Читать книгу The Official Book Club Guide: The Rules of Seeing - Kathryn Cope - Страница 8

NARRATIVE VOICE

When embarking on a first novel, many authors select a narrative viewpoint that is relatively close to their own (same gender, similar cultural background, etc). In The Rules of Seeing, however, Joe Heap laughs in the face of safe narrative options. For a debut novelist, he makes incredibly brave choices, producing a third-person narrative which alternates between two female protagonists (Nova and Kate).

Heap’s rendering of the female perspective is particularly topical in the aftermath of recent literary debate. A male author’s claim to be “living proof” that a man can write an authentic female character recently met with derision on Twitter – largely due to the protagonist’s lengthy description of her own ‘curves’. Believing that he had brilliantly encapsulated the female viewpoint, the author only emphasised the fact that some writers find it impossible to shake off the male gaze.

Link to article on this entertaining discussion

While it may be true that many male authors struggle to write convincingly from a female perspective, Joe Heap’s novel is proof that it can be done. The characters of Kate and Nova are delineated with great sensitivity and without a hint of the lasciviousness that some male authors have been criticised for. As a result, the novel feels refreshingly genderless.

In addition to intrepidly entering the realms of the female mind, Heap throws race and visual impairment into the mix through the character of Nova. Nova’s cultural background is particularly diverse as, although born in the UK, she is the child of a Ukrainian father and Pakistani mother. Her narrative also provides a perspective which even fewer readers will have experienced: that of a visually impaired person. Nova’s viewpoint not only allows us to see the world through blind eyes but also from the perspective of someone who is learning to see (a process we have all experienced as babies and promptly forgotten). In conveying the experiences of a visually impaired, mixed-race woman, the author demonstrates the ability to empathetically portray characters very different to himself. By taking this leap of imagination, Heap invites readers to do the same.