MDDM Comparing Wicks and Ishmael as narrators

[Terrance]

Otto wrote:
> Good Questions -- one Reason might be to create this "Narrative Agency" I
> guess, to make the Shift, the Fact that there are inevitable Narrative
> Agencies, obvious. In any Way not at all to claim Authenticity, therefor the
> anachronisms. If He has succeeded in the Language I cannot say, that would
> require a Specialist for that Kind of Language (which I am not). But He
> succeeds in this Brechtian "Verfremdung" to break the Frame, to unveil the
> Illusion that Narratives could tell Truths -- as Reverends normally assert
> in interpreting the Holy Bible when they preach. P. reminds us that
> Narratives are for Entertainment primarily, but the Origin of all
> Interpretation is Bible Exegesis, to get the Truth out of the Script, which
> is of course impossible. So we get an unreliable Narrator in the Rev'd who
> claims to be telling the Truth, but whose major Purpose is to entertain the
> Children of Traders in Arms, One might say which is Business as Usual for
> Preachers, who try to sell Stories as Truth they definitely cannot know
> about, which are obviously made up:
> 
> "Oh, may we watch?" cry the children.
> "Never say 'Watch' to your Father," advises Mrs. R.C.
> (325.23-24)


Well, the Rev does seem to know the Bible, but it is hardly the primary
reference text for his sermons or his tales. He is more apt to go to
books on history, politics, Roman and Greek philosophy. The Rev is a
pretty darn good historian too, some of this can surely be attributed to
his age, he has traveled quite a bit and lived a rather nomadic life. He
was a political activist and he certainly knows a lot about the
political/religious factions that "forged this great nation, the many
wars, ships, navigation, astronomy/surveying, the royal society, he
knows a lot about our boys Dixon and Mason, even about their desires,
dreams, private thoughts, he often corrects the young ones, like Brae on
their textual readings, like Plato for example, or the adults on their
readings of American history, like what people knew and did about the
use of infected blankets. This Rev. has opinions that are indeed often
very close to Mr. Pynchon. Yes, that's where we began, the argument,
belonging to Jbor, that Wicks should not be confused with Mr. Pynchon or
even the "implied Author" (not the same thing as Thomas pointed out, but
see Booth), while Ishamel should be considered closely aligned with Mr.
Melville, philosophically or in terms of POV. SO, we have kicked it
about, there are obvious differences in these narratives, but no
argument  why we should align Mr. Melville with Ishmael has been
presented and more important to the heart of MDDM is why we should not
confuse, conflate, or otherwise attribute the narrative ideas of Rev.
Wicks to the implied author of M&D. Well, there is in both novels an
ironic distance that prevents us from doing so. That being said, it
clear to me that much of what Wicks talks about and many of his ideas,
opinions, are those of the implied author. The wonderful example that
Dave Monroe provided during the V discussion is a good model, that was
when we read Stencil's stencilized version of Mondaugan's Story and the
genocide of Herero is linked to the genocide of Jews. The irony in that
sentence is obviously that of the implied author and we are getting the
same thing here with Wicks. Of course the Postmodernists argue that V.
is not a postmodern novel, but that M&D, like GR is, and in being
postmodernist, is satirical of itself and nothing more. while it would
be a big mistake, in my humble opinion, to conflate, confuse, or
otherwise attribute the ideas of Wicks directly to the implied author or
to the author, or even the thoughts of the implied author to the author
of M&D, the postmodernist reading or the fables of subversion reading or
even from the negative side where a critic like Wood, who compares
Melville and Pynchon in his Broken Estate (Pynchon being the inheritor
of Melville's now broken estate), complaining that P's fiction is a
misuse of allegory and calls attention only to itself, its concern is
with fiction and fiction making and the theoretical laws of postmodern
literary theory. .....