SLSL Intro: "if...I were...him"

[slothenvypride]

Exactly.  When you argue that the possibility of the intro being a persona is "overreaching," you are suggesting a certain authority of authorial intent (what is accurate vs. what is overreaching). And since the facts are limited to what P has given us on the page, it's quite unreasonable to assume that you know enough of what he intended to convey to judge when a reader is "overreaching" ... it's at least as unreasonable as my saying "your dismissal of the possibility of a persona falls short of solid analysis" (and, of course, I never said that).
The fact that the intro is written in first-person and is authored by TRP doesn't automatically mean we, as readers, can accept what's written at face value, accept it as TRP being "honest".  Plenty of writers, from Hawthorne in "The Custom House" to Nabokov's John Ray, Jr., have employed a persona that makes the prefatory material as much a part of the fiction as the fiction it prefaces. 
Nothing persuasive?  The entire intro is an attempt on the author's part to get the reader to feel a certain way ------ forgiving of youthful mistakes?  amused by "bad ear" and other such errors?  The fact that the speaker in the intro does more than merely discuss the time period and circumstances around each story ----- he tries to manipulate our attitudes of his writing techniques, and in turn our perceptions of him as a writer ----- that brings his tone into a bit of suspicion.  Not that it has to be a major, earth-shattering conspiracy or anything, just suspect.
Ignore away ...
Sep7
 
 MalignD at aol.com wrote: 
It isn't a question of authority, it's making a reasonable argument off the 
available facts. 


That's the bottom line, is it?

There's nothing persuasive to suggest that Pynchon is creating a "persona." 
On that basis, I can certainly ignore the notion. You can insist that 
Pynchon was trying to imitate Uncle Remus if you like, see how it flies, but 
I might ignore that as well. 

One can say, however, that he has chosen a tone/(voice/style). Difficult to 
write without doing so.

As to your hopes, I could care less.



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