Internet Perfidity (Fiction and history in M&D)

[Peter Giordano]

I said:
>> Fiction is a vital force and I want it in my life but I want to be able so
>> sort out fact from fiction - Perhaps those who need to create myths about
>> the private lives of their favorite authors should consider writing novels
>> - It is a time-honored genre of the novel (see for example Colin Macinnes'
>> novel about Shakespeare THREE YEARS TO PLAY)
Andrew says:

>Finally, this debate comes back on topic. The difference between fact
>and fiction is a major theme in GR and M&D, particularly wrt history.
[... Followed by some excellent points on the subject ...]
> [....] True, a historian's primary duty
>is to investigate, record and assess the value of source materials but
>the aim in doing so, the whole point of doing so, is to present us,
>readers of history, with the big picture. Not so very different to the
>novelist's art, eh?
I say:
The most successful historians always give a vital (as in lively) sense of
time and place and Andrew is right:- Historians often work the same way
novelists do - And one of the major themes in Pynchon's work is the
difficulty in finding what is "true" - As Andrew points out, in GR Pynchon
makes masterful use of the most detailed facts about Europe in the 1940's
(like the temperature on a given day) but he makes an equally masterful use
of the fiction/myth he weaves around these facts - It is absurd to talk
about GR as an accurate novel of London in 1944-45 in the same way that one
would talk about THE KILLER ANGELS which is practically a textbook on the
Battle of Gettysburg - Instead GR (and VINELAND and MASON & DIXON) transend
the mere factual to present universals which are as accurate for the 18th
century as they are for the 21st century - The goal of GR is not to teach
us about World War II but to use the myth of World War II he creates to
teach us about ourselves

For me, that explains why Partick O'Brien makes such an obvious appearance
in M&D - I would guess from the passage that trp admires O'Brien but that
trp expects us to think about the narrative of M&D in an entirely different
light - In other words, he is folding the narrative from the 18th century
into the 20th century

A while ago I suggested that only an idiot would complain that a novel like
VINELAND is not an accurate picture of the drug scene in California in the
1980's - I would also argue that only an idiot would revel in Pynchon's
accuracy and point to that as the sign of Pynchon's greatness - What
Pynchon does is weave fact and myth together to create something even more
poweful (Which means that I agree with Andrew above)

Peter Giordano
Williams College
Williamstown, MA