Identifying the Problem

[Terrance]

A poem or a novel is not scientific but artistic, so the
purpose of the symbols, those textual symbols (we needn't
get into the reading process here,  and to speak of the
denotations and connotations of words, or the emotive or
referential language is to speak about differentiating
between the selective ongoings in the complex language
machinery of the mind where readers handle their responses
to verbal symbols, so let's not even go there) are not so
"operationally defined" in terms of procedures to be carried
out or data to be observed as they are say in mathematics or
chemistry or symbolic logic. However, the context guides the
reader(s) in the process of selecting out--from the range of
inner possibilities--the links to other texts, events, or
the kinds of responses, referential and affective, that are
appropriate. This is what both allows for the flexibility of
individual words, the wide range of possible responses, but
also and at the same time, delimits and stabilizes the text.
This is why, I think, Robert, and justifiably so, censures
violations of the particular pattern of linguistic symbols
which constitute Pynchon's texts. But even all the symbols
laid out, in other words, not even the total text,
represents an absolute. As Doug points out, multiple and
equally valid, perhaps even contradictory and or mutually
exclusive readings of one text
have become an industry, critics have composed and
published, what I prefer to call multiple and equally valid
possibilities that point to possibilities inherent 
in that text. 

Multiple readings, approaches, possibilities, these are not
a problem here. No one is denying any one else the privilege
of posting their ideas.  Moreover, the general concept that
the text in question, Pynchon's texts, and specifically, at
the moment V., is the mutually agreed upon text or guide or
gauge by which we post is generally observed. 

The problems arise when one party or another seeks to
specify the degree of textual constraint. We should not even
waste our time with authorial intent. We all recognize that
the literal or referential meanings of the words do not and
have not remained constant (i.e., "Whole", "Sick") for
several reasons including the fluidity of language. And even
if we were to consider the literal apart from the total
import of the word  permitted by the text we would destroy
P's art.