GRGR(3) talking dog 44.20

CLAY JONATHAN D cj833 at greenwich.ac.uk
Thu Jun 3 07:49:03 CDT 1999


> The alternate of this
> reading is that Pointsman is narrating about the dog, which would explain
> the occurance of "or reflex" as a kind of narrative self-correction (re
> dogs, I imagine "reflex" is a much better term than "Memory" for a
> Pavlovian).  But, if we accept this latter understanding of the opening
> narrator, the dog's memory becomes unreliable, Pointsman probably wasn't
> there at the blast and certainly couldn't give an actual account of the
> dog's memory, he could only suppose.
> [snip]
>  Again, it wouldn't
> be surprising to find Pointsman narrating the dog's thought-process.
> Perhaps he is calculating the dog's reactions (in the narrative) and thus,
> seeing that the dog will leap, calls for the sponge.  It seems almost that
> it could go either way at this point.  Same with that tricky "Lessie"
> passage.
> 
> Keith W

But why *would* Pointsman be narrating the dog's thought -process? 
Why not just *the narrator* narrating the dog's thought-process?

"Bewildering spring, and by the Auvezere
Poppies and day's eyes in the green email
Rose over us"      
              "Near Perigord", Ezra Pound

Jon Clay - [cj833 at greenwich.ac.uk]



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