SLSL 'Low-lands': racist, sexist and fascist talk

[jbor]

on 10/1/03 4:38 AM, tess marek at tessmarek at yahoo.com wrote:

> Part of P's problem as a young writer is his failure
> to create a distance with a narrative voice.

Though there is a distance between the narrator and Levine in the earlier
story (as Pynchon notes), in this story there isn't a distance between the
narrative voice and Flange. Pynchon says as much when he apologises for the
"smart-ass" aspect of the narrative voice in the 'Intro', and acknowledges
it as his "own". It's clear from these comments that Pynchon's and Dennis's
povs are in alignment. In other words Dennis is the "filter", or source, of
narrative agency in the story. Pynchon perfects this technique in the
novels, in _GR_ particularly (with, for example, Slothrop, but with many of
the other characters also). I don't agree that it's a flaw or "failure".
It's a technical aspect, part of the literary repertoire, and he uses it to
good effect in all his mature works.

> I'm not
> sure right now, but I recall reading that after
> Hemingway, P started reading Conrad. At some point,
> prior to or while writing V. he read Melville (at
> least he read Moby-Dick). I think it is essntial for P
> to create this distance and the Stencil (he may have
> been reading Nabokov too and the idea to
> Stencilize--Henry Adams & Graves etc--is a great big
> giant step in P's development as an author. It's not a
> matter of being above the average or ordinary
> protagonist (not sure P manages to make Flange very
> ordinary or if that is his objective?). P has the guys
> sit around and spin yarns. This is good. However, the
> "almost me" guy keeps intruding. And he's a smart-ass
> with attitudes that put us off. They put off the
> "Modern" reader not because they are not PC or not
> what we expect from a postmodern
> thinker like TRP. They put us off because they intrude
> in an awkward manner because they are the attitudes of
> an apprentice writer.

I disagree. Pynchon states that it's the "racist, sexist and proto-Fascist
talk" in the story which will be off-putting. He notes that these were the
attitudes of the generation, and that it's not just the characters' voices
(he refers to Pig) but his "own at the time" as well (p. 11).

best