GRGR(3) dogging talk 44.2 - a pick to bone

[keith woodward]

rj:
>I guess I'm being unnecessarily dogmatic now, dogged at the very least,
>but...
>Paul's and my 'mistake' had some foundation at least, I'd venture.

Forgot about that parenthetical portion of the opening paragraph: double
apologies to Paul.  Nonetheless, I have nowhere suggested that Pointsman is
porjecting the dog (it seems to me that the dog certainly does exist..).
I'm not sure what connection you're making between what Paul has said and
what you have said.

>Yes, I understand that you have proffered these but it seemed and still
>seems to me that you are positing them as mutually exclusive
>possibilities (i.e. *alternatives*, either one or the other) rather than
>simultaneous and concurrent versions (i.e. *complementary*, both/all at
>the same time).

I realize that this is how it seems to you, but it wasn't what I was
claiming.
I've never denied the potency for indeterminacy in Pynchon, nor was it my
intent to do it here.

>The bone I tried to toss into this discussion was that
>the indefiniteness and fragmentation of narrative agency is a
>deliberately sought-after effect -- i.e. Pynchon *meant* his text to be
>indeterminate, this pluralism is inscribed in the process of the
>narrative.

And it's a tasty, meaty bone.  It certainly isn't a radical claim in
Pynchon scholarship and, again, I agree with it.  I'd much rather hear
you're take on it and see you apply it to GR rather than to my posts.

>I think that this is quite a different approach to what
>either Doug or yourself had been offering, although I may be wrong.

I think it's the conclusion that can be drawn from the past that Doug's and
my discussion took, perhaps I'm wrong.

>My
>point was and still is that approaching the text in an 'it could be this
>or it could be that' way is not the same as approaching it in an 'it is
>this and it is that and this and that as well' way.

I think you're getting wrapped up in the language of the discussion.  By
suggesting an "alternate" to Doug's reading, it seems to me, I was
presenting the potency for multiple readings.  I never rejected Doug's
reading.  By saying "It could also be this" or "It could also be that" is
just polite, it leaves the discussion open and doesn't discount other
readings.  To claim that "It is this and this and this" is to make
something like a final interpretive claim.  You're not doing that, you're
bringing up the question of method.  That's fine: as I've said above, the
indeterminacy seems to follow.  But "this and this and this" is a different
game, it claims inclusivity rather than uncertainty.  In the dog case,
that's a tougher nut to crack.  The dog exists, the dog doesn't exist, the
dog possesses the capacity to speak, the dog doesn't possess the capacitys
to speak.  The problem is that we can't be sure, not that it's all true
(because to claim truth it, after all, to remove uncertainty).

>I get the impression
>that you find the indeterminacy of narrative attribution to be a flaw on
>the author's behalf, a regrettable lack at the very least, and that in
>trying to fit the Poinstman-as-narrator reading onto the text you were
>in fact doing what Pointsman is trying to do: experimenting and playing
>out your expectations and yearning for empirical (and historical and
>moral) certainty, for a conclusive and individuated narrative, for a one
>and only Holy Text.

You're impressions are completely mistaken.  And insulting.  You're
misreading.

Keith W