The trouble with stream of consciousness...

I recently picked up Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer upon the recommendation of my boyfriend and began reading it without realizing it's written in a stream of consciousness (henceforward to be shortened to SoC) style.

I have to admit, I was a little taken aback by it. I'm not a huge fan of the SoC style of writing. It tends to bother me when the narrative (well, what little narrative structure there is) jumps around. It also bothers me when I find myself unable to understand something because of the vague SoC style... Despite this, I really love the lyrical quality of the prose. It can be quite beautiful. Maybe I just need to relax about not literally understanding everything that's going on.

So what say you? Yay or Nay to the SoC style? Are there different books with varying degrees of SoC, some that you can stand to read and some that you can't? I'm still trying to make my way through Tropic... We'll see how it goes...

I have not read many books in this style but during lit class we've covered this style of writing.

It's not something that has my preference but I can appreciate the style since I imagine it's not that easy to write.

Besides that I have always been interested in people's psychology and thoughts so these books do give me some insight in that matter.

These stories aren't very easy to read, due to the SoC style, but I like a challenge.

My final conclusion would be that I don't mind reading a book in SoC style but I wouldn't really seek it out.

Oh I can definitely imagine how difficult it is to write in SoC style... to write seemingly random SoC thoughts and yet have them all actually be working together to create characters, scenes, to evoke feelings and atmospheres... it's a very interesting (if somewhat inaccessible) style..

And yes, it is really fascinating to read the odd progression of thoughts that somehow coagulate into an entire book, but I still find it so difficult to read, sometimes! Still, I am trying to challenge myself to carry on reading it.

When I expressed my misgivings to my boyfriend he said "Well, just imagine what was going through Miller's mind as he wrote it!" to which I said "I don't have to! He wrote it all down!" :D :p

Good of you to push yourselve to read on, that's something I am usually not too good at myself. I hope that after you finish it'll leave a feeling of accomplishment and not a feeling of wasted time and maybe even some enjoyment ;).

Oh wow, a new word to be added to my vocabulary: I had never before seen the word 'coagulate'.

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Originally Posted by Easter

When I expressed my misgivings to my boyfriend he said "Well, just imagine what was going through Miller's mind as he wrote it!" to which I said "I don't have to! He wrote it all down!" :D :p

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Hahahahaha..

I think in stream of consciousness, but that is nothing like what gets written as SoC. Even fairly well-done SoC is much more direct; and it does not repeat nearly enough to be like the real thing. I think that writers should work on a good narrative style and forget about even trying SoC.

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Originally Posted by RicMisc

Oh wow, a new word to be added to my vocabulary: I had never before seen the word 'coagulate'.

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Glad I could add to your vocabulary! :p

I'm glad I'm trying to push on, despite my misgivings... but the more I read, the more I wonder how long I should press myself before I decide whether reading in SoC is for me or not... hmmm...

SoC has proven time and time again to be my absolute favorite writing style. There's something very pure and very honest about it.

In the case of Miller, there's a tendency to ramble on a lot, and I think part of that comes down to the fact that he was starving and delirious when he wrote Tropic of Cancer. But I love his rambling. I can see why it wouldn't be for everyone, though.

In one of his later books, Sexus, he discusses his aesthetic criteria a little bit. I don't have a copy on hand, so I'll have to paraphrase quite a bit. He said that all art is only a shadow of a feeling that the artist has inside of them. He mentions Beethoven (or Mozart, I can't remember) and says that the music they produced would be worthless if we were able to hear the music that they had in their head and were trying to capture. So, his goal was to get as close as possible to pure consciousness in his writing; to really capture that light and ecstasy and sorrow that he felt in the back of his mind.

I do have one big misgiving with SoC, though - I find that because it varies so widely from book to book and writer to writer, it usually takes me about the first 1/3 of the book before I really get used to the style enough to enjoy it. That means that I lose 1/3 of the book, essentially.

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Originally Posted by Desolation

In one of his later books, Sexus, he discusses his aesthetic criteria a little bit. I don't have a copy on hand, so I'll have to paraphrase quite a bit. He said that all art is only a shadow of a feeling that the artist has inside of them. He mentions Beethoven (or Mozart, I can't remember) and says that the music they produced would be worthless if we were able to hear the music that they had in their head and were trying to capture. So, his goal was to get as close as possible to pure consciousness in his writing; to really capture that light and ecstasy and sorrow that he felt in the back of his mind.

