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bookgazing) wrote2010-05-12 08:17 am
bookgazing) wrote2010-05-12 08:17 am
Creating a Dialogue
Ever since reading ‘The God Box’ I’ve been thinking about dialogues in modern fiction.
The structure of a dialogue is a conversation, usually between two people, where the author has one character set out ideas the author does not believe are true. Then the author has the second character refute these ideas and suggest another course of thought is much better. Dialogues most famously first appeared in the Platonic dialogues where Plato set out to dispute certain philosophical ideas through recorded conversations between the author and a fictional friend,. Scientific authors like Galileo later made dialogues appear more fictional by absenting the author from the scenes of discussion. Galileo also complicated his most famous dialogue, ‘Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World’ by including more than two characters. I haven’t read Plato’s dialogues, but I really like Galileo’s which sets out to disprove the idea that the Earth orbited the Sun.
Even later in history authors integrated the structured dialogue into novels and plays. Right now I’m reading ‘Anna Karenina’ and Tolstoy is a big fan of the dialogue structure as a way of explaining his ideas. Part three sees his character Levin engaging in a several dialogues with other characters about the correct way to farm and as Levin is said to be a self-portrait of Tolstoy I’m assuming that Levin’s ideas correspond with Tolstoy’s.
In Galileo’s dialogue it is easy to see which ideas the author wants us to believe in, even if we know nothing about the scientific truth, or Galileo’s own ideas. Galileo gives the character who opposes Galileo’s views the humorous name of ‘Simplicio’. Simplicio is not realistic, nuanced, or as intelligent as the character Salviati, who presents Galileo’s views. By presenting Simplicio as a character who lacks cultivation and intellect, Galileo encourages the reader to ignore Simplicio’s views and embrace Salviati’s.
In a similar way Tolstoy makes Levin agree with characters who are agreeable and reasonably intelligent, then disagree with characters who are disagreeable and perceived as less intelligent. Of course, it’s Tolstoy so everything is a bit more complicated than that, for example Levin finds himself in complete disagreement with his extremely intelligent, upstanding brother. As far as I can work out that shows Tolstoy switching the views he believes are true to a different character, to reflect Levin’s and Tolstoy’s youthful idealism, which Tolstoy has since reluctantly disregarded. It’s harder to decode which arguments Tolstoy supports without knowing a bit about his background as Levin sometimes sides with characters a modern reader will find repulsive, but Levin represents a progressive dialogue character, not a definite dialogue character like Salviati. Levin he starts off sure of his opinion, but Tolstoy uses conversations with other characters to shape his changing ideas then bring Levin and the reader to his ideological stand point, more in keeping with how the third character Sagredo responds in Galileo’s dialogue. The reader’s acceptance of Levin’s views on farming also rely on them identifying him as a hero, or a likeable character and this is perhaps a little hard for a modern reader to accept at times.
This brings me to dialogues in modern fiction. If a modern author creates characters for the purpose of walking the reader through a complex discussion then the characters who hold views the author can’t resemble the kind of one note characters Galileo created. Modern fiction and modern readers demand realistic characters (more about that assumption in a later post) and any stereotypical evil, or stupid characters will strike them as false. At the same time there’s a lack of realism about the dialogue structure itself, which can make the inclusion of conversations in this style seem oddly inserted in a modern novel. A dialogue was never meant to be a realistic narrative structure after all, as it was developed a long time before realism was the be all and end all in writing. At the same time the idea of a conversation where one set of wrong views gets directly corrected has an undeniable charm and usefulness in the present day. While the dialogues in ‘The God Box’ felt badly integrated to me, they are the most important part of the novel.
That leaves me with a few questions about how a structured dialogue might coexist with modern fiction and modern readers, who may find inserted dialogues of this type preachy, or too much like info dumping. How do modern authors signal that one character’s views are not what the author wants their readers to believe, while keeping the character realistically human? Can dialogues be integrated into novels without seeming out of place to the reader? And one last question that seems to spring from nowhere is, do readers find the use of dialogues more acceptable in novels from places where realism is less of a dominant trend (thinking of places like South America which publishes a lot of magical realism)?
