Reading and discussing Pynchon's texts

[Michael Joseph]

> on 6/6/03 7:30 AM, Vincent A. Maeder wrote:
>
> > The goal would be to gather the observations and POV's of others as they
> > read the texts to help assess the emotional and psychological impact
> > upon each individual reader of the artist's process.
>
> It sounds a bit like the Affective Fallacy.
>
> http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/Terms/Temp/affective.html
>
> Or Reader Response Theory.
>
> The problem I continue to have, and it's only a minor one, is that "the
> artist's process" or "how the text works" seems to be being held up as
> something finite and ultimate, when it's as much a matter of interpretation
> as anything else is.

Perhaps not in the eyes of someone committed to the worldview that
privileges "artist's process" and "how the text works." Since, as you
point out, everything is a matter of interpretation, and thus a commitment
to any particular dogma-including your own--requires a degree of
irrationality, what entitles you to admonish Vincent for adopting an
initial position no less rational than yours?

> Literary qualities like tone, allusiveness or irony
> just don't lend themselves to scientific analysis, nor are things like
> "emotional impact" quantifiable. How much is the "impact" on each reader
> caused by things going on inside his or her own head, or life and times, and
> how much is actually caused by the text, or "the artist's process"?
>
Touch questions.

> I'm not saying it's wrong or not to share your responses to the various
> texts, only that claiming that it's any different to or better than
> discussions which focus on the semantic content - talking in terms of "what
> the text means" - is specious.

Maybe, but the "Tu Quoque" argument applies again, Jb, and Vincent has a
right to make whatever commitment he pleases.

> When readers and critics consider and discuss
> the "meaning" of a text they've gone through that whole process anyway,
> absorbing the "impact", analysing the techniques, looking at the contexts of
> production and reception, and so forth. If an explication of the text's
> "meaning" can't be backed up by explanation of how one arrived at that
> conclusion then it won't cut it.
>
Well said!


Michael