GRGR(6) - Ep. 15 Reader Dissonance.

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Paul Mackin wrote:

> rj in a  careful and literate way has (among other topics addressed)
> described a sense in which Slothrop, Katje, Enzian, Blicero (others too I
> suppose) are indeed well-developed characters. I wouldn't attempt to
> question any of the points or claim that the respective psyches are not
> brimming over with  fascinating  bits of heredity, conditionings, and
> repressions--yes they're what the story is about. What I refuse to do
> however is acknowledge  that there is any good reason why I should be
> likely to want to make moral judgements of anyone based on this kind of
> mental detail alone (if that's what rj is implying). Rather I find that
> the only reaction possible is  acceptance of each of these magnificent
> creations as works of art, infinitely intriguing on this occasion or that,
> but somehow not adding up to likable or dislikable characters. The art is
> good. The people are not quite people.  By the way, I disagree that
> Slothrop is a very good exemplar for pure sensory appetite for the simple
> reason that his pursuit of sex with all females in the vicinity is so
> utterly and comically mechanical.  I just don't sense desire in the way
> I'm used to sensing it. I know there's something somehow akin to desire
> conditioned-in but that's not the same thing. I'm being conventional I
> know and the point rj makes is that P is NOT being conventional, but still
> and all we're talking about reactions and that's how this whole discussion
> started.
>
>                         P.
>

  In what way is P NOT being conventional?

rj asks: What am I insinuating?

The narrative destabilizes the novel and creates a
corresponding disorientation
in the reading experience, is there something that orders or
provides coherency
to GR and or the reading of GR?


To return to rj's idea of liking characters and the "ploy"
of indeterminacy.
I like all of Pynchon's creations, Blicero, BV, Frenesi,
Profane, SHOCK, Zoyd,
Grover, Dixon, Stig, even Ploy. I don't find Kaje or
Slothrop for that matter
likable as good
guys. Does Pynchon have good guys? Characters we admire?
Oedipa? No, not
really. With the exception of M&D, I don't think we are
asked to like any of
Pynchon's characters in the sense you describe.   Slothrop
is not even human,
is he? He is more like V. or Carl Barrington from The Secret
Integration.
Slothrop is a golem, a mediator character that drives the
"plot." Sure, we
think,  poor Slothrop, he's subjected to all sorts of
horrible things, but
there is a "war" going on and who isn't being subjected to
horrible things, or
inflicting suffering on others or themselves. We are not in
Kansas, opposites
are con(fused) and "reality" and illusion
are blurred. Time and history have been subjected to
solipsistic control.
Pointsman controls Slothrop down the bowl to American
history, where
Malcolm and JFK are assassinated and we meet the westwardman
and Whappo. All
this, to study race relations? Who says this novel is not
about America? GR is
a ruthless
distortion of time and space. In GR, history is the
conditioning of others for
the purpose of predictability and absolute control. And for
what? For
political and economic ends. History comes to exist as the
temporal
concomitant of psychological disposition and is subordinate
to the
psychological concerns of the solipsist. Now, anything
outside of the solipsist
needs to
be controlled or absorbed and if that is not possible than
it or he or she
must be annihilated. What ethics can a solipsist like Kaje
have?
 According to a solipsist's ethics, considerations of---
cruelty
to others, the abrogation of freedom, the participation in
acts of control, in
sadistic, demeaning acts-- don't apply, because others are
not real or as real
to the solipsist. Now what has Pynchon done to the reader?
In The Secret
Integration, he creates
a young black American character (Carl Barrington), as the
story proceeds Carl
becomes more and more an abstraction and more and more
unreal and Inanimate. At
the end of the story he is a robot or a golem or a pile of
junk. And who is
Carl Barrington?
On one level, he is an abstraction (race relations in
America) and he has
historical roots. As we look up Pynchon's political and
historical allusions in
TSI, we find Carl Barrington
and McAfee are Political figures.