SLSL character vs narrator?

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In a message dated 11/30/2002 8:10:52 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
jbor at bigpond.com writes:


> 

> > And, no offence to the man himself intended, Hollander 

> mistakes Levine for

> > "the narrator"


While I agree that Hollander has confused Lardass with

the narrator in the introduction, I see this as insignificant

with respect to the value of Hollander's piece as a whole,

for several reasons.  Soon after the intro narrator makes

the comment about the narrator of TSR being "almost but

not quite him," he goes on to associate Levine's conflict with

his own subconscious conflict at the time the story was

written, i.e., "over where to put his loyalties." This is

a big admission of similarity. There is also the "not quite"

parallelism:

    

   Levine, however, was not quite ordinary.


Which echoes the "almost but not quite me" used to

describe the TSR narrator. In fact, it may well be

that Levine is MORE like Pynchon than the TSR narrator,

based on the intro narrator's admissions and lengthy

descriptions of how the resolution of this inner conflict

played itself out in the evolution of Pynchon's generation.


More important, however, is Hollander's quite fascinating

attempt to deal with the material which the intro narrator

completely ignores, or, in my opinion, deliberately attempts

to obfuscate. Clearly, the names are significant; the fate

of the "whore book" is significant; the quotes are significant;

the specifics, in other words, are all important. Hollander's

work is illuminating and thought provoking with respect to all

these issues.


There are also hints that the intro narrator is not always 
trustworthy. The issue about Eliot and Hemingway exemplifies 
this. The  overt references to them are made by Rizzo, "the 
perennial undergraduate," and are right in character with what 
we are given to know about him. The intro narrator thus 
slyly confuses Rizzo with the narrator of TSR, and chooses to
ignore the ironic use to which they are put by the narrator of TSR. 

Hollander's suspicions of hidden meanings and recognition of 
techniques Pynchon puts to good use in his mature works- 
and I would include the SL intro in that- makes good reading.
H. rejects the self-deprecating: "Most of what I dislike about
my writing is present here in embryo..." and goes on to point
out just the opposite; much of what makes the Pynchon of
the later works so fascinating is present, as well.


I can forgive Hollander's minor confusion of the TSR narrator

with Levine and praise his valuable scholarship.


respectfullly