I do have one big misgiving with SoC, though - I find that because it varies so widely from book to book and writer to writer, it usually takes me about the first 1/3 of the book before I really get used to the style enough to enjoy it. That means that I lose 1/3 of the book, essentially.

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I completely understand your (and Miller's) point about art being a shadow of what is inside the artist. I've heard that same sort of sentiment from many authors (and felt it myself, of course). In that respect, I can understand the appeal of stream of consciousness. But I guess what I'm struggling with now is the inaccessibility of SoC...

I guess in some ways having a regular narrative structure is akin to translating something foreign (ie, the author's own thoughts) into something the reader can understand... so jumping into something that is SoC, and therefore "untranslated" is difficult for me...

I'll keep on reading it for now, though.. there are bits and pieces I'm enjoying enough to make it worthwhile..

I do think that SoC is certainly quite interesting but I myself find I often have trouble with books written in this format. It can prove difficult to follow. One of the biggest problems I find I have with it, is that it seems that SoC writing, because it does have a certain rambling to it at times, often has the effect of making my own thoughts start to wander. It is as if reading it puts me in a sort of trance like state, and than I end up half-way down the page without a clue as to what I had just read and so I have to go back and do a lot of rereading. It is hard to get my mind to stay focused when reading SoC writing because I find there can something almost hypnotic about it.

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

One of the biggest problems I find I have with it, is that it seems that SoC writing, because it does have a certain rambling to it at times, often has the effect of making my own thoughts start to wander. It is as if reading it puts me in a sort of trance like state, and than I end up half-way down the page without a clue as to what I had just read and so I have to go back and do a lot of rereading.

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Despite my love of SoC, I have to agree with you - well maybe not "have to." It depends if you think having to re-read sections of books is a bad thing or not. Episode 3 of Ulysses is my favourite, but it certainly took me three reads to fully grasp it.

Virginia Woolf's SoC seems to be a little more stable and easy to handle, but just as lyrical.

Like poetry, I think the trick with SoC is to read aloud, forcing yourself to slow down and absorb the thoughts instead of your eye glossing over them.

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Originally Posted by Charles Darnay

Like poetry, I think the trick with SoC is to read aloud, forcing yourself to slow down and absorb the thoughts instead of your eye glossing over them.

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I would try this... but usually I'm reading on my breaks at work... so.. yeah... I don't think that will work very well... :D

I've liked all the SoC I've encountered so far - Ulysses, Mrs Dalloway, Absalom, Absalom and the Sound and the Fury. Dickens' stream of conciousness talkers like Mrs Nickleby and Flora are hilarious.

However, am I right in thinking it works only in short doses? Imagine if the whole of Ulysses was in SoC. What a bore it would have been!

This soc stuff is embarrassing to me though I often find it soul searching delving deeper and deeper into something one cannot comprehend or cannot rationalize it into his mental frame. Our thoughts are unrestrained but what we speak or write are censored, sieved and reorganized into socially, ethically and culturally set orderly ways. Suppose you dream of having sex with some one and in the dream there is no bowdlerization and you enjoy the act but once awake you rationalize it and feel guilty since it was incest.

But those who use soc take the liberty of writing the way they feel and Ulysses was framed in that style and the writer did not choose to contain it in the generally accepted conformist frame and he broke the frame. They are like psychoanalysts and go deeper and deeper into the psyche of the sick and hit upon the rambling mental state, inchoately though it surfaces it spews out what is locked in through generations.

I like the soc stuff in literature though I too find them rather cumbersome. I could not stick with Ulysses and had to give after going through a few pages but the poetry of the prose in the book impressed me beyond words

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Originally Posted by mona amon

I've liked all the SoC I've encountered so far - Ulysses, Mrs Dalloway, Absalom, Absalom and the Sound and the Fury. Dickens' stream of conciousness talkers like Mrs Nickleby and Flora are hilarious.

However, am I right in thinking it works only in short doses? Imagine if the whole of Ulysses was in SoC. What a bore it would have been!

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Yes... looking at this 300-odd page book of mostly SoC with some more "lucid" passages is what has me a bit daunted.

I also really like to read at night before bed, but I like the experience to be relaxing... not to feel confused... so I find myself NOT wanting to read before bed now... hmm... difficult, indeed!

