Hacker News Reader

Comment by robotmay | Hacker News Reader

I love the 90s TV series with Fry and Laurie (as in the article image), but I've sadly never managed to get into the books as I have an extreme dislike of books written in the first person. There are a lot of good books I've missed out on because of this. My desire to try and get into the Wodehouse books is pretty high, though, so perhaps another attempt is warranted.

View on HN

Ah, but first person offers so many wonderful opportunities for wit and voice that are impossible in third, and Wodehouse takes great advantage of that, with Bertie Wooster as the narrator of most of the stories (I can't remember if it's a single story or a whole book that are narrated by Jeeves) and providing a wonderful example of unreliable narration. I wish I'd remembered that when I was looking for good unreliable narrators for a craft piece I wrote during my MFA.

Don't get me wrong; I totally get the reasons for doing it, but unfortunately I have some weird problem with reading books written that way :(

When I read fiction I barely notice the words on the page and instead (sort of?) see what's happening in my head. It's not like characters even have a properly defined look, but I am visualising everything. However when the book is written in first-person, it plays havoc with my imagination and I really struggle to see the characters; it's just words on a page. It reads more like non-fiction, which for some reason doesn't trigger the same effect.

The Jeeves and Wooster stories are all (or almost all) in the first person, but most of the his other novels are not. Look for some of the Blandings Castle books.

Ooh, thank you for the tip, I didn't know that.

Out of curiousity, is your dislike for first person any different when you listen to a story instead of read it?

Good question! If I'm sat listening to someone in person spinning a yarn then I have no issues, although story-telling seems oddly different to a written story somehow. I don't really listen to audiobooks because I find it quite hard to concentrate on them, but I am curious as to whether it would work better there. Maybe it hits some sort of weird mid-point?

Could be worth a shot. I used to strongly dislike first person narrative, but it is less of an annoyance now, and some of my favorite books are from that perspective. I think it was partly reading and discussing some of my friends' favorite books (e.g., The Perks of Being a Wallflower), where their enthusiasm helped me appreciate it, and partly listening to good readers (e.g., Martin Jarvis reading Wodehouse or The Dresden Files read by James Marsters).

It might also have helped to read first person narratives where the narrator was more observer than actor (e.g., The Great Gatsby).

I'm really confused as to why people keep downvoting this comment. Are you offended that I can't read first-person books? :\

Reply on news.ycombinator.com