFS, I am still trying to determine the narrator's reliability. I'm not too sure we'll ever get the real, untouched truth, however, so I'm going to take things with a grain of salt.
Jen,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your observation, but I wonder if there may be more to the dishonesty of the narrator than we initially assume. What if the 'falsification' is intentional - either to enhance to the story or perhaps even raise the eyebrows of the reader? I don't know. But it's interesting to think about the impact that the narrator's perspective has on us as readers, especially when it concerns moments or details that may seem out of the ordinary, such as the driving scene. It also struck me that Fan could learn to drive with such ease, but upon secondary reflection, what struck me more was that THIS was something that we found crazy. Like we're in some kind of post-apocalyptic future completely different from our own, and what stands out to us is that Fan can drive well on her first attempt. I think it says something about us as readers, but also about the narrative. Also, I'd check out Jenny W's most recent post, as it also concerns the narrator of the novel, and she shares some different and cool ideas.
- Terrence
Jen, I completely agree with you! Can we just talk about the fact that a random druggie shows up in the hotel and shoots every single person, except for Quig? And immediately after the shooting scene in Quig's backstory, Fan and co. get kidnapped by the Nickelmans, a crazy circus family who wants to kill Quig and Loreen. This entire novel is a book of extremes! I understand why Lee would want to use such dramatic scenes in OSAFS (to make it interesting ofc), but at times I think that he may have taken it too far...
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