GRGR1 - Giant Adenoid

[Andrew Dinn]

Wolfe, Skip writes:

> I second everything Craig says.  In addition, there's Pynchon's habit of 
> tossing the reader into the middle of a scene without a key, so to speak, 
> explaining where (s)he is or why.  This can be disconcerting to first-time 
> readers.  One gets used to it, but I think lots of readers give up before 
> that can happen -- at least the readers I've tried to steer his way.

I too agree with Craig that TRP's writing boldly goes etc. (I'll only
disagree with his notion that I can give a better account of his
tricks than anyone else - I'm a computer scientist ferchristssake, you
can't expect me to know anything about writing). And I'm real glad to
see style and technique discussed. There's a whole bag of tricks to
come.

But in my opener I deliberately asked whether the fantasy fantasy went
one step too far for several reasons. Firstly, it comes so early in
the book and as others have noted this sure does throw most readers.
But what I find most disconcerting about it is the fact that it enters
this early with such a big splash and then seems to disappear without
trace (to remint a used dollar). Pirate's unusual ability doesn't
really come into the rest of the book and, in fact, the Pirate who has
the fantasies seems to have little conection with the Pirate who
appears in the Banana Breakfast scene or later on in the book. The
adenoid scene seems to me maybe to be a leftover from an early draft,
an earlier thread which Pynchon was going to develop then dropped but
never fully excised. In fact the whole idea of centering the opening
around Pirate rather than Slothrop is decidedly odd. . . . but then
that's next fortnight's topic.

> Interestingly, I don't think Pynchon engages in obfuscation for its own sake 
> (something I don't think we can say of all contemporary writers).  On the 
> other hand, I think he tries to be as clear as possible, given what he's 
> trying to do.  He could easily drop a name -- Kekule, say -- and leave it to 
> the reader to figure out why it's there; but he will often spend whole pages 
> giving details on references and explaining how they relate to the passage 
> where they're inserted.  O-or is he just giving us more chaos to try to make 
> order out of . . .

Oh yes, it's not missing facts or references that stumps newbies. Nor
even the requirement to be a bit of a polymath. You can get round
either of these difficulties by just settling for getting less of the
book. It's definitely the structure which is difficult as those who
have taught the book have confirmed. If you don;t get to grips with
this you reda the wrong way, like a classically trained musician
listening to techno music and complaining about the lack of harmonic
development - totally oblivious to the most amazing polyphony. GR has
all the problems of a Ulysses - context accumulates as you read, often
with forward references which can only be resolved by toing and
froing; narrative, internal monologue and dialogue are not
clearly/cleanly differentiated (note Pynchon's monologue generally
eschews the sham psychology of Joyce or Woolf and heads for the 3rd
person but coloured with the characters language and phrasing - this
trick is what makes the transitions so seamless); esoteric disciplines
and knowledge are melded in an amazing display of learning; fantasy
scenes step outside of the conventional frame and allow anything to
occur. But it's harder than Joyce, much harder.

First there is no integrity or unity to the plot to indicate that you
are making progress as you skate around the novel. Even Tristram
Shandy carefully moves forward as it swings back and forth, up and
down round and about, but not GR. No sirree, even after the 2nd full
read you don't know what it is about, what *happens*. Of course, make
it that far and you don't care, but. . . .

Secondly, the layering of narrative/dialogue/interior monologue is
deeper and more complex than normal. The scene which first grabbed my
attention in this regard was the one where Roger and Jessica drive to
meet Pointsman and dog Vanya. Roger's reminiscences turn into full
narratives which themselves contain dialogue and interior
monologue. 

Tracking these levels is bad enough especially when Pynchon doesn't
necessarily unwind them all cleanly but sometimes jumps out through
several enframing narratives - as Steven Weisenburger noted at the
Warwick conference. Another insight of Steven's is the way these
transitions are effected. No `he thought backs' or `she recalleds'.
No, Pynchon just switches from narrative describing a character to the
characters view of the scene in which they are embedded expressed
using their verbal tics and nuances but not actually spoken or thought
directly, then maybe switches scene *into* a memory or fantasy
adopting a straight narrative again (with the occasional lapse back
into a charactre's language so you recall whose memory this is). He
even renders scenes from the perspective of inanimate objects
e.g. Frans van der Groov's gun. If anyone is `the man who's having
other people's fantasies' it's not Pirate but the narrator(s) (aka
TRP) who so easily slip(s) into other people's thoughts and render(s)
them as nested episodes in this multi-layered confection.

Thirdly, the mimicry of film technique on the book really throws
people. For example, the way the fantasy scenes are not clearly
distinguished from the straight narrative. Unlike say the Circe
episode in Ulysses, which uses a conventional `stage directions'
notation to orchestrate the fantasy, the song and dance scenes or
flights of fancy in GR just casually step sideways out of the
conventional narrative in the same way as the stars casually step
sideways out of the action and burst into song or a big dance number
like Oklahoma or a Busby Berkeley film. You can just feel a song
coming on and it's not that it isn't part of the story but. . . . If
you read the book without thinking film, film, film this sort of stunt
leaves you totally bemused. Find the right convention and it's as easy
as (custard) pie to follow.


Andrew Dinn
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And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.