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

[jbor]

on 11/1/03 12:12 AM, tess marek at tessmarek at yahoo.com wrote:

> Well, I'm sure you agree that there is a big
> difference between writing from experience (Pynchon
> does this, i.e., the navy, Long Island, so on, but for
> some reason he uses strategies to limit the the
> autobigraphical elements) and creating a distance
> between oneself as author (and implied author) and
> narrative agency and/or character. Pynchon fails to do
> this in Low-lands. This flaw, when combined with the
> attitudes, is what is off-putting. Intro.21

While I do agree with much else you've written in this thread, I've reread
page 21 of the 'Intro' and I don't see the connection you are making between
Pynchon not "creating a distance" and the attitudes disclosed in
'Low-lands'. The point he makes in relation to this story is that the
characters, narrative voice and Pynchon himself all shared the same
attitudes. You seem to be arguing that had he disguised the fact that his
own attitudes coincided with Flange's and the narrator's everything would be
hunky dory. Put another way, had there been a "distance" then Flange's or
the narrator's attitudes would have to have been different, and it would
have been a different story altogether.

The fact that there is an identification between the author (implied and
actual), the narrative voice and the central character is not a flaw. It's a
technique.

best