homodiegetic narrator with zero focalisation

[VodkaMartini]

Hello,

I am looking for a novel with a homodiegetic narrator and zero focalisation. What this means is that the story's narrator is a character ('I') in the story, viz. talking about his own experiences, and knows everything there possibly is to know about the world in which the story is set. So this narrator can also read people's minds,...

I have narrowed this down to two types of stories:

1) A story in which God talks about his own experiences in creating the world,...

2) A story wherein a character who is completely alone in the universe knows everything there is to know about himself. This could also be linked to introspection.

Can anybody help me find some titles of stories that have such a narrator?

Kind regards

[My2cents]

Moby Dick is the obvious one, and I would hazard to say Infinite Jest is one too.

[VodkaMartini]

Hello,

I'm not quite sure about Moby Dick. There is a shift from the homodiegetic narrator to an omniscient one in the story, but what I am looking for is a narrator that combines both characteristics.

[My2cents]

So you're saying in Moby Dick that the omniscent narrator isn't Ishamael; I thought different.

[VodkaMartini]

Well, the character obviously enters into lengthy descriptions about whaling and so on, but does he really know everything there is to know, for instance, about his crew's thoughts and mental states?
I am very grateful for your example though, I knew finding such a narrator as the one I had in mind was not going to be easy, but the one in Moby Dick does seem to come close.

[My2cents]

Well, the character obviously enters into lengthy descriptions about whaling and so on, but does he really know everything there is to know, for instance, about his crew's thoughts and mental states?
I am very grateful for your example though, I knew finding such a narrator as the one I had in mind was not going to be easy, but the one in Moby Dick does seem to come close.

No need to feel grateful. I'm just tossing off my opinions for what they're worth.

But I have to say, you're definitions are not as precise as they could be. If a narrator is omniscient then he knows by definition anything and everything. Otherwise, you're claiming that the 3rd person narrator in Moby Dick isn't omniscient.

[VodkaMartini]

You are right. I am not all that familiar with the novel, but would I be right to reformulate things as follows?

Ishmael is:

1) a homodiegetic narrator: he tells the story and is at the same time part of the story.

2) there is zero focalization: Ishmael is the narrator and a character in the story but he sometimes has the potential to describe the internal states of his fellow crew and other things which he cannot access directly. Thus, he could be considered omniscient.

This is a rare phenomenon, since most omniscient narrators are third-person narrators that are not a part of the story.

[My2cents]

Yes, I think we're on the same page now. And you're right: most writers, if they choose the first person, try to sustain the illusion that the story is being told from a strictly first-person viewpoint throughout; and if from a third person viewpoint the focus, for the most part, stays on the protagonist.