Pynchon and fascism

[Paul Nightingale]

Paul Mackin wrote:
 
> On Sat, 2003-05-31 at 09:59, Paul Nightingale wrote:
> > Terrance wrote:
> > >
> > > Again, What kind of fiction is the Foreword?
> > >
> > 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.

I wouldn't disagree that we always categorise, somehow, it's probably
unavoidable. And if I want to talk about the way texts set up and use
oppositions I'm probably the last person to make out it's all the same,
which it isn't. I was starting, in my previous post, with the fact vs
fiction opposition to address the way fiction was defined against the
factual. What interests me about a lot of critical commentary/lit
theory, call it what you will, is the way different kinds of texts are
discussed together (eg new historicism). And some writers, like Hayden
White in Figural Realism, consider non-fictional texts (for White,
history writing) with regard to their use of the kind of rhetorical
devices that we associate, conventionally, with fiction. The non-fiction
text, then, is exposed to the kind of reading more often associated with
fiction. This is because the non-fiction text is just as likely to use
rhetorical effects to make its point. This is when one might begin to
focus on writing as writing.

And I would certainly agree that P's Foreword violates expectations of
what that kind of text should be or 'look like'. However, when you say
prose or poetry, you seem to attach value-judgements that elevate poetry
above prose. Mere information is prose; which is quite distinct (yes?)
from the assholery we both admire.

Without suggesting that the text (any text) is some kind of monolithic
blob, I think I would want to consider the way the prose and the poetry
(as you term it) are related, or interact, in the writing.

> >
> > 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?
> 
> 
Yes. That's what I meant, although what I wrote was ambiguous. The point
is, as readers, we would seek recourse to a 'truth' that is outside the
text, in the real world. One might, reading a novel, question one
character's judgement of another; but one does so on the basis of what's
in the text. If I'm going to think about Churchill being a fascist, and
it might be surprising to consider how widespread was sympathy for
fascist ideals in the British ruling class at that time, I have to do so
by recognising that the information I depend on is still text, ie ways
of representing Churchill. Which is what I mean when I go on to say both
Churchill and fascism, in the Foreword, are signifiers.