Monday, December 9, 2013

When the lazy Susan of characters settles

It's become clear at this point that Kay isn't giving up his lazy Susan of characters any time soon. However, if the rest of the book is anything like chapter twelve, then the array of point of view characters won't be an issue.

In chapter twelve we once again get a set of different perspectives, ranging from Ren's to Lin's father's. But all of these characters are in one place. And, more importantly, they all seem to be shown at or around one set time: the night after Ren, Ziji and Fuyin's scheme to stage an attempt on Lin's life so that Ren looks like he saves her. Unity in setting goes a long way to highlight the importance of this event. Plus, since the whole chapter takes place in such narrow geographical and temporal scopes we're actually given time to empathize with characters.

However, it doesn't seem likely that this tight structure will become the norm for the book. "Part Three" looms on the next page, and that's likely to herald a shift into a completely different direction.

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