GRGR(3) talking dog 44.20

[Keith Woodward]

At 02:23 PM 6/2/99 -0700, Doug wrote:
>Thinking about keith's suggestion that Pointsman might be the narrator for
>the talking dog's POV material in this episode -- would a behaviorist
>recognize that sort of consciousness in a dog?  Especially in one that is
>to be used as an experimental subject? Seems problematic to me, especially
>given the historical period, when lots of animal researchers would have
>still followed the Cartesian view that considered animals as unfeeling
>machines (some still do, of course). 

I don't think that a behaviorist couldn't consider a dog consciousness like
this one.  It's basically stimulus/response action that is being recalled.
The mention of "Irish Setter" seems a little too particular a concept to
attribute to a behaviorist attributing thought to a dog (if you follow), but
the use of "noiselight" (42.8) sounds right on (and exactly sensual enough)
for me.  Although many scientists did buy into that (pardon me) Cartesian
bullshit through which they attempted to justify all sorts of cruelty, I
can't imagine that pavlov would have used that type of justification (though
I can't say that he didn't).  The problem with a Cartesian approach, as I
see it, for Pavlovians would sit with the problem that psychology is
completely divorced from response and biology (insofar as descartes claimed
that animals feel nothing, their responses signal something like a squeaky
machine).  The problem for a Pavlovian, such as Pointsman, is that testing
on animals, then, wouldn't help to reveal anything about humans.  Pointsman
wants to reveal something about humans (Slothrop in particular, it's why
he's wary of using Grigori), and therefore I suspect he sees some sensual
similarity between humans and animals.

>Among other reasons (the first of
>which is, that TRP is the writer after all, none of what we encounter on
>the page was originated by any of the characters or narrators therein),
>that's why I'd argue for a reading that sees TRP writing directly through
>the dog's POV in the first couple of paragraphs in this episode, then
>dipping back into the dog's POV through a third-person omniscient narrator
>thereafter. And, if Pointsman is narrating the dog's POV stuff, is he also
>pronouncing out loud the dog's dialogue? I don't think he does that either.
>By writing dialogue for this dog, TRP spins the novel, suddenly, into a
>different realm altogether. Dreams and shifting in and out of various
>characters' minds is pretty standard stuff in a novel. But a talking dog?
>At the very least, TRP is very in-your-face with this announcement that
>he'll do whatever he wants to do in this book; by the time Pointsman pulls
>himself out of the toilet, we'll be riding through another one with
>Slothrop.

I don't want to discount TRP's role in the production of this text, as it is
certainly him that we have to thank for it.  That being said, though, we
still have to figure out how to navagate through the text.  I don't think it
makes these passages any less difficult to attribute authorship to him.
I'll agree (as I have earlier) that it is possible that this is a
third-person omniscient narrator revealing the dog's POV, I just also see
hints that it may be being indirectly narrated through Pointsman.  I
answered before that I don't think that Pointsman narrates the "Lessie"
dialogue (but MEXICO perhaps narrates it/imagines it).  The possible
dialogue at 42.9-10 "(still raw, still needs licking)" may, however, be from
the POV of the dog or from an indirect narrative by Pointsman.  It's
certainly a surreal enough novel to have a talking dog, but it's also a
complex enough narrative in the novel to have a framed narrative (if you
will) through Pointsman.  Slothrop's arrival at the Mittelwerke does
something very similar, after all.  (Finally, we may have to agree to
disagree on the source of the opening passage [given that, yes, I agree,
Pynchon authored it], as it seems very indeterminate).

Keith W

keith w