On the surface, these two books don’t seem to have a lot in common.  Then We Came To The End is a postmodern romp through today’s office cubicle culture told with Ferris’ tongue firmly lodged in his cheek.  Barrett’s book, The Air We Breathe, is a historical novel set at a tuberculosis sanitorium in the Adirondacks in the early 20th century.  But these two books do share one thing that particularly interests me as a writer — point of view.

As you might guess from the “we” in both titles, these books are told in first person plural.  Not the royal “we”, but the collective “we.”  There is a narrator in each work who speaks in the first person, but does so for the group.  The narrator remains nameless and for the most part is not a direct participant in the action.  That is, the narrator is present for all of the events, more or less, but is never a protagonist or an antagonist.  Stripped of all identity, the first person plural narrators lack individual characteristics, freeing them up to have the omniscience to tell the story of a wide range of characters, yet also the personal connection to make the reader feel a part of the group.

Ferris’ narrator has more distinctive (and distinctly snarky) voice.  The story is about an office full of mid-level workers who are getting laid off throughout the book (which on retrospect may seem more like non-fiction these days than satire).  Though the book sometimes feels like a novelization of the movie Office Space, it is consistently engaging and funny.  For me, the unique choice of first person plural was driven home by a more conventional single chapter in the middle that shifts to a close third person point of view.  In that chapter, which reads like a completely separate short story, we follow a previously peripheral character through a traumatic day.  The chapter was well written as a poignant aside, but it pulled me out of the book to such a degree that I found it hard to return to the sarcastic “we” immediately following it.  Still, overall, the novel is worth the read.

Barrett’s book reads like a third person novel with some intrusions from the first person plural narrator.  Where the narrator in Ferris’ book was clearly a character, I couldn’t help feeling that Barrett’s narrator was merely a stand-in for the author.  To that end, Barrett actually does a better job of turning the POV into a collective entity symbolic of the many abandoned people at the sanitorium.  They truly are no longer individuals — they are the diseased, to be feared and isolated.  And therefore, they become “we.”  I usually don’t read historical novels — my tastes tend to run toward contemporary and a bit odd.  But this was an enjoyable compelling book that is a good introduction to Barrett’s work.

Reading two books like these just reminds me of how many decisions go into every piece of fiction.  It is funny to say, but sometimes I forget that.  I make my own decisions in my writing (such as choosing a POV) on instinct rather than conscious introspection.  Things just feel right or they don’t.  So for me it is nice to look more closely at accomplished authors such as Ferris and Barrett whose own instincts have led them to make an unconventional, but ultimately perfect, choice.