Narrative Modes

   As much as I enjoy books, I also appreciate organization- organization of books and organization of story.
    I have been complaining about 'disruptive' plotlines. Why do authors write this way? Whine, whine, whine.
   So I did a little research on that topic.
  Quote: "Fiction prose can be anywhere from obscure and difficult to clear and direct".
  According to Wikipedia, modernist literature began in the late 19th century.  It is a break with traditional ways of writing.  It experimented with the non-linear order in writing.  Authors such as: Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, Ford Madox Ford, Marcel Proust, and William Faulkner.  I have read these authors, and now I realize why they are not my favourites.
  Stream of consciousness has never appealed to me, but I can enjoy flashbacks in a novel, when they enlighten the plot.
  Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain" has been one of my favourites even though it has parallel plotlines.  I have read this books 3 times. It moves between characters but not time lines.
  Lucinda Riley's "Storm Sister' had a story within a story and I adored that book!  The 'inside story' was delightful!
  However, it is the constant back and forth in a disjointed narrative that has me completely frustrated.  I just get into one storyline and it switches- back and forth, back and forth.
  There are so many books with this structure, that I would like to give up reading new books for awhile and just read my old favourites that I can trust to take me on a delightful journey.
   But I guess I will still read books for my book clubs.
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"There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner.  Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, enter your blood, numb your thoughts.  Inside you they work their magic." ("The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield).
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"In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.  I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself". (How Reading Changed My life" by Anna Quindlen).
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