The Too Unreliable Narrator (was: What really happened on the tower)

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 155778

 
> Pippin:
> Yes, and that is exactly what the narrator is ambiguous about.
> Here's the quote, with my comments in brackets.
> <snip> 
> Pippin
>

Neri:
Like I wrote to Kemper, of course it's sneaky, but it's not a non-
description the way I defined it. I defined non-description as 
something that the hero *must* see or know, and yet the narrator 
doesn't describe. Harry wasn't in a position to judge the timing 
relation between Quirrell being knocked, Snape realizing he's on fire 
and the broom stop bucking, so it isn't a non-description. 

Say even that in this special case we generalize my definition to Ron 
and Hermione too. Can we say that one of them must have noticed that 
relation? Hermione's attention was probably on Snape until he gave 
that yelp, so she could easily miss it. Ron on the stands was far 
from both Snape and Harry, he had to divide his attention between the 
two and he's the least observant in the trio. I'd say there's a very 
good chance he missed it. We also don't know how much time it took 
Harry to clamber to his broom after it stopped bucking, but it could 
easily be 30 seconds. The narrator is being ambiguous, but that's her 
constitutional right. The point is that she's not *more* ambiguous 
than what each of her characters knows. 
 
There's a long way from this situation to Harry not knowing if he 
said the incantation "petrificus totalus" or not.
 

> Carol responds:
> You're misunderstanding the concept. It isn't Harry who's fooled, at
> least not in this case (though he's certainly mistaken in the case 
of
> Draco listening behind the shelves in the library). It's the reader
> who's left up in the air.

Neri:
Harry is fooled because he doesn't investigate who said the 
incantation. The readers are fooled because they don't even know if 
Harry doesn't investigate because he said the incantation himself. 
Until now JKR has never used such lowly methods to trick us. 

> Carol:
> But I don't
> think it's a matter of the narrator "not having time" to present 
every
> detail. How long would it take to say/write/type "Harry said" (or 
more
> likely "Harry gasped"? About two seconds.

Neri:
Two seconds are not an insignificant time when describing a fast 
action sequence. But anyway it would be more than two seconds because 
there are many other things that aren't described. Describing each 
one might take only a second, but describing all of them would take 
several minutes, and each such missing detail can be used to build a 
conspiracy theory on it. This is why fooling us with non-descriptions 
is unfair. Because there's a huge number of them.


> Carol:
> The narrator is misleading us in a variety of ways, in this case by
> omitting important information (your "non-descriptions"). 

Neri:
There's a fine distinction here. Just omitting important information 
isn't "tricking" the reader, as JKR calls it. Anybody can mislead the 
reader by simply withholding information. You don't have to be a good 
writer for that. *Tricking* the readers is giving them the required 
information in a way that causes them to overlook it, and this is 
much more difficult to do.   


> wynnleaf
> 
> I'm not quite sure I understand something about what you're saying. 
> Are you saying that this is just something *JKR* wouldn't do?  Or 
are
> you saying there's some sort of literary rule that the narrator
> wouldn't be this "unfair," as you put it?

Neri:
It's JKR who said the readers like to be tricked but not conned. The 
question is what are her standards for conning. We can't know that 
for sure, of course, but I'm pointing out that in six books she had 
never used a non-description to fool Harry and us. This suggests she 
thinks it's unfair.

Several days ago you mentioned Emma as JKR's standard for mystery 
writing, so lets see how this principle works there. Emma (and us) 
think Harriet is in love with Churchill because Harriet hinted that 
this man saved her. Churchill had just saved her from the gypsies so 
we think she means him. But in fact this is a red herring and Harriet 
actually means Knightly who asked her for a dance when nobody else 
did. Had the narrator failed to tell us before that Knightly asked 
Harriet for a dance, that wouldn't be a fair tricking of the reader, 
but of course the narrator did write that Emma noticed it. Had the 
narrator told us that Emma noticed "someone" asking Harriet for a 
dance that would be a non-description: Emma would know who that man 
really was but the reader wouldn't. BTW, it was some time since I've 
last read Emma, but I'd be very surprised if you can find a single 
case of Austen using a non-description to fool the reader.   


Neri