Can Pynchon write (yet)?

[Billy Genocide]

You make some rather interesting arguments. But it has always seemed to me
that character development is simply Pynchon's weak point. No artist is
perfect and, as Longinus claims, I think it is much better to have an artist
who can offer moments of outstanding brilliance than one who can maintain
good but not great craft in all areas. Certainly this weakness (if it be
appropriately characterized as such) works to an advantage in the context of
the challenge P brings to the idea of a character. This at least seems true
of GR (as I haven't read most of P's other books).

On 11/1/06, Paul Nightingale <isread at btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
> A curious complaint, but one that arises frequently--that P's characters
> are
> 'cartoonish'. And then, the response--are they or are they not 'properly
> fleshed out'?
>
> In fact P's approach to characterisation is what we might call anti- or
> post-realist. He isn't really interested in representing 'real people';
> and
> furthermore, as much as anything, his characters are a running commentary
> on
> the process of writing characters.
>
> A character isn't a representation of a real person, offered against the
> backdrop of a suitably realised 'context': Pirate and Zoot waking up in GR
> and VL respectively, for example.
>
> The realist writer might offer us some or all of the information P offers
> at
> the beginning of those novels; but the realist writer would make sure they
> added the degree of plausibility that P's texts so often ignore (the
> critic
> would say 'miss out' because of a weakness in the writer's technique, as
> though everyone should aspire to write like [.....]).
>
> To say 'cartoonish' is to suggest a superficiality of a certain kind: two
> as
> opposed to three dimensions. One might say the character is 'flat'. To say
> 'fleshed out' is to imply the third dimension has been added. Some
> metaphors
> come from the visual arts, of course; and yes, the visual arts have moved
> on
> since a time when the illusion of 'depth' was considered a criterion of
> quality (even though the criticism might still be made of anyone
> post-Manet).
>
> It's certainly interesting that writers, even when they protest to the
> contrary, still approach writing as though they lived in the C19th, quite
> oblivious to the fact that many C19th writers themselves did not, in the
> writing, subscribe to such realist notions. This I think is a point made
> by,
> among others, Robbe-Grillet (mentioned here recently).
>
> Well, my approach to Preading--sorry, Pidolatry--is to consider the
> relationship between the different elements in the text: the character,
> so-called, is but one such element (thinking of R-G, of course, this is
> something he has always been doing, practising what he preaches). As I
> suggested at the time of the VL reading and the aborted GR reading a year
> ago, the interesting point about their opening passages is the way in
> which
> the named characters--Pirate, Zoyd--have to 'insert' themselves into the
> narrative. The relationship between 'character' and 'context' is thereby
> problematised. The other novels open in similar fashion; and I suppose I'm
> suggesting--offering hostages to fortune, dammit--AtD will also.
>
>
>
>


-- 
Now patience; and patience is the thing; and above all else one must avoid
anything like being or becoming out of patience.
-Joyce
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