I recently reread the “Time Machine” and realized that the story isn’t actually told from the Time Traveler’s perspective. It’s told by one of his dinner guests recounting the story the Traveler told them.
Thinking back to all the classics I’ve read, it seems like a major trend among authors that persisted well into the 20th century was to have the narrator retell someone else’s account or be a fly on the wall as they witness the main events of the story happen to another character. “Frankenstein,” The Great Gatsby,” and the majority Lovecraft’s stories are just a few other examples. It just make the story feel so convoluted and impersonal to me. And I always thought it would have been so much simpler just the make the narrator the main character.
It’s not really a style you see much in literature anymore. What caused this style to die out?
by PageTurner627