Hi friends and readers, I tend to find as will you if you open up any of my books, that my works (three done so far with one on the way), are largely written from a SoC standpoint and perspective. I consider myself an honest kind of guy, and I also thinks that this honesty translates well into literature. My third book Fighting Madness, conveys some of this honesty, with stories from the past, and thoughts from the past also, to find quite a nice mix and mash up of people and tales. There is also a sprinkling of Biblical realisations here, and other creative ficticious stuff as well to make it what it is. Which is at times, but nevertheless rewarding read for those of you who have bothered to sit down and actually work your way through. And that's more than just one btw (feedback i have had)! Cheers, John R.http://mir.cr/EZD1AMGW

I think the fundamental flaw of SoC is that it pretends to be something it isn't. SoC is no more "organic" or "spontaneous" than traditional narrative methods. It pretends not to be stylized, but, of course it is; there is no escaping that, and to attempt to, is futile.
That said, "Sound and the Fury" gains a great deal in power through its usage. But, ultimately, the greatest power is that it contrasts the different streams. If the novel utilized only one of the streams, instead of the 4, it wouldn't be nearly as effective. So is it right to say that its power derives from SoC? Or that its power derives from (for lack of a better term) its composition as a cubist composition?
For me it's the latter. But the SoC heightens the contrasts. If all four were told only from a traditional narrative standpoint the contrasts wouldn't be so stark.
It's definitely not my favorite technique. But it has its virtues, and its weaknesses.

By looking at the thread title I would propably just think that stream of consciousness is just a text without punctuations because SoC has no punctuation and without it ,it would not exist.

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Originally Posted by tim270

I think the fundamental flaw of SoC is that it pretends to be something it isn't. SoC is no more "organic" or "spontaneous" than traditional narrative methods. It pretends not to be stylized, but, of course it is; there is no escaping that, and to attempt to, is futile.
That said, "Sound and the Fury" gains a great deal in power through its usage. But, ultimately, the greatest power is that it contrasts the different streams. If the novel utilized only one of the streams, instead of the 4, it wouldn't be nearly as effective. So is it right to say that its power derives from SoC? Or that its power derives from (for lack of a better term) its composition as a cubist composition?
For me it's the latter. But the SoC heightens the contrasts. If all four were told only from a traditional narrative standpoint the contrasts wouldn't be so stark.
It's definitely not my favorite technique. But it has its virtues, and its weaknesses.

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I think SoC was an important narrative development. It gave us a fresh insider's individual idiosyncratic perspective, rather than that of the omniscient narrator. It does offer a lot of scope given the differences in characters/people's perceptions and internal monologues about it.

The weakness is that it is a crafted fiction with a purpose and could never really mimic the actual SoC of anyone - even the author. It is a useful fiction in itself.

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Originally Posted by cacian

By looking at the thread title I would propably just think that stream of consciousness is just a text without punctuations because SoC has no punctuation and without it ,it would not exist.

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In fact I have to agree with you. The stream of consciousness flows so overpoweringly it does not stop anywhere and goes uninhibitedly, candidly, uncaring the path it is treading and cutting the edge, the banks that gave it a shape and a way and it kinda inundates anything it flows through. There is no plot, though there is at times but it has no traditional base and it is as if the very tapestry of the subconscious goes unabatedly and refutably, furiously. I like To the Lighthouse by Virginia. It is so poetic, metaphoric and abstract and it unroofs facts, and gives the reader something uncouth, unromantic, inurbane. So is Ulysses, so drab and pedantically sweeping. If you are an academic, you will have to read if you want to have an academic degree in a university that have the book in the syllabus or if you are a professor of literature you will have to read it since you have to give lectures on this, but if you are an ordinary reader you will distaste it. This is what we call a stream of consciousness idea, kind of garbage spewed out from the mouth of some pedants

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I think SoC was an important narrative development. It gave us a fresh insider's individual idiosyncratic perspective, rather than that of the omniscient narrator. It does offer a lot of scope given the differences in characters/people's perceptions and internal monologues about it.

The weakness is that it is a crafted fiction with a purpose and could never really mimic the actual SoC of anyone - even the author. It is a useful fiction in itself.

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This idea of SoC as a crafted fiction is something that I have been wondering about lately. I think about this in relation to films such as Bunuel's "The Phantom of Liberty" or Linklater's "Slacker". Here the scenes are reasonably structured events but the linking of these scenes operates like passing a baton in a relay race, the baton being the scene and the focal character being the runner. Can anyone suggest any literature that operates this way?

