The View From Saturday

The View From Saturday begins and ends on the same day, the last Saturday in May and the day of the Academic Bowl final. E. L. Konigsburg’s novel is written in a non-linear narrative style, weaving backward and forward in time, fleshing out the main characters with detailed backstories told in their own voices from their individual perspectives. Some of the backstories have their own histories. For example, Nadia’s journey toward accepting difficult transitions happens the summer before school starts. As Nadia is narrating her story, she briefly takes the reader further back in time to her parents’ divorce, which underscores her journey. Every chapter is grounded by a question or observation that happens in the narrative’s present (at the Bowl final) that connects directly to an earlier memory, piecing together the backstories of each of The Souls by the time the team wins the championship.

Having each member of The Souls explain their own backstory and what being part of The Souls means to them allows Konigsberg to showcase each character’s unique personality and narrative voice. For example, when Noah describes his visit to Florida to see his grandparents and help with Izzy and Margaret’s wedding, the narration is full of facts: “Fact: being best man is not hard. You walk down the aisle with the maid of honor […] but the essential fact is that I did a very good job. I stood beside the groom” (17). In comparison, the language in Nadia’s section is more emotional and brooding. Common threads (shared family friends and relations) tie the complicated nested structure of the novel together while still allowing the characters to preserve their individuality. Mrs. Olinski is the only character whose “journey” takes place in the narrative’s present as she is tasked with choosing her academic team after returning to teaching following a long absence and recovery from her accident. Mrs. Olinski’s backstory is only briefly touched on, but the traumatic event that killed her husband and paralyzed her from the waist down is the premise of her arc as The Souls help her begin to heal emotionally on their road to victory at the Academic Bowl.

Literary use of non-linear narrative can be found in other renowned works, such as Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell and The Poisonwood Bible (1998) by Barbara Kingsolver.