plots, victims and heroes

[Teen Age Riot]

At 04:56 PM 2/20/96 -0500, Robert Bruno wrote:
>Pynchon's novels are just the opposite; most of the characters are swept 
>up in the plotline, or serve as devices to further expand the plot.  I'm not 
>saying this is wrong, and God knows that Pynchon is an amazingly talented 
>writer, but I really wish I could have cared more for Benny Profane, Stencil, 
>Slothrop, etc, and less for the shit's creek that they were paddling in.  

I'd say we can write this up as another distinctive (and in my opinion,
certainly intentional) Pynchon characteristic.  The characters dictate very
little else in their lives, why should they dictate the plot? :)  For that
matter, it seems Pynchon isn't particularly interested in how any one plot
line is developed, but rather how they piece together. Focusing on any one
character, and his/her sentiments, would hamper the view of the system on a
whole.  

It's like how our visual system instantaneously resolves what we see into
foreground and background.  I know that when I read conventional fiction,
I'm prone to do the same: almost immediately, I instinctively decide whether
that sentence, paragraph, or chapter is background material, to flesh out
the environment, or whether it is in the foreground, driving the plot.  With
TRP, you're never completely clear WHAT you should be focusing on.  You
simply absorb everything, hoping to keep the entire picture at the same
level of resolution, and at the end, patterns larger than any single
storyline do emerge.

Certainly, the flatness of Pynchon's characters says something about how he
regards the complexity of human nature, but I think it goes beyond simply
deeming it inconsequential.  In fact, I see it as the opposite: it almost
seems as if Pynchon is mocking other author's efforts to present full-bodied
characters through a collection of descriptions.  What traits TRP does
choose to give his characters are often wildly fanciful and contradictory,
as if he's daring the reader to try and interpolate a sensical personality
from what he is giving you.

I've pretty much just been typing whatever pops into my head so far, with
very little regard as to whether or not it makes any sense, so please, blast
away.

Al

 
__________________________________________
al wang
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~alwang/home.htm
talk request: alwang at random.resnet.upenn.edu

"What's My Solution?"
"Noise Pollution!"