Pynchon and fascism

[Paul Nightingale]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of Terrance
> Sent: 30 May 2003 13:09
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Pynchon and fascism
> 
> 
> 
> Terrance wrote:
> >
> > You're talking about is the difference between  "Reality" and
"Method."
> >
> > But you're mixing and matching them up. You are attributing the
> > "reality" or interpretation of the text to the reader and the method
of
> > the text to the text.
> > But the text has its own reality or interpretation and its own
> > method--order or structure or form or connectedness or argument.
> 
> 
> If a more technical term is needed I would call the  "reality"
(textual
> and not extratextaul) signified by the text the "signification" of the
> text.
> 
> The reality presented in a text is its interpretation.

I think it occurred to me at some point, about the time I saw the hole
appearing magically round me, that I was in danger of conflating two
separate but most definitely inter-related issues. This might be what
you're addressing here, but I'm still not sure I agree with your
conclusions as stated above.

Anyway ...

One has the text. To some degree the text must stand in for, or
represent, that which is absent, ie the real world. Hence (a) my point
that I wasn't denying the existence of the real world out there
somewhere; and (b) the issue of what kind of representation the text
offers. The realist novel promises an accurate/faithful/trustworthy
replication: characters/plot/narrative/dialogue etc are slice-of-life
credible. With regard to the Foreword (which I've never claimed was the
same kind of fiction as M&D) one might view the summary of 1984,
fascism, O's life etc as factual in a straightforward way. One trusts
the author not to lie, ie make up quotes attributed to O; just as one
judges the novelist on how well he allows us to forget (suspension of
disbelief) the fact that none of it's true. The issue of representation
is complicated when the novel introduces 'real-life' characters
(Mason/Dixon, JFK, Houdini in Ragtime etc). In the Foreword, in the "O's
intentions" section, P discusses both the novel and also the novel's
relations to history, ie the way in which the novel represents the real
world. So if P's writing is a signifier, which it is, then the signified
is the novel, which itself signifies the real world O wrote about, ie
another signified. P's text offers a reading of a reading.

One then has the act of reading. Juxtaposed to the process of
signification outlined above, are competing interpretations, the
anti-communist tract vs the novel O imagined (and here O is just another
reader). There is also the reader of the Foreword, the reader of a
reading (P's) of a reading (the novel as representation).

Hence, I think, the inseparability of writing and reading.