Pynchon and fascism

[Paul Mackin]

On Sat, 2003-05-31 at 09:59, Paul Nightingale wrote:
> 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?

Even if "all writing is fiction" you still need categories  for the
various kinds of "fiction." What kind of fiction is the forward? Is it
prose or poetry? The answer is, it's both. It fairly prosaically
dispenses a certain amount of information for the reader who doesn't
know much if anything about Orwell and his book. The publishers no doubt
insisted.  But also it is wildly unpredictable, in violation of normal
expectations, disturbing, disorienting, replete with a certain amount of
Pynchonean assholery--in short it is full of the poetic.  . . 

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?

Wouldn't that have been more typically a secondary reaction. Wouldn't
one first have wondered if the Pincher is correct about Orwell thinking
the word "fascist" fit Churchill?


> 
> 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.
> 
>