GRGR: meta-reader; second person

[Doug Millison]

So for us ordinary readers, the ones flipping the pages,  the "meta-reader"
is a sort of omega point that pulls us towards ever deeper levels of
understanding -- interpretation --  of Pynchon's text? An omega point that
probably doesn't exist as a recongized construct in Pynchon's own mind,
hovering out there somewhere in his unconscious, and in ours, as he writes
and as we read, waiting to be reconstructed by a literary critic?

Re his use of second-person, do I understand correctly that rj suggests
Pynchon uses this familiar form of address to draw the reader near, gain
the reader's confidence, only to pull the rug out from under the reader's
feet as the reader disappears down the rabbit hole of indeterminacy? My
personal opinion is that's not Pynchon's game, but I readily admit I could
be wrong. All the same, it seems important -- to me, at least -- to
remember that from Pynchon's point of view the signifieds and their
contexts don't slip and slide out of control  forever -- at some point,
Pynchon makes a choice, writes *this* instead of *that*,  selections based
on what makes sense to him at the time of writing his narrative, what's
necessary to create the effects he wants to create, which allusions
(political, artistic) he wants to make, and so on, in a dynamic interaction
of his own unconscious creative process and his conscious writing/rewriting
process. What happens when we respond to his words as readers and critics
is another story.

-Doug