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 10:42 PM
Subject: Re: unreliable? in Vineland
>
> > >
> > > 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.
>
> I don't think that's what we've got in VL. Again,  focusing on POV tells
> us very little.
> The Lodge on James & POV quote deals with POV. Tim is talking about POV.
> But what allows the narrator to get inside the dreams, the thoughts, the
> heads and hearts of  the characters in VL is "privilege." Observers and
> narator-agents, whether self-conscious or not, reliable or not,
> commenting or silent, isolated or supported, can be either privileged to
> know what could not be known by strictly natural means of limited to
> realistic vision and inference. Complete "privilege" is what we usually
> call "omniscient."  But we should not mix these up because there are
> many kinds of privilege.
>
> Is privilege limited in VL or is it total?
> Very few privileged narrators are of the type that you describe--total
> or the god-like omniscient narrator allowed to know or shown as much as
> their authors know.
>

I admit that the distinction between the omniscient and the pov-narrator
isn't easy to tell.

Do we have an agent-narrator here who is commenting and reliable, but may
not be seen as the author's voice?

Presenting another one's dreams seems very privileged to me. Isn't it very
god-like (since I don't believe in ESP) peeping into someone's (Zoyd or
Pirate Prentice) dreams?

Who's pov is it that Zoyd's sense of humor is fragile, his own or the
narrator's, and if it's the latter, how does he know?

"You'll see," weary Slide advised.
He sure would, but only after spending more time out on 101 than his already
fragile sense of humor could take (...)." (5)

If he's not kind of omniscient I can only give your question back to you:
  > > > how does the narrator know this?

Otto