In many ways I think this approach deals with some of the weaknesses while still allowing for the strengths mentioned previously of SoC . I do realize that what I am interested in is veering away from SoC but I think these films (and any literature that can be suggested?) are a manifestation of it

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Originally Posted by mona amon

...am I right in thinking it works only in short doses? Imagine if the whole of Ulysses was in SoC. ...

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Finnegans Wake is! But for a short dose, try Hemingway's Snows of Kilimanjaro. The italic stuff is SoC.

That's why I never even tried to read Finnegan's Wake, LOL.

Okay.. so.. I finished Tropic of Cancer a few days ago... ultimately I liked it....

There were some parts I found really annoying to get through (mostly the more pronounced SoC stuff), but a lot of the book was in a more readily digestible form of SoC, bordering on structured narrative!

The book itself is so beautifully written (even the kind of annoying SoC bits) that I did want to keep reading, despite my annoyance at times.

In general, I will probably stay away from most overt SoC in the future, but something like Tropic of Cancer had so many other redeeming qualities, that it was worth reading.

I didn't like Tropic of Cancer. When I read Sexual Politics by Kate Millet, I understood why.

George RR Martin has a stream of consciousness element in A Dance with Dragons, where characters thoughts are italicised, whilst their speech appears as text. (RetSixArp reminded me).

It is a limited way of using SoC. butI find this to be an illuminating and an interesting way of writing the double edge of a person's thought and response. It seems to effect a good balance betwen the private /personal and public/political.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

George RR Martin has a stream of consciousness element in A Dance with Dragons, where characters thoughts are italicised, whilst their speech appears as text. (RetSixArp reminded me).

It is a limited way of using SoC. butI find this to be an illuminating and an interesting way of writing the double edge of a person's thought and response. It seems to effect a good balance betwen the private /personal and public/political.

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That kind of limited SoC doesn't bother me... the extensive kind I found in Tropic of Cancer was a bit off-putting. I definitely think it can be used effectively in small doses, but the larger texts that utilize it just leave me perplexed and annoyed!

The most experience I've had with reading SoC is with the works of William Faulkner. I appreciated this writing style in his novels The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, but the rest of the novels I read (I think like five or six others) were almost unbearable, not so much because they had more SoC, but because the SoC in them was less relatable to the actual story and did not properly represent the emotion of the narrator which added to the overall literal action of the story, which I felt the first two novels did. So I suppose you could say that SoC can add positively to a story if it is used to express feelings or thoughts of a character which could not be expressed so poignantly in any other way. I think SoC can actually be very relatable if it is a used as an expression of a character's thought process, in a thought by thought way, so that the reader is inside the head of the character, so to speak. Most people will have experienced similar thought processes themselves (since our brains all work similarly), so what the character is thinking, feeling, remembering, etc. usually at a time of heightened emotional tension will be relatable. That's what I found with the first two Faulkner novels I read, especially The Sound and the Fury.

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

I do think that SoC is certainly quite interesting but I myself find I often have trouble with books written in this format. It can prove difficult to follow. One of the biggest problems I find I have with it, is that it seems that SoC writing, because it does have a certain rambling to it at times, often has the effect of making my own thoughts start to wander. It is as if reading it puts me in a sort of trance like state, and than I end up half-way down the page without a clue as to what I had just read and so I have to go back and do a lot of rereading. It is hard to get my mind to stay focused when reading SoC writing because I find there can something almost hypnotic about it.

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Why do you need a clue of what is going on? Try staying in the trance. You don't even have to try that, you just have to let yourself be in that state. The fact that you are achieving it is wonderful. Forget about the story, about the plot, about everything. Just enjoy the trance. I am trying to write SoC these days and I understand that authors just want readers to be there, somewhere. Nothing else. Whatever understanding has to happen, will happen. Just let your conscious mind sink completely.

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Originally Posted by dark desire

Why do you need a clue of what is going on? Try staying in the trance. You don't even have to try that, you just have to let yourself be in that state. The fact that you are achieving it is wonderful. Forget about the story, about the plot, about everything. Just enjoy the trance. I am trying to write SoC these days and I understand that authors just want readers to be there, somewhere. Nothing else. Whatever understanding has to happen, will happen. Just let your conscious mind sink completely.

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YES! Exactly.

In my opinion, part of the purpose of stream of consciousness is to induce a certain state of mind in the reader. That trance-like state is part of the writer's goal, even if it can mean sacrificing pieces of the plot.

