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

[jbor]

on 11/1/03 7:01 AM, Malignd at malignd at yahoo.com wrote:

> A lot of ifs, but I'm following you.  Nevertheless, I
> wonder, in the absence of P's mea culpa, on what basis
> would you be able to leech P's own attitudes and
> feelings from a story and its characters, in which
> those attitudes are intended?

It's a fair question. The 'Intro' certainly makes it easier to do this, and
it's an excellent resource both as a starting point and lithmus test for
critical interpretation and evaluation.

But - and I'm not saying that authorial intention is the be all and end all,
or that nailing it down can ever be an exact science - but in the case of,
say, Dixon punching the slave driver in the nose in _M&D_, or Enzian
throwing Marvy off the top of the train in _GR_, I think it's pretty clear
which side of the fence Pynchon is standing on in relation to the scene, the
characters and the issues involved therein. It isn't always that clear-cut,
of course, but I'd say that it's just as problematic if not more so to
approach a text with an assumption that the composer of the text didn't have
attitudes or feelings about the story and characters.

> Put another way, why
> should the story, by itself, without P's external,
> after-the-fact comment, put me off?

Dialogue, plot, characterisation, themes ... ?
 
> Which is not to say the story is all that good and
> might not be off-putting for its mediocrity ...

I hadn't read it for a long time and, though there are some clunky passages,
I didn't dislike it so much this time through. Part of that might have been
down to Quail's enthusiasm, but there's some nice imagery and turns of
phrase and a couple of interesting tangents.

best