“The Importance of Small Things” part II

In this second excerpt from Edmund Gordon’s long essay, a consideration of narrative structure in PF’s Innocence. (a partial bibliography from this piece can be found here.)

The first part of the novel traces Chiara and Salvatore’s early relationship, an affair marked by tempestuous arguments and passionate reconciliations. Then, at the beginning of Part Two (just over halfway through the novel) we are given the scene of the couple’s wedding. This event is shown to us obliquely in eleven short chapters, some no more than a hundred words long, and all of which approach the ceremony from different, though uniformly unexpected angles. There is, for example, the following long paragraph, which makes up half a chapter:

“The Importance of Small Things”

In his essay on Penelope Fitzgerald, London based journalist, Edmund Gordon, examines the extraordinary structure of her plots, noting that they are so subtle that it is possible to mistake them as conventional, and yet extraordinary in their construction. Her technique, he says, is why she is “an author who rewards multiple readings and warrants close analysis.”

Below, a first of several planned excerpt from the essay. Wherever possible we have linked to the sources cited–or at least to additional information about the sources!

Contemporary Women’s Writing

Here’s an article on PF’s work entitled “New Voice, Old Body:  the Case of Penelope Fitzgerald in Contemporary Women’s Writing.  There’s an abstract here, and you can request a free copy of the whole piece from the editors.