re VLVL2 conservative values & wacky comedy

[Terrance]

> >
> > Sorry, Paul N, but I don't read VL as a linear text. I don't know why
> > anyone else would.
> 
> I'm not quite sure why you think I think VL should be read as a linear
> text, whatever that is. I'm not quite sure what you mean by a linear
> text, so I'm pretty confident I haven't recommended/advocated that kind
> of reading. In fact, I've addressed the way the text frequently doubles
> back on itself, a sequence of flashbacks, and
> flashbacks-within-flashbacks that take the reader back to where they
> started.

You dismissed a few of the points I made about Zoyd because I doubled
back or flashed forward. 


> 
> What I have done is try to focus on the text as written, which I would
> argue is something different. You keep saying we should pay attention to
> 'the novel', or follow Nabokov's advice (as if he's the only one who has
> ever said anything like this) and deal with the fictional world, etc.

I think it's good advice. I've alluded to Nabokov because I know that
the group is familiar with N's Lecture and the advice he gives to good
readers. I could have alluded to Paulette Childress White, but doing so
would have made more work for me and I'm rather busy these dayz.
Characterization, White says, Can take many forms. And so on ... 


> Yet you undermine this argument when you insist on realist readings that
> focus on characters being somehow independent of the text. (My working
> definition of realist here, by the way, refers to the way readers expect
> some kind of psychological plausibility from characters and situations.)

I don't insist on a realist reading of VL's characters. 


> It seems to me that the 'cut-&-paste' approach (a carefully edited quote
> from this page + a carefully edited quote from somewhere else =
> 'evidence', usually when reading VL for the prosecution) effectively
> ignores the fictional world. 

I'm not sure about cut and paste or care who or what the prosecution is,
but I understand you're point and it's a good one. 


To dwell on the novel's 'accuracy'
> (so-called) in representing 'what really happened' (the differences
> between something called '1964' and something called '1970', or
> whenever) effectively ignores the fictional world (not least because
> such an approach makes the fundamental error of thinking it can know
> what happened, in 'the real world', outside of representation. (And
> don't worry: we've been here before and I know full well that Pynchon-l
> has no interest in such discussions.)

It's always an interesting discussion. I'm sure there is still plenty of
interest in this topic.  


> 
> To address the fictional world, it seems to me, is to consider
> characters, and the function they have, in context. 

Makes sense to me. I think we have done this. Are still doing this. Do
it well. But we are also interested in connecting the fictional world
with our experiences outside of it, with other texts. Nothing wrong with
that. I think we do a very good job at both. 

In a fictional
> world, characters are fictional elements that are no more, and no less,
> important than any other fictional element. If you adopt a food-chain
> approach, you might as well stop pretending you're interested in the
> fictional world. 

Food chain approach? 







What does it mean to say Zoyd is a bad parent? Such an
> assertion only makes sense if you have a clear idea of what 'good
> parent' and 'bad parent' mean independently of the (any) fictional
> world. This involves an awful lot of value judgements about 'good' and
> 'bad', all the time taking you further and further from the text. This
> means using the text as a vehicle to promote your own beliefs: 'I think
> Zoyd is disgusting' = 'I'm not disgusting' = 'I'm an upright citizen'
> etc.
> 
> In fact the more I read VL the more I think it's P's most Brechtian
> novel: Zoyd is certainly a character designed to offend the bourgeois
> sensibility many readers bring to the text.


I think VL is a satire. My silly stuff about work is really  Marxist
literary theory. I can read VL in lots of different ways. When I say VL
is about work, I'm saying that VL is a satire and it's target is the 
capitalist class. I'm sure you understood that. 

Now, being a good working class women,  I've got to tend to my holy
triangle. 

Thanks Paul N. Always a pleasure. 

T