GRGR(3) talking dog 44.2

[keith woodward]

rj:
>I'll take David Morris's cue and assume that this is indeed a request
>for clarification rather than a petty dismissal. Keith seemed to be
>arguing the Pointsman-as-framing-narrator theory as an alternative,
>rather than a complementary, reading to Doug's. Perhaps I was wrong?
>Keith's subsequent post certainly seems to signal, if not this, then a
>shift:
>

I wasn't dismisssing you at all, rj (I'm not quite *that* petty).  I have,
however, looked over my earlier posts on this thread, and I haven't changed
my position: there appears to be more than one reading possible of said
passages.  Alternative/complementary: potato/potawto, I wasn't rejecting
Doug's reading.  I think Doug's objection was basically that I was
over-reading, which I wasn't trying to do: rather, I was just trying to
suggest that it is uncertain where the narrative is coming from.

>Yes, but what of the dog narrating and interspersing Pointsman's
>language? As David points out, you don't allow equal credence to the
>surreal possibilities in the narrative process.

This is certainly possible, but it's also the conclusion that we arrive at
with Doug's initial post, that this is the dog's narrative and that,
therefore, for whatever reason, Pointsman's language is being used to
narrate it.  I haven't discounted the surreal at all.  A surface read of
the episode seems to require an acceptance of the surreal (again, these are
all implications of Doug's posts on the subject), and I'm not rejecting it.
Rather, I'm suggesting that the surreal reading isn't as stable as it first
appears.

>In contrast, Pynchon's postmodern narratological mode could be called
>cinematographic. The scene switches back and forth between a range of
>characters' povs, both physiologically and intellectually.

I've been suggesting this throughout this thread, re: the possibility that
Pointsman and Mexico narrate the thoughts of the dog, and the equal;
possibility that the dog narrates.

Keith W