I write in this style, as much as a person can. I've always enjoyed it, and I find that people tend to enjoy reading my work. I like reading SoC when the author is someone I like; someone whose thoughts are interesting, varied and dramatic.

The only complaints I've gotten on my own works are regarding swear words and gore. My inner monologue is full of profanity.

I prefer the SS abbreviation, stream style, instead of SoC. I dread the SS style as much as the Waffen SS :-P I'd be like yourself, I can't enjoy reading when I don't have a clear understanding of each word. That's a fundamental thing about a person. If that prevents me enjoying the SS writing trooop, then so be it. Henry James is a struggle, but if you put in the effort, it's clear, all of it. That may not be the case with stream of consciousness.

I read a hundred pages of Joyce's stream of consciousness in Ulysses some years ago. I wholeheartedly accept the importance of it: it captures the way we all think, the way the mind randomly hops about from words to feelings every second of every minute, from big things to small, from petty things to serious. And that's the ultimate goal of art, isn't it? To show what we're really like. And stream of consciousness is the full close up, the zoom in lens on the mind.

That's very important. And it must be very hard to write like that and make a somewhat page-turning story out of it. But I don't look forward to sitting through it and reading it because to follow it takes painstaking attention.

I accept its importance like I say, but I don't give it my time. That's about the best I can do. You can't win em all. Henry James, I think, does something very similar, but instead of speeding through the mind and getting a sense of the whole stream and its burbling and rushing and meandering - instead, James takes a portion of it at different moments, takes a small gesture and a few words, and analyzes it very extensively and in a couple of very long sentences. Putting it in the one sentence - or a few sentences - seems to convey that character's one thought without interruptions better. It contains it better, like swallowing one powerful pill. But you usually have to read the sentences two or three times to be able to read through it at a normal speed. But that's ok, too, as it's very intelligent and often beautiful: always handsomely fluent at least.

I think Henry James is more a snapshot -a frozen still of consciousness instead of a stream. He separates it off and gives it a thorough analysis. I'm not speaking about his later, less accessible novels. I haven't read them. I'm just talking about his more accessible side, which in fairness already inhabits the outer regions of accessibility.

I prefer James's way. It's the best of both worlds: traditional sentences, all the standard detachment, but it still gives an impression of how the mind thinks, the way impressions enter in and swirl about.

Ian McEwan says in one of his novels that the best way to imitate reality is not always to mimic its velocity. I think this is McEwan's criticism of stream of consciousness and I think it's a very good one. I prefer James's imitation of reality, which has an extremely low velocity. It's like the race between the tortoise and the hare, those two styles. I'll always trust the tortoise when it comes to writing and expression.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

...It is a limited way of using SoC. butI find this to be an illuminating and an interesting way of writing the double edge of a person's thought and response. ...

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Writer William Harrison (Rollerball Murder, screenplay for 1975 film version) wrote about an early short story of his, The Hermit, being rejected; the author concluding that the publisher likely thought "stream of consciousness" was a place author liked to fish.

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Originally Posted by Declan

That's very important. And it must be very hard to write like that and make a somewhat page-turning story out of it. But I don't look forward to sitting through it and reading it because to follow it takes painstaking attention.

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That's where you are wrong. It does not need a lot of attention. In fact it does not need any attention at all. The problem with reading page turners is that they excite a lot of attention out of one's self. It should not be so hardworking to read. Effortless reading is possible I think only with this stream of consciousness writing. The difference between stream of consciousness writing and a page turner is the same as the difference between an intimate conversation and a project presentation. Of course, it takes time to develop the habit of not paying too much attention. But to try to pay attention to something that demands exactly the opposite, that is not the way.

It is not even that hard to write like this although it is difficult to get into those flowing river like moods when one can write like this.

Couldn't disagree more.

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Originally Posted by Declan

And that's the ultimate goal of art, isn't it? To show what we're really like.

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Is it? I don't really expect art to do this - it seems too much to ask for.

I usually look for (i) pleasure (ii) suspension of will.

It is my pleasure to know what we're like; or my compulsion, which is an involuntary pleasure. But one man's pleasure is another's poison. Saying we read for pleasure doesn't break it down enough for me. Whereas saying we read to know ourselves pulls away the veil that bit more I think. Suspension of will? I don't get that. Suspension of disbelief I understand.

It has been about long enough now to be considered a "traditional" narrative point of view. Handled well it can create characters from the inside out. The Victorians were using it in poetry. Dorothy Parker used it for humour.