The narration of Darkmans is still something that I am grappling with. I want to find meaning in the spaces and endless parenthetical statements. Like we were discussing in class last week the narration breaks on the page give the reader a wide breadth of signals on the page. What I have noticed is that on the pages where there are breaks it reads, to me at least, like the narrator is being cut off and being thrown from the narrative for a few seconds. It only takes that long for you to read the small pieces of Kane's thoughts on page 71 but what strikes me is how at each cut there is a "-" behind and in front the narration. Kane is forcefully interjecting his thoughts into the lines of narration at these points. The narrator is not finished speaking but Kane's words come in and break apart the way it should look. Kane's unwillingness to let the narrator narrate then devalues the narration. If the one telling the story cannot get a word in edge-wise then why should we listen? I believe that is the reason that it takes so much effort to read this novel, we are constantly seeing a struggle between the story trying to tell itself and the characters being uncooperative. On page 240 it seems as though Kane and the narrator are both trying to do the same job, which makes it difficult for the reader to identify important information. In this passage there is a perfect example of how Kane is butting in on the narrator's expertise, 

"Wasn't it simply giving him carte blanche to think about - to dwell on - to linger . . . 

On her? 

Elen?

Or... 

God -

Worse still (standing quietly behind her, almost eclipsed by her shadow / 

Beede?

No.

No It was the foot." (240). 

Kane supersedes what would have been accomplished in narration to let his thoughts in. When the narrator finishes the firsts sentence in this section by saying "linger" it's even hard to tell if that is Kane's thoughts or the narrator's description because it is italicized. Then at the end they echo each other's thought, that it cannot be Elen or Beede, just the wart. They are both attempting to realize the same thoughts and words and they come out simultaneously.