as evanescent as cloud, and the characters that appear in it as solid as the bricks fromwhich the physical place is built.As the author* of this tale, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next; I am as sweptalong with all this as you are, so permit me to be not so much the Chorus to this story,as an interested bystander, drifting behind my own creation, recording his every movealong the way, using different voices to catch him. That is, of course, if he deigns tomove – I’m not sure how much he likes his pint, or lounging in this pub on a sunnyafternoon in July, smoke furling in the light from languid cigarettes and aninternational football match on the TV in the corner. I feel, however, there is somefrustration building within him, and that some other shall come along presently. Now,of course, the problem arises: How to present him?Which narrative style to use? Externally? Let my voice alone guide, present,manipulate and swoop through each character as and when? Perhaps different perspectives: the character seen through the lens of a camera, a layer of smoky fug, a police report, a diary entry, someone’s email, a hastily scribbled note, a lover’s letter,a court summons, a news report. It will immediately be obvious that our hero, and allthose others who may appear, will appear to be almost completely different peopleaccording to which perspective I, the author*, use. The only way of being certain of whom is being described is from a physical perspective, and that is itself unreliable: Idon’t even know what my character looks like yet. So, how about internalmonologues? We gain a perspective on the individual’s psyche, but it is a necessarilylimited perspective, a view restricted by what the teller of the tale can know, see andfeel – and again, it makes our story tenuous. Well then, and how else? Photography?Cartoons? This is an exercise in words, not pictures, so that counts those out.Dialogue solely? Perhaps. Descriptions of coughs, shuffles, movements of hands,gestures, looks? Maybe. Crosswords, acrostics, logic puzzles? Entertaining, possibly.Merely by writing, as I write, possibilities start queuing up to be counted and used – the whys and wherefores of those phantoms, my characters, rising to feed on the blood of the pen and utter what they must; Different possibilities for writing stylesand perspectives parade for my inspection; And the reader – the great ObjectiveReader, for whom I write – who are you? What would you like to read? How shall Ientertain you? Your host I must be; Here is the scene, here the bill of fare; I hope youwill be amused and fed, and then go on your way content. And so, let us swing intothe scene, and find, for want of a better word, the hero of this book. There he is; His back is to us as we come in the door; In his mid-thirties, although he looks younger,except for the streaks of grey in his hair, which has just begun to thin; Handsome, buthaunted, and his face is scowling into his pint; a lit cigarette is in his left hand, and hisright holds a pen, and he is scrawling over a crossword. He is arranging some lettersin a circle, and then reading them backwards and forwards, side to side, up and down.His circling pen stops, then rapidly he writes seven letters in one of the clues. It says:*
Of course, I may not be the author, but the Author, another layer of characterisation in this story. But then again, that’s for me to know and you to work out, isn’t it? Ha ha ha.**In which case, who just wrote this?
A guide to Reading, November 2004, © Paul Gallantry
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