MDMD Outlaws

[Paul Nightingale]

I would certainly agree that Cherrycoke is as reliable as anyone else; the
point is that we need to think more carefully about what reliable means in
this context. I'm not comparing a fictional character to a 'real' person
with whom I might wish to discuss the work of famous writers. If, during
that discussion, the other person recommended that I read something, and
told me where to find the reference; and then sent me off in the wrong
direction to look for it; well, I guess, a week or so later when I finally
realised I'd been duped, I'd be pretty pissed and refuse to fall for the
same trick again. The purpose of Cherrycoke, as central character in the
opening sections, he who will lead us to Mason and Dixon, is to establish
the way in which any retrospective account will be suspect, precisely
because memory and the facts are usually at odds. And as a fictional device,
the concept of memory here emphasises that facts cannot be said to exist
independently of their telling (which includes the way the reader will
receive any given message). Ch3, for example, ends by playfully casting
doubt on the existence of the Learned Dog. This 'character' has depended on
a reader who is prepared to accept that novels might not always be based on
a psychological realism ("Well, that's a bit farfetched, isn't it?).

----- Original Message -----
From: <CyrusGeo at netscape.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 9:59 AM
Subject: RE: MDMD Outlaws


> If you will allow me to say so, Wicks Cherrycoke is as reliable and
trustworthy a storyteller as any. He may not be entirely truthful as to the
facts, but he is 100 percent truthful as to himself and his own feelings.
Story-telling, anyway, is not about the facts, but about the narrator's
response to the facts (if there are any facts involved at all). The way he
remembers things is not necessarily the way they happened, but it certainly
is the way he perceived them, the way they make sense to him. Story-telling
is not supposed to be history, therefore factual accuracy is not so
important, though Pynchon includes just enough to tickle us. [Even
Thukydides (often called "father of history") makes up the speeches he
narrates so as to convey the general meaning of the speeches that actually
took place.] The following quotation (sorry, I can't remember where I read
it) seems to me to grasp the essence of story telling:
> "The persons and events depicted in this story are entirely real, since I
made them all up myself."
>
> Cyrus
>
>
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