pynchon-l-digest V2 #1690

[Doug Millison]

It's easy to demonstrate that this scene (pp. 757-758, under the 
heading The Clearing) is narrated by a third-person narrator who 
takes Blicero's point of view. The action and dialogue all center on 
Blicero. The only character whose thoughts are revealed are 
Blicero's.  How does the narrator know that "There ought to be big 
dramatic pauses here", that "Weissmann's head ought to be teeming 
with last images of creamy buttocks knotted together in fear (not one 
trickle of shit, Liebchen?) the last curtain of gold  lashes over 
young eyes pleading"  if not because the narrator is in fact looking 
out at the world from Blicero's point of view?  Here goes that 
narrator getting even deeper into Blicero's POV:  "(but what's this 
just past the spasming cervix, past the Curve Into The Darkness The 
Stink The . . . The White . . . The Corner . . . Waiting . . . 
Waiting For--).

"But no, the ritual has its velvet grip on them all. So strong, so 
warm. . . ."                     (758.2)

"But no" -- another indicator that we're in Blicero's POV, which 
might have continued to follow that "Curve Into The Darkness" but 
which instead turns away to focus on the ritual at hand, and save for 
later the masturbatory fantasy that will come in so handy.

In my opinion it takes some stretching to claim this all comes from 
"a detached perspective" or to distinguish the way the third person 
narrator settles on Blicero's POV here from the very similar way that 
the third person narrator settles on Marvy's POV in the scene with 
the prostitute.   It might be convincing to argue that we see a very 
subtle move of a third-person narrator, in both of these scenes, 
moving in and out of Blicero's and Marvy's respective POVs, but it 
seems obvious to me that at least part of the time during these 
scenes we get their POV.

No matter where the narratological analysis finally rests, however, 
I argue that we do learn the reach of Blicero's depravity when we see 
that this scene of his catamite going up in flames will serve his 
"purposes of self-arousal" -- that pronoun, "anyone" would appear to 
apply to those witnessing this scene, a group that certainly includes 
Blicero.  But, if you want to offer a different interpretation, 
that's fine, too -- go for it.

rj:
>The scene is very deliberately written from an exterior perspective, and
>just as deliberately details what Blicero "ought to" have been thinking but
>was *not*. It's quite clear. And it's quite a contrast to Marvy in that hot
>tub with Manuela, when the narrative reports exactly what he *is* thinking.

So, the narrator that can tell you what a character is *not* thinking 
is exterior, but the narrator that can tell you what a character *is* 
thinking is interior?  That doesn't seem clear at all and instead 
seems quite illogical -- surely in both cases the narrator  adopts 
the character's POV in order to report on what's happening (or not) 
inside the character's mind.

rj: "Well, that's not true at all."

"True" and "false" would seem strange categories to apply to literary 
interpretations -- another of rj's bogus dichotomies that appear to 
serve no purpose other than to spark flames and fan them.  An 
interpretation may be more or less convincing, more or less faithful 
to the text in question, but "true" or "false" I don't think so. In 
the final analysis an interpretation is no more than an opinion, and 
as my old daddy used to say, "An opinion is like an asshole. 
Everybody has one."

rj: "The scene is very deliberately written from an exterior perspective"

In addition to the ability to determine which literary interpretation 
is "true" and which is "false" you've got the crystal ball that lets 
you read Pynchon's mind, too?  Give me a break.  Offer your 
interpretations and we can discuss them, but please leave this sort 
of name-calling ("I'm right and you're wrong, nyah nyah  nyah  nyah 
nyah  nyah")  to the kids on the playground.
-- 
d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n  <http://www.online-journalist.com>