Source
r/Malazan•
RaaaR

Listening to Toll the Hounds and need some clarification about narration.

SPOILERS TtH

I don't have the benefit of being able to look things up in text format. Michael Page reads some sections not as a narrator, but as if someone in the book is reading a passage, but you can't tell who exactly is doing the reading or what they're reading.

For example, I just heard a section that I believe is about Kruppe choking on pie and spitting some of it on Meese. Page is reading this section in someone's voice, not his regular narrator tone.

Is there any additional insight in the books why he's using a different tone?
Am I supposed to ignore this for now and it'll become clear later?
How are these parts displayed in the books?

A similar situation happened earlier, but it turned out to be Baruk (I think) reading to Crone a fake account of Rake and Osseric's falling out.

Posted Oct 25, 2017, 1:04 AM UTC

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pregnantchihuahua3Pust's Mule•

The tone in this book was Erikson experimenting with his narration. It is purposefully different and the book is being told from the perspective of one of the characters in the story. I can tell you who the character is if you would like to know because I'm pretty sure it's not a spoiler. I think it gets revealed eventually somehow but like I said, nothing spoilerish. But I completely get if you'd rather find out by yourself.

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RaaaROPBreak after TtH - NoK 1st read•

Thank you for the answer. I think I'd like to keep it unknown for now.
Does the whole thing serve a purpose in the story or is it likely just trying something new on Erikson's part?

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pregnantchihuahua3Pust's Mule•

It’s purely a stylistic choice. The narration doesn’t affect the plot, just the tone/prose like you said. I personally love the change in tone but I know a lot of people don’t. I’m not sure if it ever flat out says who the narrator is but after a while you’ll probably figure it out for yourself!

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TRAIANVSTehol in the streets, Kruppe in the sheets•

It's not a spoiler. It's right there in the prologue.

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RaaaROPBreak after TtH - NoK 1st read•

I listened to the prologue again, since you say it's supposedly in there. First there's the story of Apsal'ara being read by someone anonymous. Then there's Kruppe mentioning a bard and reciting a part of his poem. Then there's Kruppe sitting with K'rul and a stranger approaches them and completes the poem for Kruppe (perhaps the stranger is the bard). Then Kruppe says he'll spin a tale for them and to "witness".
My best guess from all this is that you're implying it's Kruppe telling the stories throughout the book. I didn't feel there was reason to believe any of it was Kruppe by this point in the story. I'll see if it seems clearer as the story goes on or just in retrospect once I'm done.

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TRAIANVSTehol in the streets, Kruppe in the sheets•

It is indeed Kruppe. It's probably most obvious in the interludes where he flits between different places in Darujhistan.

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RaaaROPBreak after TtH - NoK 1st read•

The beginning of chapter 5 made it clearer who it was. Just passed it.

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pregnantchihuahua3Pust's Mule•

Oh I didn’t remember it being so early on but now that I think about it yeah.

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cmetz90•

The voice of the narration subtly shifts in Malazan over the course of the series. This is something I thought a lot about my second time through the series, especially since I listened to the first five on audio for my re-“read.”

In the first four books, the text is almost always (I would have to read it again to check, but I bet there are exceptions) a pretty standard third-person limited perspective: that is the events are being relayed to the reader pretty much as they happen, through the eyes of whichever character is our POV for that section. Any extended musings or explorations of a topic are through the POV character, either in internal monologue, actual dialogue, or constructed in the narration from the experiences of that character (like “Kalam knew x based on...”)

Starting in MT though, the prose gets a little more experimental. There are segments where the narration shifts from limited to omniscient, for example, and other segments where there are philosophical discussions just in the text, not tied to any particular character’s perspective. You also start seeing more short, one-off POVs where you get the thoughts of an outsider or a minor soldier for a few paragraphs.

In MT this is arguably explainable because the story is being told by Trull in retrospect (the closing of HOC.) so the “omniscient” bits and musings could be coming from Trull himself. But that doesn’t necessarily hold water in my opinion, because MT is clearly far wider in scope than Trull’s understanding of events (he would never have known all the details regarding Mael, the Errant, the Crimson Guard, etc.) Plus those writing conventions carry on in later books.

TTH is a very different beast in a lot of ways. But one of the main ways is that, usually when it drifts off into an omniscient section, or a section exploring a relevant topic, it does so in the voice of a specific character. So, I haven’t heard it myself, but I imagine Lister changes his (actual vocal) voice accordingly, to capture the (literary) voice of that character.

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