Irony & Narrative Commentary & Control in VL & adorno

[Tim Strzechowski]

Hey --

> > the "effect" of these passages also adds to Zoyd's characterization by
making him (and the reader) seem more out of the loop than anyone else in
the passage.
>
> The reader is brought into the loop. Not quite into the center, but
inside. Zoyd remains out of the loop.

This is true.  The reader is made aware of *something* that is significant
in this situation, and later Zoyd achieves the necessary awareness.

>
>
> By dropping lines like "He sure would" and "These were the first of
several rude updates," the other characters (Slide, et al) and the narrative
consciousness are aware of something that Zoyd and the reader aren't. You're
correct -- technically, this isn't dramatic irony (in its classic
definition).  But it IS ironic, no?  Question is, what kind?
>
> I can't remember. Help me out.

Well, verbal and situational ironies are obviously out.  As for dramatic,
it's a bit of a twist on the classic formula, with the reader and a
character learning some truth simultaneously while other characters are in
the know.  I find Rob's offering helpful:

"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_,"

although, as Rob himself seems to suggest ("but there's probably a
linguistic term for it as well"), the term "prolepsis" may not entirely
pertain to what Pynchon is doing here.  My definition states: "a rhetorical
figure in the anticipation, and answering or nullifying beforehand, of
objections or opposing arguments."  True this applies to argumentation, but
these examples aren't "answering" any "objections" or "opposing arguments";
they are anticipating later narrative.  If you have a different definition
of the term (or a more applicable trope), I'd be interested in seeing it.

Now Kai offers a pretty good term:

   ° not sure if the following is helpful but adorno, refering to the late
   thomas mann, once speaks of "Enigmatic Irony" by which he means some
higher
   form of humor that can neither to 'dramatic irony' nor to satire be
reduced;
   if the contemporary novel wants to be up to date, adorno said in 1954, it
has
   to give up part of its 'realistic' heritage (especially the "naivety of
   non-naivety") and reconstitute itself in the medium of Enigmatic Irony.
in
   the case of vineland the enigmatic elements, like the alien aircraft crew
   ("do you believe in magic?"), evoke a sense of ontological instability
which
   allows us to give up our moralistic misunderstandings.


perhaps to the extent that we are looking at a unique form of irony here.  I
won't go out on a major limb and claim that Pynchon has "invented" a new
type of irony, but it's an irony that is based on the dramatic in that a
character is gradually made aware of something that other characters are
aware of, but the kicker is that the reader is likewise out of the know.


> Last time I read VL with this group I decided to read Kierkegaard's
> Dissertation. Can't remember why? In it, I think, in the section called
> "Irony as a Controlled Element: the Truth of Irony,"   Kierkegaard says
> that to master irony is to infuse a work with irony, and that once no
> non-ironical holds are left the work frees itself from the author and
> the author from it.
>
>
>   From "Irony as a Controlled Element, the Truth of Irony"
> Kierkegaard's The Concept Of
>   Irony, with continual reference to Socrates.
>
>   Shakespeare has frequently been eulogized as the grand master of
> irony, and there can
>   be no doubt that there is justification for that. But by no means does
> Shakespeare
>   allow the substantive worth to evaporate into an ever more fugitive
> sublimate, and as
>   for the occasional culmination of his lyrics in madness, there is an
> extraordinary
>   degree of objective in this madness. When Shakespeare is related
> ironically to what he
>   writes, it is precisely in order to let the objective dominate.
>   Irony is now everywhere present; it sanctions every single line so
> that there will be
>   neither too much nor too little, in order that everything can have its
> due, in order
>   that true balance may be achieved in the miniature world of the poem,
> whereby the poem
>   has the center of gravity in itself. The greater the contrast in the
> movement, the
>   more is irony required to direct and control the spirits that
> willfully want to charge
>   forward. The more irony is present, the more freely and poetically the
> poet floats
>   above his artistic work. Therefor, irony is not present at some
> particular point of
>   the poem but is omnipresent in it, so that the irony visible in the
> poem is in turn
>   ironically controlled. Therefor irony simultaneously makes the poem
> and the poet free.
>   But in order for this to happen, the poet himself must be master over
> irony. But this
>   does not always mean that just because a poet manages to be master
> over the irony at
>   the time of writing he is master over it in the actuality to which he
> himself belongs.
>   It is customarily said that the poets personal life is of no concern
> to us. This is
>   absolutely right ...
>

This is a great quote, Terrance, and I'm sitting here racking my brain,
trying to think of a Shakespearean character whose situation is similar to
that of Zoyd's in this passage, where the audience is more or less as
unaware as the character in a given situation ...