SLSL Intro, Class/Race- "8 Mile"

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In a message dated 11/10/02 12:01:45 PM, tyrotortoise at yahoo.com writes:

<< > 
> In that regard, it is intresting to note that TSI
> has almost nothing
> to do with Class.


<<Don't want to jump ahead but I can't agree with this. 
The boys name their friend Carl Barrington. They take
the name Carl from Mr. McAfee (race). What about the
name Barrington (class)? They name their organization
after Spartacus. The class struggle in that film is
what inspires Grover. And, we have political and class
struggles mentioned by the narrator, we have Fisk,
Gould, Blaine, Twain, Baffy, etc. Can't remember but
maybe the date 1st May, 1916 (Spartacus) is in there
too  >>

They may borrow Carl, but B.A.R.rington is given. Enough
for now. The poiint is, that there is a a conflation between
Class and Race from the beginning- I mean the Intro. The 
author, he who is being educated, the implied slow learner-
as opposed to the real students "us"- is learning to become
a prophet and a healer, as it were- an artist- growing wings.

It is too early to argue my point about TSI. Let's cap it for now.

As for the disingenuous Intro narrator- clearly he is posing; the
question is why, or with what intent, and that makes all the
difference, as has already been pointed to: Why should "he"
deliberately deceive? All of which, I think, misses the more
obvious and straightforward question: Is it possible for Pynchon
not to pose, given the fact that "he" is talking about himself;
or, at least, himself as he once may have been? Somehow the 
issue of posing got turned, and became one of disingenuousness, 
in the "harder" earlier connotation of the word, as opposed to more 
current trends, which have moved towards "faux-naïf;" i.e., a 
certain playfulness, encouraging, perhaps, a willing suspension 
of disbelief- or, so I'm led to believe by the American Heritage
Dictionary.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entries/24/d0272400.html

If that more accepting or inclusive aspect of the disingenuous
narrator is permitted, than the posing becomes less sinister and
the Orwellian overtones more philosophical- Is it possible to
re-construct the past given the present? From a mathematical
perspective that's called finding the area under the curve, or, 
integration, and works fine, in the ideal world of mathematics.
But how do we deal with the messy real world and the foibles of 
memory? Henry Adams might be more apt here than Nabokov,
but I'm learning about Nabokov, too.

For those insistent on both a disingenuous and deliberately deceitful
narrator, e.g., conspiracy enthusiasts, the "transition point" between
the beats and the hippies- i.e., the exact point where the rate of change,
or derivative, is at a maximum (the second order derivative is zeroed out)
known as an inflection point- where the curve switches from being 
concave up to concave down- would be about five feet off the ground 
in Dallas, on November 22, 1963, at ? AM. As for those three bonzos- 
triangulate as you will. 

respecfully