unreliable? in Vineland

[Tim Strzechowski]

> jbor wrote:
> >A more valid question might be whether there are any truly "reliable narrators" in Pynchon's work.


In Vineland we have a third person omniscent narrator.  In chapter 1, in typical Pynchonian fashion, the narrator creeps out at various points and makes him/her/itself known in response to circumstances the character(s) finds him/themselves in.  In this instance, the first such "peeking out" of the narrative point of view comes on p. 5, following Zoyd's conversation with Slide:

  "'Oh I know there's some heavy-duty hombres, badasses, spend all day narrowly escaping death by tree, not too much patience with anything out of the ordinary, but I've got the element of surprise.  Don't I?'

  'You'll see,' weary Slide advised.

  He sure would, but only after spending more time [...]" (italics mine)

Later on the same page, the narrator states that

  "It was well into lunchtime when he got to the Log Jam, and he was disappointed to find nobody at all from the media, just a collection of upscale machinery parked in the lot, itself newly blacktopped.  These were the first of several rude updates." (again, italics mine)

Using these two examples, I'd have to say that the narrative point-of-view peeks itself out in this opening chapter and, in so doing, reveals to the reader that there is more to Zoyd's situation than meets the eye, in effect alerting the reader to some aspect of the narrative that, in time, s/he learns is indeed true.  Although the narrator here isn't nearly as slippery as it is in GR, a case can certainly be made that the narrator is not deceiving the reader; in fact, it is blunting some of the situational irony of the narration.  Consequently, I'd have to say the narrator in Vineland, at least thus far, is pretty reliable.

Tim


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20030618/ca0659b3/attachment.html>