The Living Book

There are only a few authors out there who can write fiction and make the experience of reading it feel dynamic and energetic, like an engrossing conversation with an interesting person; one that may include firsthand experiences, stories about people you know well, or events and places that are emotionally meaningful to you. The shape of a finished conversation could resemble the elaborate branching of a tree – it has an intricate, yet natural design. Those few writers who take the initiative to actually diverge from the regular narrative form of a novel are the ones who succeed in replicating the branching of paths and flowering of ideas that takes place in everyday human interaction.
Take David Mitchell‘s 2004 masterpiece Cloud Atlas. You start off on your journey in the 1850s, through the confessional diary of an American notary. Just as you get engrossed in his story of slavery and the Christian faith, the story switches over to the letters of a young English musician who finds work and romance as an apprentice to a composer in Belgium. Soon you are following an investigative reporter as she sneaks around a nuclear power plant in the late 20th century. These stories are linked together in numerous ways – each protagonist discovers the story of another character on a bookself or in the attic, and is affected by it uniquely. More impressive is the artistry with which Mitchell weaves together the broad themes of freedom, love and responsibility throughout the entire book. The stories range in time from 1850 to the near extinction of humanity and range in format from transcribed interrogation to modern memoir, and yet each story is powerfully touching on its own. David Mitchell’s ethos of experimentation is fascinating, and those who are interested can get vivid insight into his background and writing process from a recent New York Times Magazine article.
Another author who playfully morphs the shape of a story and vividly depicts the aura of another time and place is John Fowles. His best work is The French Lieutenant’s Woman, a book that is much more than a bittersweet romance. The voice of a thoughtful writer continuously reappears throughout the book, giving historical context and offering his own opinion on the budding romance between the rich naive dilettante Charles Smithson and the melancholy outcast Sarah Woodruff. Charles and Sarah both become increasingly conscious of their ability to break out of their respective places within Victorian society. Meanwhile, the reader becomes increasingly aware of just how historically and philosophically pivotal the choices made in the seemingly trivial drama of a love story can be. Fowles confronts the perennially relevant issues of gender and freedom in another intriguing work, The Collector. Here he switches between the voice of an unstable shop clerk, Clegg, and the diary of a young college girl, Miranda, whom he intends to kidnap. Miranda grows to understand what it truly means to be mentally and spiritually free during her captivity – a potent metaphor for issues of feminism that is all the more forceful when told through both perspectives.
Mitchell and Fowles share a fearlessness to break the typical constraints of both model and genre when it comes to telling tales. Some critics decry their attempts as being even more artificial than a linear storyline. David Mitchell has been dismissed for the “intermittent hollowness of his ventriloquism.”
But why not take the story further than it has ever gone before? Stories help fulfill the human desire to sympathize with others, and these books prompt the reader to enter into the thoughts of characters in an unbelievably nuanced manner.