ATDTDA (3) Dynamitic mania, 80-86

[Paul Mackin]

On Feb 27, 2007, at 2:27 PM, Tore Rye Andersen wrote:

> Paul Mackin wrote:
>
>> Not to be too contrary but I don't  think it's quite correct to  
>> think  of  either the writer or the  reader of a work of fiction  
>> like AtD  as  "agreeing" or "disagreeing" with the actions of a  
>> particular  character in the story.  We're not IN the story  
>> ourselves. Let the  other story characters agree or disagree if  
>> they want to.
>
> Call me old-fashioned, call me naive, but I'll reserve the right to  
> "disagree" - no, scratch those quotation marks, to disagree, plain  
> and simple - with any character who blows a trainload of other  
> characters to smithereens. Sure, they're just inkmarks on paper,  
> and we're not IN the story ourselves, but part of the pleasure and  
> challenge of reading fiction - for me at least - is achieving that  
> willing suspension of disbelief where the moral questions posed by  
> a novel like AtD seem urgent and real, rather than just a jumble of  
> words. IMO, much of the pleasure of reading Pynchon is that his  
> fiction is so rich with those rare moments where - to quote GR -  
> "words are only an eye-twitch away from the things they stand  
> for" (100); where the "pencil words on your page [are] only delta-t  
> from the things they stand for" (510).
> And, for what it's worth, in long and confusing works such as GR,  
> M&D and AtD, I think Pynchon very deliberately tries to drag the  
> reader into the constructed world of the book. By immersing the  
> reader in a complexity and confusion similar to the one the  
> characters have to live through, or at least a textual equivalent  
> of such complexity and confusion, Pynchon attempts to place the  
> reader in much the same circumstances as his characters, inviting  
> him or her to face some of the same moral quandaries (or to face  
> some of the moral quandaries that his characters too often ignore).  
> And I'd much rather be down in the mud with preterite Slothrop or  
> Mason or Dixon or Frank, than aloof with The Chums of Chance or  
> more sophisticated readers who have to view the doings below twice  
> removed.
>


Fair enough, Tore. I certainly didn't and don't  want to try and  
dictate to anyone how to read the book.

I do rather disagree with the contention that AtD draws the  reader  
INto story. Relative to GR perhaps it does.  But making any real  
effort at drawing the reader IN, making him  care very much about  
what happens to  the characters,  isn't  IMO the way  Pynchon works.  
He certainly doesn't "work" for me that  way. It's not that I  doubt  
his being  a brilliant writer, or that I didn't enjoy much that was  
in AtD, or that I would not find even more to enjoy upon another  
reading. There is always plenty  to be gotten out of a Pynchon novel.  
It's not engagement with any of the characters, however,  Although we  
may, from within our own moral frame, deplore vengeance killings even  
if deserved, we never for a second stop and think, gosh,  I hope he  
doesn't actually toss that bomb he's got  in his hand. Or to take the  
other example, we don't wish that Frank hadn't so enjoyed seeing that  
trainload of federales go up in smoke.

  Of course, I'm just speaking for myself. The p-list is quite a  
diverse group.


P.


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