GRGR(3) talking dog 44.20

[David Morris]

Keith W:
>>  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.

and later:
>> 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.

rj:
>I guess if you need to force the text to conform to naturalist
>or Modernist narrative paradigms then this is one way to go.
>But I think it's a given that both Pynchon and postmodernist
>critiques countenance and indeed offer multiple readings of text,
>potentially limitlessly so. In other words, the indeterminacy is
>deliberate.

then KW again:
>I'm not sure if I understand your objection.  The indeterminacy
>of the text is what I have been arguing for.  I don't see how
>mention/use of a framed narrative within the text (not my mention of it)
>would lock any text into a naturalist or a modernist mode, nor how it
>strictly falls under their paradigms.

rj will not doubt provide a thorough answer, but I think Keith is not
arguing for the indeterminacy of the text, but rather for his "Readers'
Traps" theory, where all narration must be seen through a particular
character's consciousness, and thus "evidence" of the "supernaturalness" (or
conditionedness, or...) of Slothrop's abilities re. the rockets can all be
discounted as the fantasy of a particular character.  This effectively
removes all "reality" from the surreality.