Monday, August 2, 2010

Point of View Reading List

I just wound up my class at Hub City's "Writing in Place," where we focused on point of view. Here is my reading list for exploring point of view, one of the most fascinating and important elements of fiction writing:

SUGGESTED READING:

First Person POV                                          Second Person POV "you,"
The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald                      Bright Lights, Big City, McInerney
Housekeeping, Robinson                           "How to Become a Writer," Moore
Huckleberry Finn, Twain                            Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, Robbins
Anywhere but Here, Simpson                     If on a winter's night a traveler, Italo Calvino
Lolita, Nabokov

First Person POV, serial
                          Third Person, Objective, [mostly dialogue]
One Foot in Eden, Rash                             “Hills like White Elephants,” Hemingway
The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver            “I-900,” Bausch
                                                                     “I-80 Nebraska,” Sayles
First Person POV, plural “we”     
"A Rose for Emily," Faulkner                    Third Person POV, Close
The Virgin Suicides, Eugenides                 Norwood, Portis
Then We Came to the End, Ferris               Rich in Love, Humphreys

Stream-of-Consciousness   
                   Third Person, serial
As I lay Dying, Faulkner                        Little Children, Perrotta
The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood               Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Tyler   
                                                                  The Hours, Cunningham
Third Person, Omniscient       
Bleak House, Dickens                            Various Narrative Points of View, alternated
Empire Falls, Russo                               Two Girls, Fat and Thin, Gaitskill
Ragtime, Doctorow                                Machine Dreams, Phillips
Bel Canto, Patchett                                 I was Amelia Earhart, Mendelsohn
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy                         The White Hotel, Thomas
Pride and Prejudice, Austen                 The Plague of Doves, Erdrich
Amy and Isabelle, Strout                       The Bluest Eye, Morrison
Ironweed, Kennedy
“A Good Man is Hard to Find,” O’Connor     

2 comments:

  1. Mindy...

    I was in your workshop at Hub City and wanted to let you know that it has already proven invaluable. Am starting a new manuscript and was flailing madly re how to begin. Then I remembered one of the exercises you set for us and decided to "pan out." And there it was. Thanks muchly.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great list, Mindy. I certainly appreciate that you've put this together...and shared it with us. Let the reading (and note-taking) begin!

    ReplyDelete

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