Mutant Message Down Under
What is the author's style in Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan?
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The book is narrated from the first person subjective point of view, giving it an atmosphere of immediacy. The reader feels, in many instances, very present with the author as she has her experiences - the sensations of heat, dryness and the irritation of the clouds of insects are evoked with particular effectiveness. The author's narrative of her emotional reactions to what's happening (her shock and fear when she sees her clothes being burned, her wonder resulting from the apparently miraculous healing of Great Stone Hunter, her desperation when she feels she's failing the tribe) is similarly engaging and evocative.
Two relatively common structural techniques are employed in Mutant Message Down Under. The first of these is to start the narrative immediately with an incident (in this case the departure from the hotel and the journey through the desert) instead of with explanation of background (exposition). The second is to leave the narrative at a high point of interest (in this case, the beginning of the author's physical journey into the unknown) and divert into said exposition just long enough for the reader to become eager to find out what's going to happen next. That being said, the sense of rawness evident in the use of language throughout the book (see above) is also present in its structure. While the first few chapters rely on time-tested techniques to draw the reader in, the extensive middle section (Chapters 7 through 21) has little or no sense of chronological order to events. They are simply recounted as physical incidents leading to spiritual enlightenment, with virtually no sense of "this happened then this happened then this." Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing - it's interesting, in fact, to consider how this free-flowing, almost stream-of-consciousness structure can be seen as evocative of the author's experience
Mutant Message Down Under, BookRags