The novel sets off slowly, uncertain of its narrative arc.
"Kama Sutra," which Nair now calls "an aberration," was a sumptuous, peacock-colored spectacle, sensual in its use of costumes and tableaux, but uncertain in its narrative.
He is one of two immigrants who bookend "Surveillance" — the second is a ruthlessly ambitious Chinese landlord — and their true identities remain uncertain throughout the narrative.
The spooky, metaphysical economy of Auster's fiction in its Parisian mode ("Oracle Night," from 2003, is the best of his most recent books), with its arresting, uncertain, and dislocated narratives, offers more room to breathe, more space for the reader's imagination to squeeze its way in, more spurs to wonder.
It is one of the uncertain points in the narrative.
The narrative's uncertain distance from the protagonist is shown by one mannerism in particular.
There are always intervals during which I feel stuck on a novel — not necessarily blocked, or even stalled, just … uncertain about where the narrative and its characters want to go next.
There are always intervals during which I feel stuck on a novel — not necessarily blocked, or even stalled, just... uncertain about where the narrative and its characters want to go next.
Sweet Violets has a Rachmaninov score, designs by John Macfarlane and swathes of lovely choreography by Scarlett, but as our grasp of the narrative is uncertain, we can't really access these things.
Perhaps the defender of the entertained uncertainty theory could reply by simply supplementing the theory with an account of why it becomes more difficult or just less likely for audiences to entertain narrative outcomes as uncertain the more familiar they are with a story.
