Abstract

The collection of stories brought together under the title The Patient attempts to explore the relationship between author, character, and reader through the use of different narrative techniques. Each story is preoccupied in some way with perspective; each attempts to construct a point-of-view in an effort to establish different modes of looking. "B--Street and L" can in this way be seen as the most experimental and pivotal story in the selection, for its multi-perspectival narration is actively engaged in finding different ways of looking at the same thing. Ideally, the trajectory which moves from the egocentric, first-person narration of "Birding," to the distant and ironic tone of the third-person narrator in "The Patient" speaks to this shifting perspective, highlighting in the process the writer, as he negotiates a place for himself within his work. The central characters in these stories are withdrawn, reticent, and tentative; each resorts to a mode of speech which is in some sense a compensation for these qualities. Elevated speech gestures toward a desire to hide behind the formal properties of language, whereas the naturalized speech of some of the secondary characters reveals a willingness to engage socially. In this way, language becomes another way to construct and articulate perspective