Satire (was: Prosthetic Paradise)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Wow, we really are talking passed eachother here. 
"Derek C. Maus" wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
> 
> > As to Satire, throw it out,

Or are playing a game, chopping my sentences? Why did I say
throw it out? So I could get lit-crit pedantic? 


> 
> But why would you want to do this? It seems to me to be missing the entire
> point of the novel if satire is removed as *one* of its driving
> motivations.

Throw it out if it prevents us from having a discussion. If
it helps, by all means, let's keep it, I'm for that, if you
have any doubt. 


> > Edward Mendelson says GR is an Encyclopedic Narrative, and I think his
> > approach one of the best around.
> 
> There isn't really any prescription that says satire and encyclopedic
> narrative can't coexist, is there? From my reading of their criticism, I
> don't think either Mendelson or Kharpertian is making a claim for the
> *exclusive* definition of Pynchon's work as Encyclopedic or Mennipean
> satire, repsectively.

Exactly my point.



> 
> If you want to be lit-crit pedantic about it, satire is a mode and
> encyclopedic narrative is a genre, or subgenre, neither of which in any
> way precludes (or demands) the use of the other. In less abstract terms,
> it seems to me that the very nature of the encyclopedic narrative can be
> used as a form of reflexive satire on the nature of what is and what isn't
> fair game for narrative technique (cf. the "cetology" chapters of
> MOBY-DICK; Barth's parody of Joseph Campbell-like theory of mythology in
> CHIMERA).




> 
> To my mind, there are satirical elements in GR (e.g., most sections
> involving Major Marvy, Pointsman and anyone else in the novel who
> subscribes to a fairly narrow perspective) and there are other sections
> that are not intended as satire, at least not in a manner that has been
> traditionally defined as satirical. Steven Weisenburger of GR companion
> fame has a great book called FABLES OF SUBVERSION in which he claims that
> American satirical fiction from 1930 onward resembles classical (Swift,
> Pope, Twain, etc.) less and less, and discusses the relatively untargeted
> nature of the satire of GR. Not always completely convincing, but he does
> present a reading that allows for both satirical and encyclopedic aims.

Yes. 


> 
> > I am not trying to impose any particular approach, method,
> > idea, term, school, and so on, I find the best of what has
> > been written about Pynchon's beautiful books right here on
> > P-L, where the medium makes the dialogue difficult, but at
> > least I can, with the inexperience of unlettered Ishmael,
> 
> I'm not sure Mr. Reed would take kindly to your epithet here, Terrence (he
> said, jokingly...)
> 
> > and with about as much skill as he possess in the art of
> > whaling when he puts his seven ink marks on the page, toss
> > my harpoon out into the fathomless deep of cyber-space, and
> > discover something shared that the silent battle of the
> > books has never revealed to me.
> 
> Let's hope you get a better lay of the profits than he did too.


My shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being
held by a crowd
of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery
wards;
each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of
plank, or a
nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their
money in
whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved
state
stocks bringing in good interest.