“Olivia” charts a day in the life of its young protagonist (and title character), who is an anthropomorphized pig with an unusually large head. Adding pictures is just a utilization of all of the available resources. Falconer does more with simple sentences than lots of writers can manage with clause after clause of big fancy words. I am, clearly, thrilled by this whole idea and most especially by the spot-on character development that is so delicately handled throughout “Olivia.”įalconer gets to use pictures to illustrate his characters’ emotions and some people may call it unfair to compare this kind of “showing” with the kind so often urged on writers of adult fiction (you know, the kind without pictures). You see, Cheerios has launched a “read to your kids” campaign (they seem to be calling this effort “Nurturing Circle”) and instead of putting happy meal style toys into their boxes they’re giving out books. One of the best examples that I’ve seen of this is found in “Olivia and the Missing Toy,” a book by Ian Falconer that I first encountered in a cereal box. However, some authors are able to give us this same degree of access by showing us a character from a third person point of view.
I generally prefer fiction written in the first person because hearing events in a character’s voice offers me direct access to her mind. Illustrating a character’s beliefs and desires without gravely oversimplifying her personality is a delicate balancing act. When I’m not reading I’m doing that too.Ĭreating a character that is compelling enough to provide fodder for such analysis is no easy feat. When I read I am postulating theories of identity based on the hints which an individual’s actions provide. This process of investigation is analogous to my quest to understand the “real people” with whom I interact on a daily basis. I want to understand characters, to know who they are and what they’re about, to analyze why they do what they do. Obviously, other features of story-telling are important too, but if I’m not pulled in by a character I’ll probably stop reading and will never have the chance to notice the lyric descriptive passages or the ingenious plot devices. Then I realized that actually I just read books in order to get at people, which is to say that the main way I connect with works of fiction is through character. Recently I decided that my two favorite things are books and people.
0 kommentar(er)
