Modern (20th-21st century) novels with 3rd-Person Omniscient Narration?

[ajvenigalla]

http://www.polished-pen.com/defending-third-person/

An interesting essay I found defending 3rd-person. It's more oriented to writing, but I think it's a nice read

[ajvenigalla]

Bump.

[kiki1982]

By "oldest of narration kinds," do you mean epic poetry? Most of Homer is omniscient, but that's partly a function of the many independent narratives that were incorporated into the works; although granted, an epic worldview is universal by definition (and the gods are watching the whole story anyway--especially in The Iliad). But a large section of The Odyssey is a first person account of Odysseus' exploits, and early western novels like Satyricon and The Golden *ss are first person narratives. I'm just not sure what early works you were talking about.

Hmm, yes, you might be right there... Maybe that statement (I think it was by a Dutch teacher sometime) was oversimplified and mainly taking into account literature from the Middle Ages onwards. Although then you face the starting lines of the Divine Comedy, for one, talking in the 1st person.

I'm not sure how the land lies in other literatures than Classic. Say the Nordic ones and Dutch. Maybe those primarily relied on omniscient narration to recite, which makes that more likely. Maybe Lokasenna could elaborate on that.

[Pompey Bum]

I don't know much about Northern European literature (definitely a job for Lokasenna), but early modern Chinese classics like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West seem to have more or less omniscient narrators. I'm no Sinologist, though, so maybe JBI will take mercy on us where the earlier works go.

[ennison]

God-like narrator? Ambrose Bierce. Horseman in the Sky. Wtf does Bump mean?

[Hacienda]

In the general index of posts on a forum, threads are usually ranked by latest post (stickies take precedence); a poster may 'bump' a page even though s/he has nothing particular to add at that point, in order to return that thread to prominence in ranking, and hence the probability of attracting attention and a reply. Forums have quite a few amusing terms (though I don't find bump especially amusing unto itself). My favorite is necro, which is to 'bump' a really old i.e. dead thread.

Banhammer is another one - the meaning is self-evident but some forums have elaborate traditions in shaming or mocking the now-banned poster eg. an admin changing his profile photo to something amusing. I used to frequent a history forum where banned users' profile photos were changed to a photo of Hideki Tojo - general and wartime PM of Imperial Japan - taken after his suicide. That was perhaps a little grim.

[ennison]

Stickies? In the name of Gawd I am living in a swamp full of man-eating words

[ajvenigalla]

"Bump" means I am adding a post to a thread to keep it updated. In a sense, I "bump" the thread to the front page

[Pike Bishop]

Banhammer is another one - the meaning is self-evident but some forums have elaborate traditions in shaming or mocking the now-banned poster eg. an admin changing his profile photo to something amusing. I used to frequent a history forum where banned users' profile photos were changed to a photo of Hideki Tojo - general and wartime PM of Imperial Japan - taken after his suicide. That was perhaps a little grim.

The net truly does an excellent job of showing we never really leave high school...we just--at least most of us--get money for more expensive toys.