unreliable? in Vineland (getting closer to an idea)

[jbor]

on 21/6/03 4:04 PM, Tim Strzechowski at dedalus204 at attbi.com wrote:

> part of what we call Pynchon's "style" stems from his
> ability to weave formal diction (what jbor calls "conventional detached
> narrative" and what MJ calls "austerely poetical diction") with informal
> diction (what jbor calls "Zoyd's pov ... assimilated" and what MJ calls
> "hipster vernacular"), and when this is done to the extent that it not only
> affects dialogue (obviously) but also the narrative "voice" (which Pynchon
> frequently adapts to the vernacular of a particular character in all his
> fiction), this act of narration is blurred, blurred beyond mere "reliable"
> and "unreliable" labels.  Am I correct here?

I think you'll find that the diction doesn't change all that much. The
phrase "rude updates" isn't really an example of "hipster vernacular", for
example, and at that point the narrative voice is obviously detached from
Zoyd's pov (because it's foreshadowing events which are yet to occur, and
which Zoyd is unaware of - a form of prolepsis and dramatic irony, as we've
established). But at other points it's obviously inside Zoyd's pov, and the
way that the shifts back and forth appear to be seamless has a lot to do
with Pynchon's style and language choices. I don't think labels like
"reliable" and "unreliable" apply.

On the whole, Pynchon's narrative voice mingles colloquial and more poetic
registers, as in, say, the very first sentence of the novel ("drifted awake
in sunlight" cf. "stomping around on the roof"). This is stylistically
consistent throughout the novel.

best


> So Pynchon's use of diction is, in effect, part of what we must consider
> when coming to terms with his narrative voice (in the instances I brought up
> earlier) and whether we can call it "reliable."  Yes?
>