Reading with Style discussion

20.1 - I read
Read a book written in stream of conscious, a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions.
Examples can be found here.

Will any book written in the first person work, or is there some way to differentiate between stream of conscious vs. first person?

Stream of conscious is more than just written in the first person. Often it is just thoughts, like those you have sometimes, without complete sentences or punctuation. Here is a little more about it: stream of conscious

Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury uses stream of conscious. It isn't an easy read, but if you're up to tackling it, it qualifies as a combo with 20.5 Multiple Narrators and 10 Oldies points.

Joanna wrote: "Will any book written in the first person work, or is there some way to differentiate between stream of conscious vs. first person?"

These might work:
The Informers
Ellen Foster
Wide Sargasso Sea

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "What characterizes stream of consciousness is the interior dialogue. I think this article says it better than I could.

http://narrative.georgetown.edu/wiki/..."

Thanks Elizabeth -- sorry I'm so confused (I was a Math major in college, not English :0) ) (seriously, Math!) -- A book I'm reading now, The Seduction of Water, is also told in first person -- "I went here, I saw that", etc., but also includes "I dreamt", "I thought", "I remembered", plus some fine distinctions of the narrator's feelings about the other people in the novel, all of which seems to be "interior monologue". To make classification of this novel even more confusing, every now and then the narrative stops, and a short story or essay that our narrator (a professor of remedial English composition) is reading is included, followed by her reactions to it. (Shades of "20.4 - We read" although those documents are only about 5 percent of the text).

Anyways ... how much "interior monologue" of first person narration is needed to make a novel "stream of conscious" as well? Or is it that only novels like Ulysses count?

What characterizes stream of consciousness is the interior dialogue. I think this article says it better than I could.

http://narrative.georgetown.edu/wiki/...

Thanks for moving the discussion over here, Deedee.

We should be as liberal as possible with this. The objection with the books disallowed is that those were really telling a story. Even "I thought" and "I remembered" are telling outside of the person. Stream of consciousness is interior, those thoughts that go on inside the person's head, at the time they go on inside his/her head. This form also often has the character thinking in only phrases, just snippets of thoughts and incomplete sentences. Look at the example in the link from Mrs. Dalloway.

Anyway, even most first person novels aren't written this way in the entirety, and we're certainly not going to force a percentage.

Deedee wrote: "However ... that means there isn't really any task for the novels that are told in first person...."

Correct. I specifically, deliberately chose subsets of first person voice (stream of conscious and epistolary novels, which are typically first-person perspectives) rather than including all first-person novels.

Liz M wrote: "Joanna wrote: "Will any book written in the first person work, or is there some way to differentiate between stream of conscious vs. first person?"

These might work:
The Informers
Ellen Foster..."

I'll check Ellen Foster out from the library this afternoon and read it for this task --

either that one, or The Good Soldier also works for 20.1?