unreliable? in Vineland

[jbor]

on 19/6/03 11:45 PM, Tim Strzechowski at dedalus204 at attbi.com wrote:

> When I consider narration or narrators "reliable," I usually consider how
> much said narrator is aware of what is really happening in his/her
> circumstances vs. how much the reader is aware of.  Granted there's
> typically a level of dramatic irony involved in work of fiction that enables
> the reader to see or comprehend something that escapes the narrator, but
> using Chief Broom, for example, as an unreliable narrator because he views
> his situation in a very limit(ing)ed, specific way while we, as readers, can
> navigate past those situations at his level and see events or circumstances
> at a different level is perhaps the point I was trying to make.

I understand your point. I don't think "reliable" is a particularly useful
or appropriate term to apply to the narrator of _Vineland_, however.
Narrative agency is a literary technique, and it's one which Pynchon
manipulates in all his novels. I don't think the author and narrator are in
alignment in _Vineland_, and whether or not the narrator and "we, as
readers" are ... well, I don't see how you can speak for "we, as readers" in
the first place, but I also think it's pretty obvious that we're not. I
certainly don't believe that Thanatoids exist even though the narrative
voice, in the way that it narrates those episodes, makes out that they do
exist. I'm not going to rely on the narrator's authority on this matter, or
on much of the other information it presents. Someone, narrator or author,
is pulling a swifty. (My money's on the author.)

> In the _Vineland_ examples I've given, that point of view doesn't confuse,
> doesn't mislead, doesn't adversely manipulate the reader's understanding of
> the narratives reality, nor does it withhold information that the reader
> knows to in fact be true (like in _Cuckoo's Nest_); instead, it seeks to
> clarify narrative by illustrating Zoyd's lack of clarity and gradual
> lucidity of the situation at hand.

It could do this equally efficiently, if not more so, by not drawing
attention to itself, which is what it is doing in the two examples you
cited. These intrusions ("He sure would ... " "These were to be the first of
several rude intrusions ..." -- it's a rhetorical technique called
prolepsis, but there's probably a linguistic term for it as well, and it's
not all that unusual in conversational discourse either -- and note the way
the second example also refers back to the narrative strategy itself) work
to a similar purpose as the episodes of self-conscious narration in _GR_.

And, additionally, narrative is often filtered through a character's pov, as
with the example I gave. It's not the narrative voice saying "Zoyd thought
to himself that Froot Loops taste OK when you put enough Nestle's Quik on
top." It's the narrative voice adopting Zoyd's pov, blending the third and
first person together: "With enough Nestle's Quik on top, they weren't all
that bad ... " It's the narrator making the statement, but it's Zoyd's pov,
his opinion, his train of thought as he once again improvises this
particular breakfast concoction.

I agree that "magic realism" is an important influence, and quite a few of
the critical studies investigate the affinities in detail. Pynchon's review
of the G.G. Márquez novel, and the explicit references to de Chirico (in
_V._), Borges (in _GR_), and even perhaps the allusion to Eco's _The Name of
the Rose_ in _M&D_, emphasise and acknowledge the connection.

best

> As a result, I find that sort of
> manipulation on the part of the pov something that sort of earns the
> reader's trust.  True, maybe "reliable" is a poor term for it.  But it's
> definitely *not* unreliable narration.
> 
> (Of course, I realize I'm talking about first-person and third-person
> narrators, making this kind of an apples and, well, green apples
> comparison.)
> 
> 
>> However, the spanner in the works here
>> is that the narrative voice makes no distinction at all between historical
>> actualities, like the movie 'Return of the Jedi', the Vietnam War or
>> Reaganomics, and absolute fantasy, like Thanatoids, "real" Godzilla
>> footprints and supersonic alien aircraft. Setting itself up as a
> "reliable"
>> omniscient narrator narrating a more or less realistic plot, neither the
>> tone nor the telling betrays the outlandishness of some of the events
> being
>> narrated, nor of these juxtapositions.
> 
> You're right, and that's one of the things I find so fascinating about the
> pov of this novel, the fact that no such distinctions are made.  Why is that
> important? -- for so it must be, because it is done consistently throughout
> the novel, making it a conscious choice by the author.  One might argue that
> it is a subtle reflection of the hallucinatory mindset that is part of the
> satire and theme of this work.  I'm not entirely convinced of that, but the
> group reading might clarify it for me. The term "magic realism" doesn't get
> tossed around too often when discussing Pynchon, but the examples you give
> certainly lay the groundwork for that argument, too.  I just don't know yet.
> 
> Tim
> 
> 
> 
>