Pynchon's "knewspeak"

[Tim Strzechowski]

Part of what makes Milton's Satan the tragic figure that he is, however, is
precisely the pity that he evokes in the reader, especially in the early
Books of PL and in his soliloquies of Book IV (cf. IV, ll. 32-113).  The
admission, the regret, the letting-down of the wily persona -- his thoughts
and statements when *not* in the presence of those he wishes to manipulate
(i.e. everyone else) allows us, as readers, to get mere glimpses of his more
pitiable characteristics. And, as the venerable Stanley Fish would argue,
it's this pity that enhances the irony behind the attraction (read:
temptation) we feel for/toward Milton's Satan.


> A point where, to my reading, Satan and Blicero sharply diverge. Rather
than
> rooting for Blicero, the reader, as Terrance said before, feels some
degree
> of pity. And while also a god, isn't it Blicero's humanity that the reader
> both pities and fears?
>