Time and Distance as Devices of Literary Style

There is obviously a well-understood relationship between time and distance: it takes a certain amount of time to go a certain distance, and since we understand that, the notion that these two concepts go together is a comfortable one.  A character travels and time passes.

We're also familiar with the often circular nature of travel. A character sets off for a particular destination and then returns home. The end of the trip is also the end of the story. It's a satisfying relationship -- everything neatly tied up.





Let's take a look at how a couple of contemporary writers have used these rather reassuring relationships to structure their stories.

In an earlier post, I wrote about "Eva Sleeps," a best-selling Italian novel released last year in English translation. It's by Francesca Melandri and I recommended it as a book one might read after Elena Ferrante's series of novels known as the Neopolitan Quartet.

Melandri is writing both the story of Eva, born to an unwed mother, and about the troubled history of the region in which she lives -- Alto Adige, or South Tryol as it was known when it was part of Austria, before the end of WWI.

Near the beginning of the book, something prompts Eva to suddenly leave her home in the far northeast of Italy and travel to the far south of the Italian mainland -- a lengthy journey by train. As she proceeds, the chapters of the book alternate between periods of past time in which we learn the trials and tribulations of largely German-speaking Alto Adige and the history of her parents and their community, and periods of distance -- from a certain kilometer on the rail line to another one further down the track.  During the periods of distance, we lean about contemporary Italy and contemporary Eva.

It's a metaphorical device to knit two often very different stories together in a way that makes sense. History and Eva's life finally reach the same point when after reaching her goal, she returns home -- more or less instantly by air.

I thought Melandri handled the pacing very well, with the following caveat. If one is, say, more interested in Eva than the history of her region (or the reverse), one tends to want to rush through a time-based chapter to get to one based on distance, or vice versa.

Let's take a look at another way to use time and distance that is in some ways different and in some ways very similar.

In another earlier post, I mentioned a recently published book called "Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk," by Kathleen Rooney. It's set in Manhattan and as was the case with "Eva Sleeps," the female protagonist, an elderly New Yorker named Lillian, sets out on a journey, this time on foot.  After she reaches her destination and then returns home, the story, like the journey, ends.

Unlike "Eva Sleeps," which uses alternative chapters to tell two different, but related stories, "Lillian Boxfish" uses the time of Lillian's travel to backfill the story of her life, generally in a linear fashion. In other words, shortly after she leaves her apartment, she begins to reminisce about her past -- her job and her marriage, her fame and her obscurity -- and, no surprise, we are brought up to date and find ourselves reading about contemporary events as she gets home.

The duration of her rather lengthy walk parallels the duration of her life just as the lengthy duration of Eva's train ride parallels the eventful history of Alto Adige over many decades.

It's an interesting device.