Lawrence Block, in his book on writing, Telling Lies For Fun and Profit, points out that the “admonition to shun the first person [narrative style] . . . seems to be part of the conventional wisdom of writing courses.”  Later, he goes on to state that he questions this advice because, as a reader, he often prefers a book to be written in first person, it being “more likely to have a sense of reality about it, and the lead character is more apt to come alive for me.”

I believe that there is another factor at work, as well.   First person narration, especially first person reminiscent narration, possesses a weight to it similar to that of a myth or saga.  Block touches on this when he points out that first person narration is a convention of the Ogallala Sioux.  “An acquaintance who was raised on a reservation told me how Indian oral history. . . . is always couched in the first person.  it’s an accepted tradition for [a storyteller] to speak in the voice of a participant or observer.”  There is an immediacy in this kind of telling which appeals to something very basic in the human psyche.

Another device that is especially effective–which I touched on in yesterday’s post–and which, again, has mythic overtones, is that of the wise mentor.  There are grownups in most children’s stories, some good, some bad.  In the mythic tales, however, there is always an important older counselor figure.  This mentor models, with stories and their own example, how a sane, mature person thinks and acts.

Certainly, it’s possible to have wise mentors and other saga-like elements in a third person narrative.  But, with first person reminiscent style, the mythic quality is far more obvious.  The voyage from childhood to maturity is the most heroic journey any of us undertakes.  To complete it successfully, one must not only undergo the events of the  passage but make some kind of sense of them.  Reminiscent narration allows the narrator and her readers to do just that.