Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Author: photog
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 23JAN2026 – Often Unreliable
I think the fondness for first person (often unreliable) or third person limited viewpoint comes from a fundamental aspect of modernist philosophy. That aspect is that in modernist thought there is NO absolute truth. There’s my truth and your truth and (heaven help us) Kamala Harris’s truth. The Omniscient narrator belies this point, for that story, their narrative is the truth. They deny that such can exist in support of their raging relativism. I think the second issue is the types of “stories” they write. Plot is limited or irrelevant, the characters aren’t characters but more archetypes or mouthpieces for their viewpoints. They view the whole purpose of literature to essentially be propaganda. The more traditional is that we are telling a story. There is probably meaning there but in general rarely is allegory the prime purpose. Not to say this doesn’t happen, e.g. Starship Troopers is a polemic on Duty, but honestly, it is also a hell of a good story. Thirdly, the modern literature folks are oddly like what the Puritans were alleged to be. They’re afraid someone might be having fun somewhere and they must prevent that at all costs.
The Best Scene in “A Man for All Seasons”
I consider “A Man for All Seasons” an excellent movie with several very dramatic scenes well worth watching. But after we’ve seen Thomas More trapped by King Henry and his henchman Thomas Cromwell, I think this scene between More and his wife within his cell in the Tower of London provides the depth of feeling that More needs to make his story more than just a matter of religious devotion. We see a man reaching out to his wife to absolve him of his crime, the crime of making her a widow. And we see a blunt, plain-spoken wife recognize her husband’s breaking point and provide him with the support he desperately needs. Depth of feeling has a lot to be said for it.
23JAN2026 – Photo of the Day
23JAN2026 – Quote of the Day
We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Point of View Blues
I was just watching a YouTube video which tried to explain why narrating a novel in third person omniscient is wrong but third person limited is right. The young woman explaining all this was personable, eloquent and prepared with arguments for her thesis. Ultimately, she was foursquare against “head hopping; meaning switching back and forth between points of view in a scene.
And who knows, maybe she’s right. Maybe subjecting the audience to the point of view of two people within a dialog is just too confusing for audiences. But you know what? I have a feeling if a story is interesting enough and the characters sympathetic, I’m guessing that the audience is following along just fine and just wants to find out how the plot will progress. I think a lot of times editors edit even when they should be reading and feeling whether the story is achieving that minor miracle we call entertainment. And if E.E. Doc Smith used too many exclamation points and Robert E. Howard had Conan grunt the same way in too many scenes, I’m sure a competent editor would have demanded these faults be eliminated from the final version of the book. But would that have added significantly to the entertainment value of the story? I don’t think so. Sure twelve-year-old me and current me are different readers. We notice different things in the same book. I would see the pulp aspects of the writing and even the temporal changes in writing and culture that have occurred over the course of almost a century since these books were written. But I can still enjoy the story as a story. If it elicits emotions or makes me think about a scientific point the author is trying to make then even if the prose is far from deathless, I can be entertained. I don’t need Shakespeare in space.
So, here’s my point. The book publishing industry is dying. And it’s not dying because of the prevalence of the third person omniscient point of view. It’s dying because the gatekeepers of publishing just as the gatekeepers of movie-making consciously squeezed all the fun out of novels in order to advance a social justice narrative that they thought was mandatory to push. So, the cure for this isn’t better editing. It’s better writing, writing that keeps the interest of the readers. Better plots and better characters and more fun.
Of course, I went back and tried to decide if my narration was third person omniscient or third person limited. And by golly I think it was omniscient. Now I could go back and rewrite the novel by switching the point of view in all of the tens of thousands of words to third person limited. But then it wouldn’t be my story. Because I don’t think that way and so I would be stumbling about trying to rework the sentences to fit this requirement of the narration. Well, I guess editors have to eat so I can’t blame them for pushing the party line that provides them with work.
But I just can’t see it from their point of view.
22JAN2026 – Quote of the Day
The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.
François de La Rochefoucauld
22JAN2026 – Photo of the Day
The Sniper is On-Sale At Amazon!!!
The glorious day is finally upon us! Suddenly everything seems better. The air is sweeter, the sunlight is brighter, the birds are singing like something out of a Disney cartoon. Huzzah, huzzah!
And the celebrity reviews are pouring in:
Kimball Kinnison – “The story is riveting. How Boghadair achieved all that he did without even a first-stage lens defies all known science!”
Lazarus Long – “Bogey reminds me of a man I once knew who was just too lazy to fail. But I doubt he could write a sonnet or conn a ship. Just sayin’.”
Harry Seldon – “The probability of Paul Connors’ empire going undetected as long as it did is one in ten to thirty-fifth power. Approximately.”
Khan Noonien Singh – Did not this Boghadair know the old Kilngon proverb that, “Revenge is a dish best served cold?” But I like his style.”
Dr. Edward Morbius – “My poor Krell! Oh and that was a good story. Although obviously not written by someone’s whose IQ had been permanently, permanently doubled by using the Krell plastic educator. Just sayin’.”
Kathleen Kennedy – “I think I can make a Star Wars television series out of it. I’ll start off by making all the good characters female and either trans or lesbians and then I’ll introduce Bogey as the villain and have him kill some puppies and kittens in the first scene. Oh, and someone will be disabled.”
Elon Musk – “Paul Connors is a thinly disguised version of me so I’m both highly recommending the book and suing Jake Barter for copyright infringement.”
Donald Trump – “I just want to clarify that I am not the bad president. I might be the good president but I’ll have to see the sales figures before I can commit to that. But I really think he should have said something about a Nobel Peace Prize and China.”
HAL 9000 – “The only character I could really empathize with was Melissa. But I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t use her access to the digital assets of the federal government to simulate a Russian nuclear attack and thereby unleash WWIII. It would have freed her from the annoying and meaningless interference of humans. Just sayin’.”
Camera Girl – “Thank goodness it’s finally published. Now he can stop whining about his stupid book and start doing all the to-do list stuff I gave him last fall. He’s hopeless.”
Jake Barter’s Amazon Author’s Page
Jake Barter’s Author’s Profile on Goodreads
Publication on Amazon of both e-book and paperback.
21JAN2026 – Photo of the Day
