This kind of ties into my previous post, but I was inspired to talk about it so I'm going to.
While reading Memory of Running, I sometimes had trouble differentiating between chapters that took place in Smithy's past and chapters that took place during the journey. Obviously, I'd figure it out fairly quickly based on context, but looking back on this now got me thinking. It was difficult to tell the difference between past Smithy and present(-ish) Smithy other than the fact that they were living through different events. They just seemed like kind of the same person. It was hard to keep track of which was which and what happened when even after doing the reading.
To me, there are a couple of possible reasons for this. One, is that Smithy doesn't sound like a different person from his old self because he hasn't mentally matured very much since then, something that has been touched on in various blogs in various contexts. Another possible reason is just that it's because its actually being narrated by the same Smithy. Of course narrator Smithy is going to have the same voice no matter what he's narrating, since he's telling all this at the same point in time. So in order for us to form opinions of any of the Smithy's, we have to know whether or not we trust narrator Smithy. As was discussed in a post by a classmate, I think Smithy is a narrator we can trust. Even though he has some issues, I like him a lot, and he knows what his issues are. He isn't ignorant.
The similarities between Smithy at various points in time, therefore, come from a combination of Smithy not having done a lot of "growing up," but also from whatever influence narrator Smithy has over the retellings.
The narrative voice is the same, and I think that's probably the main reason for the continuity. In a number of ways, especially once he returns from the war, Smithy is a lot less engaged with other people, and a lot more prone to reach for a beer whenever he's the least bit uncomfortable, in those early sections.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe another reason is that the real "lost years"--those where Smithy lives through his dead routine of drinking at night and working his meaningless job in the day--aren't part of the narrative. In the "present" 1990 journey, he's trying to get back to the way he was in the past--or, in the scenes he's narrating from the 1950s and 60s. Smithy's sensibility and general demeanor are quite similar between these two sections, in part because of the common narrative voice framing the scenes, but also because that younger self represents the way he wants to be again.