unreliable? in Vineland

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
Cc: "Pynchon-L" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 6:08 PM
Subject: Re: unreliable? in Vineland
>
>
> Tim Strzechowski wrote:
> >
> > From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
> >
> > >
> > >   True, maybe "reliable" is a poor term for it.  But it's
> > > > definitely *not* unreliable narration.
> > >
> > > Why not?
> > >
> > > It seems to be unreliable 3rd person narration.
> >
> > Unreliable how?
> >
> > Does the narrative point of view mislead the reader? No, it doesn't.
>
>
> OK, let's get rid of the terms because they are not helping us.
> I've provided a definition and several examples of reliability.
> you are talking about something else.
>
> let's turn to your example
>
>
>
> >
> > Does the narrative point of view manipulate the reader's perception of
> > how
> > the character processes his circumstances?  Not really.  The reader is
> > manipulated only to the extent that s/he learns *while* Zoyd learns.
>
> on page 3 mid-paragraph 1 the narrator tells us what Zoyd understood.
>
> how does the narrator know this?
>

Because P. chose an omniscient narrator for _Vineland_, a God-like
perspective that allows insights into the depths of the characters souls and
minds. And he's consistent in this throughout the novel.

Let's consult David Lodge again. The chapter "Point of View" is mostly
about Henry James's _What Maisie Knew_, 1897:

"A real event may be - and usually is - experienced by more than one person,
simultaneously. A novel can provide different perspectives on the same
event - but only one at a time. And even if it adopts an "omniscient"
narrative method, reporting the action from a God-like altitude, it will
usually privilege just one or two of the possible "points of view" from
which the story could be told, and concentrate on how events affect *them*.
Totally objective, totally impartial narration may be a worthy aim in
journalism or historiography, but a fictional story is unlikely to engage
our interest unless we know whose story it is.
The choice of the point(s) of view from which the story is told is arguably
the most important single decision that the novelist has to make, for it
fundamentally affects the way readers will respond, emotionally and morally,
to the fictional characters and their actions.
(...)
One of the commonest signs of a lazy or inexperienced writer of fiction is
inconsistency in handling point of view.
(...)
Of course, there is no rule or regulation that says a novel may not shift
its point of view whenever the writer chooses; but if it is not done
according to some aesthetic plan or principle, the reader's involvement, the
reader's "production" of the meaning of the text, will be disturbed.
(_The Art of Fiction, p. 26-28)