GRGR(3) a. talking dog 44.2 - a bone to pick

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

rj wrote:

> > 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).
>
> What I'm saying is that we get a whole bunch of 'truths' -- what the
> characters believe is the truth, their versions -- in the narrative.

Yes and no. True the characters have a subjective view--very important, but
sometimes we have actors on the stage with lines-- an objective point of
view, right? We also have the diaphanic (through showing), or revelatory
(not necessarily religious) voice in characters--where they speak for
others or from some other realm, or are conduits, vehicles, a mouthpiece, a
spokesman, a herald, a prophet, an interpreter, a hermeneus, a dreamer, a
medium, etc. And we have the pluralistic view that you mention. And we are
skipping from one perspective to the next with narrators and cameras. So,
for example,  at this point in the novel, much of what we know about R&J's
relationship is really someone else's relationship recalled and compared to
the current one he sees in R&J, right?

> To illustrate, I don't think you can pin down *Pynchon's* belief-system
> from his texts as you can with Eco's Catholicity or Rushdie's lapsed
> Islam or DeLillo's lapsed Catholicism.
>
> And we have Pynchon's--Objective perspective as well! The scientific
> perspective grafted to a pure Artistic form--beautiful.

Terrance--where it's 99 degrees in the shade.