There is a fascinating discussion going on in the comments section of Sherwood Smith's LiveJournal sartorias.

Sherwood says:

"I was thinking it over today, wondering where the idea of the neutral toned infodump came from. Most of the old novels I grew up reading had distinctive narrative voices--with, in fact, distinct narrators. But first person narrators not part of the story went out of fashion along with omni roughly the time that realism and cinema-narration became popular. . ."

It seems indeed that tight third POV has taken over the current litscape, with occasional forays into first person cutesy snark, as popularized by chicklit. But what about that glorious freedom of the "overvoice," the 19th century omniscient narrator without attitude, but instead a friendly comfortable presence?

In this age of subtle and indirect onslaught upon our personal freedoms and the blurring definition of privacy, it is no wonder that the notion of a knowing "friend" inside our head is not as attractive as it had been in the days of Jane Austen when by solitary candlelight, a book was consumed in hungry loneliness, and the sensation of sharing an experience might have been perceived as a wonder instead of an intrusion.

I admit, the more of recent works I read, the more I miss that omni narrator, having started my own affair with reading with the stodgy classics in the original Russian.

And I refuse to let his comfortable ghost depart.