Godbody | Techniques

Godbody Techniques

Godbody consists of eight brief firstperson narratives, followed by a thirdperson account of the "resurrection."

The narratives are interlocking — often the same event is described by several different characters or one character's account adds a missing piece or an insight to another's story. It is a difficult technique, and Sturgeon exploits it with considerable skill and effectiveness. Especially noteworthy is his ability to create eight distinct voices for his narrators. Dan Currier's narrative, for instance, catches the tone of a naive, honest, and troubled seeker of God; and Hobo Wellen's crude obscenities and self-serving rationalizations express the self-destructive mind of a man who uses women because of his own desperate sense of inadequacy.

And it is perhaps a final testament to Sturgeon's skill as a writer that a story which would, baldly summarized, strike many readers as profoundly blasphemous, is, in his hands, so often...
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