As always I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the questions above. I know you all have sharp minds that can help me cut through the mulling I’m doing.
The structure of a dialogue is a conversation, usually between two people, where the author has one character set out ideas the author does not believe are true. Then the author has the second character refute these ideas and suggest another course of thought is much better. Dialogues most famously first appeared in the Platonic dialogues where Plato set out to dispute certain philosophical ideas through recorded conversations between the author and a fictional friend,. Scientific authors like Galileo later made dialogues appear more fictional by absenting the author from the scenes of discussion. Galileo also complicated his most famous dialogue, ‘Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World’ by including more than two characters. I haven’t read Plato’s dialogues, but I really like Galileo’s which sets out to disprove the idea that the Earth orbited the Sun.
Even later in history authors integrated the structured dialogue into novels and plays. Right now I’m reading ‘Anna Karenina’ and Tolstoy is a big fan of the dialogue structure as a way of explaining his ideas. Part three sees his character Levin engaging in a several dialogues with other characters about the correct way to farm and as Levin is said to be a self-portrait of Tolstoy I’m assuming that Levin’s ideas correspond with Tolstoy’s.
In Galileo’s dialogue it is easy to see which ideas the author wants us to believe in, even if we know nothing about the scientific truth, or Galileo’s own ideas. Galileo gives the character who opposes Galileo’s views the humorous name of ‘Simplicio’. Simplicio is not realistic, nuanced, or as intelligent as the character Salviati, who presents Galileo’s views. By presenting Simplicio as a character who lacks cultivation and intellect, Galileo encourages the reader to ignore Simplicio’s views and embrace Salviati’s.
In a similar way Tolstoy makes Levin agree with characters who are agreeable and reasonably intelligent, then disagree with characters who are disagreeable and perceived as less intelligent. Of course, it’s Tolstoy so everything is a bit more complicated than that, for example Levin finds himself in complete disagreement with his extremely intelligent, upstanding brother. As far as I can work out that shows Tolstoy switching the views he believes are true to a different character, to reflect Levin’s and Tolstoy’s youthful idealism, which Tolstoy has since reluctantly disregarded. It’s harder to decode which arguments Tolstoy supports without knowing a bit about his background as Levin sometimes sides with characters a modern reader will find repulsive, but Levin represents a progressive dialogue character, not a definite dialogue character like Salviati. Levin he starts off sure of his opinion, but Tolstoy uses conversations with other characters to shape his changing ideas then bring Levin and the reader to his ideological stand point, more in keeping with how the third character Sagredo responds in Galileo’s dialogue. The reader’s acceptance of Levin’s views on farming also rely on them identifying him as a hero, or a likeable character and this is perhaps a little hard for a modern reader to accept at times.
This brings me to dialogues in modern fiction. If a modern author creates characters for the purpose of walking the reader through a complex discussion then the characters who hold views the author can’t resemble the kind of one note characters Galileo created. Modern fiction and modern readers demand realistic characters (more about that assumption in a later post) and any stereotypical evil, or stupid characters will strike them as false. At the same time there’s a lack of realism about the dialogue structure itself, which can make the inclusion of conversations in this style seem oddly inserted in a modern novel. A dialogue was never meant to be a realistic narrative structure after all, as it was developed a long time before realism was the be all and end all in writing. At the same time the idea of a conversation where one set of wrong views gets directly corrected has an undeniable charm and usefulness in the present day. While the dialogues in ‘The God Box’ felt badly integrated to me, they are the most important part of the novel.
That leaves me with a few questions about how a structured dialogue might coexist with modern fiction and modern readers, who may find inserted dialogues of this type preachy, or too much like info dumping. How do modern authors signal that one character’s views are not what the author wants their readers to believe, while keeping the character realistically human? Can dialogues be integrated into novels without seeming out of place to the reader? And one last question that seems to spring from nowhere is, do readers find the use of dialogues more acceptable in novels from places where realism is less of a dominant trend (thinking of places like South America which publishes a lot of magical realism)?
As always I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the questions above. I know you all have sharp minds that can help me cut through the mulling I’m doing.