V.V. (17) current chapter

[jbor]

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>From: Doug Millison <DMillison at ftmg.net>


> Defining the PoMo novel hasn't been anywhere near as simple as "jbor" might
> want to make it sound.

"Define", "tether", put it in a box: all a little bit anal, surely? Both
structurally and thematically postmodern texts tend to resist the idea of a
stable and prescriptive generic "definition". That's part of the whole gig.
But I think it's quite easy to identify and contrast contemporary novels
which are postmodern, or postmodernish, and those which aren't. It's also
easy to locate Pynchon's novels in a "tradition" of reflexive fiction, one
which would include _Don Quixote_, _Tristram Shandy_, _Moby Dick_, and
_Ulysses_, amongst many others.

> Attributing to it characteristics from earlier eras
> and other genres doesn't serve very well to define a genre, does it.

"Eclectic" is a legitimate generic descriptor, surely? It's certainly an
adjective which suits Pynchon's texts, one reinforced by P's own comments
from that Ford Foundation Application posted by Al X.

> Recall
> the Berube article we read a few weeks ago, wherein he talked about the
> difficulty of finding a PoMo novel to teach.

As I understood it, Berube admitted to difficulties in finding an actual
novel to fit a theoretical conception, or definition -- his own, I suspect
-- of what a postmodern fiction *should be*. To my mind, his approach seemed
a little bit back-to-front. I doubt that he'd have any more luck finding "a
Modernist novel", or "a naturalist novel", if that's the sort of pedagogic
method he's employing.

> A genre that includes The
> Thousand and One Nights, Tristram Shandy and GR doesn't seems a bit ragged,
> don't you think.

Not at all.

> How Pynchon's "second-story" reference, in "jbor's" words  "would appear to
> indicate his awareness that there's not
> just a finite 'second story', as Hollander might argue, but
> *multiple*,perhaps potentially infinite, stories in operation" is far from
> clear.

The reference is to "second- (or ninth-) story men". I detected a pun.

> Unless you can read Pynchon's mind, it's a bit difficult to say what
> he might be aware of, isn't it.

This is a non-argument. One which Doug repeats with tiresome regularity.

> What does it mean to have a "potentially
> infinite" number of "stories in operation"?

Like Chinese whispers, for example. Urban myths. "Sea-stories". Oral and
written histories. And narratives within narratives (within a narrative).

snip

best