I've just begun reading "The Crimson Petal and The White" by Michael Faber, a national bestseller from 2002 that takes place in 1874 London. It has an interesting narrative technique. There is a main narrator and he talks directly to you, the reader, bringing you to meet the characters at different levels of society, starting with the lowest rung, a low-class prostitute. You meet her and then each character and you stay with them as an invisible watcher.
This technique is fascinating. I've just begun to notice that he's doing something else with the dialogue, too. When we're with the first character, Caroline, we see things from her point of view and she seems to think clearly and talk in "good" English.
However, when she meets a higher-class hooker, Sugar, who turns out to be a main character, suddenly we see Caroline in a different light. We see her from Sugar's point of view, and more interestingly, we "hear" her from Sugar's point of view. Whenever Caroline talks, we can hardly understand what she's saying. Her words have reverted into the vernacular that she always must have spoken, but when we were just with her, of course, we understood everything she said, because she herself did.
As soon as we see her with Sugar, we realize how incomprehensible Caroline always was. The dialogue seems "real" in that the author distorts the words so that we can actually "hear" how Caroline actually speaks them. I don't think I've ever seen this entire technique done before, and it's very subtle, so I could see why some might not catch it.
All in all, it's a fascinating book, and I'm only on page 119 of 900 pages! I'll let you know what else I find out that's interesting.
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