ATDTDA (3) Dynamitic mania, 80-86

[Paul Mackin]

On Mar 1, 2007, at 6:48 AM, Tore Rye Andersen wrote:

> Paul Mackin:
>
>> I'd prefer a less childish example of reader engagement with the    
>> characters in a story. Say the way, in Roth's "The Plot Against   
>> America," we REALLY REALLY want the book to end with the "Roth"   
>> family somehow restored to its pre-Lindberghian happiness? I  
>> didn't  have anything like that emotion about the resolution of  
>> AtD. I only  admired the symmetry of it.
>
> I'll freely admit that my example of reader engagement was parodic,  
> and even childish - just trying to have a bit of fun.

Yes, I know. But that fun if left standing could score a point,-- 
namely that novels with strong characterization are inferior to  
novels without it. Not saying you intended to score such a point.

I know, it's not ABOUT scoring points.

> So let me act like a proper grown-up and comment on your example: I  
> agree that the characters of Roth's novel are very good, and that  
> we REALLY REALLY want the novel to end with their happiness. But  
> whereas the characters seem realistic, the ending of Roth's novel  
> certainly doesn't, and "The Plot Against America" was all the more  
> disappointing for it. The counterfactual premise of Roth's book  
> works just fine in the beginning of the novel, but the happy  
> resolution to the scary events of the novel seems hasty, contrived,  
> and very unrealistic. Roth may have more insight into the human  
> psyche than Pynchon, but he doesn't have a fraction of Pynchon's  
> historical intelligence, and as a result of this, Roth has placed  
> his realistic characters in an unrealistic sequence of historical  
> events (and here I'm thinking especially of that hasty happy  
> ending). The fairy-tale ending of AtD is even more contrived, as  
> you point out, but deliberately so: I think Pynchon gives us this  
> ending as a deliberate contrast to all the sad events preceding it,  
> hoping that the reader will see it for just what it is: an  
> unrealistic ending to a depiction of some very real historical  
> events. Not that there aren't plenty of fairytale events on the  
> preceding pages as well, but they always function as a sort of  
> counterpoint to the densely detailed and well-researched reality  
> described by Pynchon. Pynchon's fairytale ending is deliberately  
> contrived, Roth's is just contrived: "The Plot Against America"  
> gives us some very real characters in what is too clearly a story,  
> with Aristotelian plot and all. AtD gives us some more unreal  
> characters, but it situates them in a textual environment which IMO  
> seems much more real than Roth's, shameless use of coincidence  
> notwithstanding. In fact, Pynchon very deliberately foregrounds  
> this shameless use of coincidence, whereas authors like Dickens and  
> Tolstoy tried to hide it. Pynchon doesn't let us forget that we are  
> reading a work of fiction, but at the same time he's taken great  
> care to research the historical period he describes. That's one of  
> the things I love about Pynchon. GR is on one level a  
> phantasmagoric account of WW2, but on another level it's the most  
> realistic depiction of that war I've encountered in a work of  
> fiction. By putting so much effort into researching and describing  
> the richness of a given historical period, be it the 18th century  
> of M&D, the fin de siècle of AtD, or the WW2 of GR, Pynchon surely  
> wishes to introduce some measure of "reality" into his fiction, and  
> the hallucinogenic episodes of his novels don't so much detract  
> from this reality as throw it into stark relief.

I agree about the defects of the novel. When I first heard about the  
plot I decided it was hopeless. Yet in the end I read the book  
anyway. And Roth is such a superb novelist  he  can survive a few  
defects.

I'm not saying Roth is better than Pynchon. All we're talking about  
here is engagement with the characters of a novel.

>
>
>> OK I'll bite and try to enter into the story. This is only   
>> lighthearted chit chat.  I hope it won't be misunderstood. Here  
>> it  goes. I do tend to find disapproving of the Webbs' admittedly   
>> murderous  behavior a bit reactionary.  Within the  context of   
>> the  story, that is.  Violent action is all these people have. The  
>> union  isn't going  to  help them.  Renouncing their brand of  
>> "anarchism"  under the circumstances would be, for them, moving  
>> backwards. A   return to the life of happy robots,  To  push  C.  
>> Wright Mills'  phrase a few years back in time.
>
> I never realized that disapproving of murderous behavior could be  
> construed as "reactionary", within or without the context of any  
> story.

One can argue it to be reactionary if one gives reasons, which I did.


> As I wrote in another post this morning, I tend to believe that the  
> violent actions of the characters are to a large extent the natural  
> result of the violent society they live in - a society where  
> "violence is the default method of conflict resolution," as I put  
> it - but surely understanding doesn't necessarily lead to  
> approving. Both within and outside of the context of the story I  
> disapprove of the kind of violent society that creates both violent  
> 'bad' guys like Deuce Kindred and violent 'good' guys like Frank  
> and Webb, and even though I to some extent believe that "The World  
> is at Fault", to quote from Pynchon's comments upon Marilyn  
> Monroe's death, I also believe that the characters within that  
> world carry a large responsibility for the way things are. They're  
> not just innocent victims: They have more choice in the matter than  
> they realize, and I regard their murderous behavior in AtD as a way  
> up upholding the violent society rather than changing it. By  
> contributing to the spiral of violence, the anarchistic 'heroes' of  
> AtD don't really work against the day - they ensure that it will  
> contine as it is (and as it has up to this day).
>
> Best,
>
> Tore
>
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