GRGR(15) - Correct Reading (was: a thread too long)

[David Morris]

>From: jp4321 at idt.net (jporter) [snip] The inability to recognize the more 
>human aspects of P.'s characterizations by alot of people early on always 
>struck me as unfortunate, and at times, made me feel like I was odd 
>(probably am). Iguess I tend to empathize with the pedants, bigots (to some 
>extent), cranks (a whole lot), parvenus, virtuosi, and those rapacious and 
>incompetent professionals. Or, at least I noticed a touch of those things 
>in a whole lot of otherwise regular Shumans. I also thought the book was 
>hilarious from the get go, when many friends put it down after a few pages, 
>calling it boring.
>

I completely agree w/ the above.  The characters, the hilarity, not to 
mention the poetry are what kept me going when all the while I kept asking 
my self what the hell it all means.

>  One of the ways the complexity and >multidimensionality is handled by 
>Pynchon, I think, is by >taking abstract ideas and theories and investing 
>them in >characters, for example Pavlov is obviously invested in 
> >Pointsman.
>

Although jody disagrees here, I agree with the gist of this point.  
Abstractions are overlayed on real characters, but the characters are not 
boxed into them.  I think multiple abstractions and alegories, which need 
not mesh, operate simultaneously on a single character.  I think the real 
"reader traps" happen when one tries to let any one scheme overtake the 
others, or the characters.  A "unified GR theory" may not be the point.

> >This approach has plenty to say about the complexity and 
> >multidimensionality of GR. GR has, among other >multiplicities, stylistic 
>multiplicity and the philosophic >pluralism it implies. GR has fantasy, 
>parody and comedy. >These three are essential to GR. Take any chapter and 
>there >they are. GR has philosophy, intellction and encyclopedism, >an 
>'anti-book' stance, a marginal cultural position, and >carnivalization. In 
>GR, this intellectual structure which is >built up in the story makes for 
>violent dislocations in the >customary logic of narrative.
>
>Not for me. But maybe that's because I was standing on the margins the 
>first time I picked it up. Fell right into the flow. The dislocations come 
>when one tries to fit the riffs into some preconceived critical framework, 
>and reads with one eye and ear on what the critics are saying and the other 
>on the text itself. That's like looking at Bloat's picture of Slothrop's 
>map, instead of the map itself: black and white v. color. You come to the 
>text too prepared with other peoples interpretations. I'm sure glad I've 
>never read Weisenberger, although I might get a kick out of it now, after a 
>million slug fests on the P-list. Listen to the narrator...psst, you can 
>trust him, its pynchon, and he's talking to you...
>

Terrance again makes legitimate points, but my way of reading aligns w/ 
jody's here.  Maybe I'm blessed w/ not having any literature education past 
high shool (no Wiesenburger either).  This goes back to a common call I've 
sent to the P-list: stick to the text.  The lit-crit boxes, though 
interesting sometimes, seem more to get in the way.  I don't think Pynchon 
was writing for the critics saying to himself, "Now this turn of structure 
will keep them talking," or "Now I'm writing encyclopedic."  I think the 
jazz analogy is right:  He just riffs.  Ride the wave.

>>Pynchon seems to be showing
> >off and careless sometimes, but in fact those silly >limericks and the 
>apparent carelessness that results from >the dislocations are reflected 
>back at the reader or the >reader's tendency to judge by a novel-centered 
>conception of >fiction
>
>Which reader is that, exactly?
>

There's the rub, isn't it?

David Morris



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