Pynchon and fascism

[Paul Nightingale]

Terrance wrote:
> 
> Again, What kind of fiction is the Foreword?
> 
> no reply.
> 
Hadn't quite got round to it. The apparent absence of a reply, ie
something that signifies reply, the existence of a signifier 'no reply',
doesn't necessarily mean that no reply exists, somewhere.

Anyway, what kind of question is that? Does it need to be answered?

If all writing is fiction (ie if the fact/fiction boundary is being
challenged) do we need such categories?

But let's start first with a commonsense separation of fact from
fiction. Commonsense because we take it for granted until some fool says
it's all fiction.

When starting from the assumption that fiction is not-fact, say, one
might judge the fiction, categorise it, by its relation to fact. That is
to say, to accept writing as not-fiction (a newspaper article about the
weather, the biology textbook) means we don't consider it as writing: we
look for the information contained therein, the writing is considered,
by default, transparent. This is how many started off reading the
Foreword: is it right to call Churchill a fascist?

The text is nothing but a vehicle for information: tomorrow's snow
blizzard, what plants think about, Pynchon's views on politics. The text
is useful: no I'm not going out, so that's how they do it, he's wrong.

Once one has started to consider writing-as-writing one is edging
towards fiction. One considers prose style, say, rather than the
accuracy of the weather forecast. One asks what it means to juxtapose
the signifier "Churchill" to the signifier "fascist".

"Churchill" becomes a fictional character; one Winston has the same
status, in the text, as the other. It's probably about now that it
becomes tedious and unrewarding.

But let's go back, briefly, to fiction as not-fact. We judge the fiction
by its perceived relation to the real world. Mimesis. For the sake of
argument, let's suggest a crude distinction between the realist and the
modernist text. Hence, the realist text is one that has 'believable'
characters and situations. The description of walking down the road in a
snow blizzard makes you feel you were there, really there, soaked
through, cursing. In this text the world is considered knowable, its
knowability is taken for granted. The modernist text questions whether
the world is knowable outside the text. Psychological realism is less of
an issue.

Admittedly a very crude distinction, realist vs modernist, but it'll
have to do for now. Similarly, I'm treating the question of genre
(thriller or romance) as a separate issue, even though the text's
perceived relationship to the real world is no doubt affected by genre
expectations.

The point seems to be that, when you ask what kind of fiction here, with
regard to the not-fact text, the question presupposes an answer that
relates the text to the world outside the text.

Hence, the question you ask, "What kind of fiction is the Foreword?"
presupposes the kind of thinking that can happily distinguish between
fact and fiction.

I just know this answer is unsatisfactory. I suppose I'm the guy you
stop and ask for directions. You say, how do I get there? And he says,
well, if I wanted to go there I wouldn't start from here.

Writing as writing. What kind of writing is the Foreword? Now that's a
question.