Pynchon and fascism

[Paul Nightingale]

Michael Joseph wrote:

> 
> On Sat, 31 May 2003, Terrance wrote:
> > Right. I understand what Paul is writing. Do you understand what I'm
> > writing?
> >
> > It doesn't. It hasn't. It's good question. Give it some thought.
> >
> Terence, I think that in assuming the basic tenets of your position
are
> correct and that non-agreement signals non-apprehension you are
tending to
> seem rather fideistic. Your dog metaphor insists that we need to
> categorize Introduction as a *kind* of fiction, that we do genre
analysis,
> even though that is not the way narrative analysis usually works, and
that
> is not what Paul N. seems to be up to.

Homer knows that all dogs leave signifiers on the carpet.

> Check out his paratextual analysis
> of Introduction, which your response sliced away.  That sort of
analysis
> is enabled by the critical position your questions appear to challenge
as
> insufficient because it does not advance understanding. Again, I
thought
> your speculative hypothesis that Introduction is pomo fiction a good
idea
> and potentially fruitful, not least of all because it finessed your
own
> insistence upon limiting competing frames of analysis. I would
discourage
> Paul from rejecting pomo fiction as a useful frame--but, of course, as
> you've so bluntly declared, I may not be understanding his texts,
> either--because I don't see post modernism as merely problematizing
> boundaries, but as problematizing the validity of boundaries, of
> conceptualizing conventional historical criticism, the kind of
> genre-fication you are gavelling us to order to provide.

I wouldn't disagree about postmodernism. In the first instance I was
recognising that some might dispute 'postmodernism' in favour of, eg,
'late modernism', which is probably not relevant here (and isn't my
position anyway). Then, to offer it as a qualifier of fiction did seem
still to be thinking in categories, ie talking in old money ... "taking
in old money", as I wrote, was a typo.

Genre-fication as we now have it is anachronistic thinking. However, to
recognise 'postmodernist fiction' is to recognise other 'kinds' of
fiction. Otherwise we don't need the p-word in front of the f-word. If
postmodernism does problematise the validity of boundaries, and I agree
that it does, then 'postmodernist fiction' as a hybrid is questionable.
I might use that phrase to describe a novel by Pynchon, as opposed to
one by George Eliot, say, in which case its usage is caught up in
genre-fication. Here, we've been using the word 'fiction' with regard to
reading, yet we're categorising it as we've always categorised texts.

Without genre-fication we're left with what? Writing as writing. What
good is that?

Well, it's comforting to know that someone somewhere has already decided
that Hamlet and the theatre ticket are different kinds of signification.
At which point, detecting sarcasm, people who have mortgaged their homes
to buy a ticket to see Homer Simpson as the Prince, it's the performance
of a lifetime, pounce on me and give me a critical beating, thrash me
within an inch of my miserable, heretical life. You're saying the
theatre ticket is the same as Hamlet? This man needs to be taught a
lesson, get a stiff wind over here pronto.

What we're talking about isn't the text as such, but how we go about
reading it. One learns, somehow, not to expect the same from a Pynchon
novel as one finds in George Eliot. One reads them differently. I'm
speculating here, but maybe we should think of reading all texts in the
same way in order to work out how texts go about being different.

The question might be, does genre-fication provide us with a road-map
(unfortunate word with connotations of its own, circa 2003) to explicate
textual narratives? Does genre-fication actually help me read the
Foreword? It helps me categorise it, but does it help me read it?
Perhaps reading requires me to open the book and assume, at the outset,
that the signifier Winston has the same textual status as the signifier
Winston. Which does not mean, as I said before, I'm comparing them. It
does mean that reading is problematic, not to be taken for granted.

So ... am I mistaken in seeing 'postmodernist fiction' as a hybrid
caught up in genre-fication? Am I barking up the wrong tree (one more
time, Lisa, I'm warning you, an international superstar is not to be
trifled with here)?