MDDM Ch. 70 Higher Assembly

[Doug Millison]

 jbor
>When Wicks is noted in the text as telling his stories he recounts in the
>past tense. The bulk of the narrative, however, is related in the present
>tense. It is a quite noticeable, and I assume deliberate, distinction.

Oral storytellers move in and out of their tenses, too - past, present,
future, etc.  I'm quite happy with multiple narrators in M&D, Wicks and
others, Pynchon orchestrating them all.  I'm just curious as to why you
underestimate the capablities of an oral storyteller, that's all.   Again,
consider the capabilities of somebody like Robin Williams, Jonathan Winters
(more Pynchon's generation), etc.

>
>> Sha is an anachronism?
>
>No, *Sha* is something which Wicks, as a Christian, would not believe in, a
>metaphor he would not employ, imo.

It's a point of reference in the story of the experience he had with Mason
and Dixon on the Line, what they all learned about from Captain Zhang.  Why
would he not employ a term that he learned during that experience in
telling a story about it after the fact?

Doug:
>> I agree that Wicks isn't the author of the novel's obvious anachronisms,
>> that author being Pynchon.
>
>That's right, via a source of narrative agency which lies *outside* Wicks's
>perspective.

Agreed.