Apuleius. Metamorphoses:The Transformations of Lucius, aka The Golden Ass. Robert Graves, trans.
As the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety, it merits study as a representation of a whole ancient culture that has profoundly inspired so many modern writers. It is especially compelling because the novel has its own quirky style, blending elements of what today we might call magical realism with fairy tale elements and a healthy dose of the bawdy humor of Roman stories. It relates the ludicrous adventures of one Lucius, who experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into an ass.
And yet such an outrageous premise is handled in a matter-of-fact narrative style. It calls to my mind German fairy tales and eighteenth century first-person experience novels (such as those written by Defoe). And the element of supernatural and suspense anticipates some of Edgar Allan Poe’s themes.
Structurally notable is the Cupid and Psyche section, which has the main novel’s narrator overhearing another character tell a story completely unrelated to the narrative thread of the rest of the novel. While obviously no writer trying that kind of thing today would have a shot at getting published, it is remarkable that three chapters in the middle of the novel are a self-contained story within themselves. his break from the narrative flow might be useful to modern writers (on a much smaller scale0 to break tension, to change the tone or mood, or to introduce back story or other non-narrative exposition. The key to adapting such a device would be to keep it short, and to keep it at least thematically related to the overall story.
The narrator spends a good part of the novel as an animal, describing the difficulties of this, his mistreatment, his frustration at being unable to speak, his being thought stupid. And the crazy plotting somehow seems more believable because you are in a fantasy world where a man can be changed into a donkey. This work is an example of appropriateness in writing that keeps all the elements and devices on the same tone, in the same realm of consistent conceivably possible for the world if the novel. Many lesser works can fail by asking the reader to believe too much, to put aside too many gaps in logic. This work is logical and believable even as it isn’t able to happen in he real world.
Another perhaps more successful change of pace in this work is the resolution. An abrupt change of style, in this case bringing in a discussion of initiations and religious conversions, can help make the point or theme of a piece of writing. Here it works to drive home the writer’s theme, and is a refreshing break from the incredibly fantastic litany of events that came before.