Satire (was: Prosthetic Paradise)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

My point was not throw out satire, I have been talking about
Pynchon's satire here for a year. My comments were replies
to an ongoing thread. Throw out satire if the only thing
that prevents us from discussing GR is the term satire. BTW
Kharpertian disagreement with Mendleson is on pg 21-23, but
my point was not that Mendleson is right and Weisenburger is
wrong, or Eddins is correct, but so and so is wrong, NO this
is what one often reads in the battle of the books--
"Mendleson's genre, while productive is, nevertheless
insufficient," And we read this all the time, his approach
is OK, but my approach is better, his contains, a fatal
fallacy or an absurdity and so on.  This battle is often
about lit-crit pedantics and I think it usually diverts out
attention form the text we have in common, in this case GR.
I don't think that is what you have in mind here, so lets
discuss the book--GR. Pick what ever you like. I'll discuss
what ever you like and I won't use a single term, box,
approach, lit-crit pedanticism. How about Marvy? Or Enzian?
Or Blicero? Or that Pie in the sky scene? Or 
any other in the book? It takes more effort and more time
and more patience than arguing lit-crit pedantics, but let's
give a try. I'm trying to talk about GR. Anyone care to. 




"Derek C. Maus" wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
> 
> > As to Satire, throw it out,
> 
> 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.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Derek C. Maus               | "What am I opposed to tell my customers?"
> dmaus at email.unc.edu         | Swearingen said. "'Sorry, Washington says
> UNC-CH, Dept. of English    | no more fanny packs for you; time to spend
> http://www.unc.edu/~dmaus/  | your money on great works of literature'?
>                             | It doesn't work that way."   --THE ONION
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