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Earliest use of "As You Know, Bob"?
Oct. 23rd, 2015 03:44 pmAs all of you who have attempted to write novels are aware, exposition is hard. There are no solutions that work in every situation, and you can see lots of discussion among writers about the topic. I've seen graphic novels and webcomics which print sections of children's history books, or manuals, or things like that; there is Jo Walton's term "incluing", for the double black diamond-level-of-difficulty trick of slipping background information subtly throughout the text so that readers sort of pick stuff up without noticing it, there is the "infodump", where you just don't bother being subtle and just set aside a block of text without worrying about fitting it in subtly... it's not elegant, but it works, and sometimes it's the best option. Victor Hugo did that a fair bit, and then would get distracted while doing it -- he had to explain how the sewers of Paris worked so that he could explain how some of the characters got away, and then got distracted and spent two chapters explaining his brilliant plan for using human waste as fertilizer...
So, yeah. You can do exposition by presenting a fictional thing like a history book or brochure or informational packet that just gives the audience the information in the same way that a person living in the world of the story might have learned it. You can do exposition just by flat out TELLING people, in your role as author -- Richard Adams does this in WATERSHIP DOWN, where he just breaks the narrative to give information from a book on rabbit behavior to explain why his characters were acting in the way they were, and Victor Hugo does it in LES MISERABLES in a number of places. And plenty of science fiction novels just have blocks of text in italics before a chapter just telling you stuff that you need to know to understand what's going on.
Or you can have one character, who understands the thing, explain things to a person who doesn't, so the audience can "listen in" and learn, too. There is a not-quite-a-joke that one of the main purposes of companions in the original Doctor Who is to have someone to say, "What IS it, Doctor?"
Infodumps and "What IS it, Doctor?" may seem clunky, and I guess they are, but they work. The first one breaks the narrative, and the second one can result in dragging around a character who seems like a total idiot, but they get the job done.
There is humorous four-wall-breaking lampshade hanging -- only available in comedy or EXTREMELY experimental stuff. There's a point in THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER where one of the characters is talking to Kermit and tells him the whole background about her wastrel brother and the family will and everything, and he looks at her and says, "Why are you TELLING me all this?" She replies, "It's exposition. It has to go SOMEWHERE."
And then there is the "As You Know, Bob" form. That's like the idiot character, but when you don't actually have any idiots around. This is when you have one character tell another character something that they already know, just because you need the audience to know it, too.
It can start with, "Okay, let's review," or "Let me summarize what we know so far," or something like that. It CAN be done at least KIND OF well, but it's usually pretty clunky.
But it works. And I'm trying to figure out the earliest usage of it.
The earliest one I can think of off the top of my head is from AS YOU LIKE IT:
Oliver knows all that perfectly well. This is an "As You Know, Oliver".
TV Tropes has an example which they claim is a humorously lampshaded example from an Icelandic saga by Snori Surluson:
I don't know if this is as BLATANT an example as AS YOU LIKE IT. And it's a little more believable that someone would call someone "your nephew King Magnus" than "Oh, just all the stuff at court that you already know, which is..."
So if I discount that saga as being REALLY an As You Know, Bob, anyone know of an earlier one than 1599?
So, yeah. You can do exposition by presenting a fictional thing like a history book or brochure or informational packet that just gives the audience the information in the same way that a person living in the world of the story might have learned it. You can do exposition just by flat out TELLING people, in your role as author -- Richard Adams does this in WATERSHIP DOWN, where he just breaks the narrative to give information from a book on rabbit behavior to explain why his characters were acting in the way they were, and Victor Hugo does it in LES MISERABLES in a number of places. And plenty of science fiction novels just have blocks of text in italics before a chapter just telling you stuff that you need to know to understand what's going on.
Or you can have one character, who understands the thing, explain things to a person who doesn't, so the audience can "listen in" and learn, too. There is a not-quite-a-joke that one of the main purposes of companions in the original Doctor Who is to have someone to say, "What IS it, Doctor?"
Infodumps and "What IS it, Doctor?" may seem clunky, and I guess they are, but they work. The first one breaks the narrative, and the second one can result in dragging around a character who seems like a total idiot, but they get the job done.
There is humorous four-wall-breaking lampshade hanging -- only available in comedy or EXTREMELY experimental stuff. There's a point in THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER where one of the characters is talking to Kermit and tells him the whole background about her wastrel brother and the family will and everything, and he looks at her and says, "Why are you TELLING me all this?" She replies, "It's exposition. It has to go SOMEWHERE."
And then there is the "As You Know, Bob" form. That's like the idiot character, but when you don't actually have any idiots around. This is when you have one character tell another character something that they already know, just because you need the audience to know it, too.
It can start with, "Okay, let's review," or "Let me summarize what we know so far," or something like that. It CAN be done at least KIND OF well, but it's usually pretty clunky.
But it works. And I'm trying to figure out the earliest usage of it.
The earliest one I can think of off the top of my head is from AS YOU LIKE IT:
OLIVER
Good Monsieur Charles, what's the new news at the new court?
CHARLES
There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news: that is, the old duke is banished by his younger brother the new duke; and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke; therefore he gives them good leave to wander.
Oliver knows all that perfectly well. This is an "As You Know, Oliver".
TV Tropes has an example which they claim is a humorously lampshaded example from an Icelandic saga by Snori Surluson:
Svein: I will believe in the banner's magic power, only when you have fought three battles against your nephew King Magnus and won all three of them.
Harald: (angrily) I am well aware of my kinship with Magnus without needing you to remind me of it...
I don't know if this is as BLATANT an example as AS YOU LIKE IT. And it's a little more believable that someone would call someone "your nephew King Magnus" than "Oh, just all the stuff at court that you already know, which is..."
So if I discount that saga as being REALLY an As You Know, Bob, anyone know of an earlier one than 1599?