The trouble with stream of consciousness...

[Declan]

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.

[Declan]

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.

[RetsixArp]

...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. ...

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.

[dark desire]

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.

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.

[Declan]

Couldn't disagree more.

[mal4mac]

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

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.

[Declan]

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.

[ennison]

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.