Narrative fumbles in my last book

 

     I have thought long and hard about some of my narrative choices for Appearing to Study Particle Physics, notably the advanced writing style--which I have always defended as being intended for the book's target audience, presumably nerds who pack their sentences with nullifying qualifiers and fantastic imagery to the point of absurdity and unhelpfully long sentences.  They would appreciate the densely packed sentence structures, and elaborate sociological descriptions, the sometimes puzzling plays on words, the archaic rhetorical stylings.  After all, those are the only people I expected would even read the book.  However much I enjoyed the thought of people buying the book so they could be seen in public pretending to read it, I was fairly certain that those would be the kind of people who wouldn't actually read it.

     But my biggest concern was my choice of first-person narrator, and my self-professed ineptitude in applying it.  Perhaps it can be seen as a puzzle for the attentive reader, to notice that the narrative consciousness is not in the same room as the narrator at times.  This could easily be relegated to the assessment that the text was converted from a third-person narrative, and such a suggestion would be easily accepted. This would lead most serious readers to disappointment that the author is not experienced enough to take his craft seriously.

     Except that later in the book I have the main character call out the narrating character--presumably aware that he is being narrated--for forgetting that first-person narrators cannot be in a different place than where the narration is occurring.  And that one tirade, given by a character in the novel, places the whole atmosphere of piss-poor first-person narration skills as not accidental, and the reader is then expected to wonder why.  But unfortunately, most readers would prefer to hold their assessment that the author is inexperienced in narrative, and does not properly understand the rules of first-person narration, because they have been allowed to think that for most of the book.

     However, my other big concern was with my violation of another rule for writers who choose first-person narrative styles.  "Never name your first-person narrator after yourself."  But I did, and the main character spends the last several chapters attempting to abandon his former friend--the narrator--for his constant disrespectful tone towards the academic disciplines that he is defending.  The famous philosopher, physicist, and sociologist, spending page after page trying to defend historians of physics against the narrator of the book he is in, trying to patiently teach his friend about the sciences he has spent many years studying.  And the friend that he is abandoning in contempt is the author of the book that he is in.  somebody once told me, "Never get the characters of your book pissed off at you."  I always wondered about that advice, and I tried to violate it in my first major work, the novella This and That.  But it wasn't direct enough,  as the author was nameless, the narrative was third-person (unreliable, too), and the character of the author was clearly separate from the author outside the book--the "presumed author," as it were.

    Appearing to Study Particle Physics was a much more direct attempt to get the main character of my book pissed off at me, as I had identified the narrator in the book as the author of the book, both presumed and actual.

     Or am I just trying to rationalize my efforts as something other than what they are, the product of an inexperienced writer?