Audiofic!

I got a new microphone yesterday, and so I've recorded audiofic versions of two recent stories: Two Lost Little Girls (BtVS, Faith/Drusilla) and I'm Awfully Fond of You (XMM, Bobby/Rogue, Kitty/Mindee).

Frankenstein and Transparency

I've just stopped by the Commuter Lounge after class, and we've done Frankenstein. Now the prof wanted to focus on the slippages and fallibilities inherent in the various levels of framing devices, but I'm actually more interested in the transparencies. We found plenty of examples of said slippages, places where the narrators may be less than reliable or at least have their reliability called into question, and I can think of more we did not discuss in class, but I almost want to argue that these are localized phenomena, not actually casting sustained doubt on any of the levels of narrative--as opposed to Victors, discussed previously, which problematizes the process of narrative itself, as argued by Kristina Busse in her blog.

( Fig. 1 )

Take the diagram I put forth in one of my previous posts. In Frankenstein the answer to "What is the story about?" exists on the level of what is called in the diagram the "Events of Story."

**[ The Creature's Account to Frankenstein <-- ] Frankenstein's Account to Walton** <-- Walton's Letters to Margaret <-- Shelley's Novel 

The answer to "What is Frankenstein about?" is not "An arctic explorer who writes letters to his sister" (as much as I might like to imagine the 'cesty possibilities thereof) but rather "A scientist who animates a creature." This is what I mean by "transparent."

But in, say, "The Tell-Tale Heart" the answer to "What is the story is about?" rests not on the "Events of Story" but rather the "Diegetic Act of Narration."

The Narrator's Committing of Murder and the Aftermath Thereof <-- **An Insane Man Confessing to Police** <-- Poe's Short Story

Here the answer to "What is the story about?" is not "A magical heart that continues to beat after death" but instead "A crazy man who commits murder and is driven by his hallucinations to confess." We would, under standard hermeneutic conditions, call a reading which placed the primacy on the events of the story as written rather than the diegetic act of narration suggested thereof a misreading. The story is, so to speak, "translucent."

There are narratives in which an ambiguity exists as to where the primacy lies. For example, in "Annabell Lee," the poem is either a lovely love poem (my mother's reading, although one founded on principle rather than ignorance--she refuses to read it any other way) or a poem about a crazy person who sleeps in sea-side mausoleums. My "On Her Knees" seems to be a dystopian AU futurefic, but I think it's "really" about the mindgames Lilah plays on Wes during season 4 of Angel.

And, if we accept Busse's argument, in Victors the primacy actually lies within the the act of reading itself. It is completely and utterly opaque.

What Really Happened <-- Various Forms of Documentation <-- **Speranza's Fanfiction**