The author of this book states that this book is about HOW to write stream-of-
consciousness fiction, from an inductive, experiential
point of view. Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner are the authors most prominently featured in the author''s attempt to bring clarity to this literary term (his stated main purpose); he has skipped, for the most part, history and antecedents, any catalogue of fiction (on an IS or ISN''T basis), and he has minimized philosophical questions. These limitations, however, are strengths rather than weaknesses in the course of this book.
The first chapter defines what STREAM OF
CONSCIOUSNESS is. The author points out that while the technique focuses on the interior monologue or awareness of the individual, the approach works in many different contexts, and to enlighten many different interests. Virginia Woolf, for instance, is primarily interested in the visionary aspect of human experience, and what leads up to it. James Joyce has a fundamentally comedic view of humankind, the distance between what we think and feel, and what really happens in our lives and interactions with others: the heroic versus the mundane. Faulkner has a primarily tragic view of life--the noble and heroic versus the animalistic and narrow-minded, with the latter tending to overcome the former.
Among the techniques used by the authors to display the stream of consciousness of characters in the story are DIRECT and INDIRECT INTERIOR MONOLOGUE,
OMNISCIENT DESCRIPTION, and PROSE SOLILOQUY. Direct interior monologue is the character speaking as they think. Indirect interior monologue is that in which the author illustrates the characters'' thoughts as they occur. The omniscient description is a facet of the omniscient author viewpoint in narration, wherein the author tells of his subject-characters'' thoughts. Prose soliloquy is the inner dialogue of a character, but presupposes an (at least potential) listener in the consciousness of the one thinking.
One of the difficulties of capturing this kind of consciousness in the linear form of writing is the essentially nonlinear nature of thought. Thought flows; irrelevant (apparently) associations intrude; pictures that are difficult to describe appear. Life happens. Writing is ALWAYS a selection (more or less deliberate) of what happens or could have happened. Nowhere does this become more apparent to both writer and reader than in stream-of-consciousness writing. The stream-of-consciousness writers do this by using symbolism and imagery, and try to bring unity by confining their characters in time, place, person, etc. It is only as you read this book that you realize the difficulty of the task they set themselves and their incredible mastery in creating that helps us relive and experience the consciousness in their writings.