ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

[bekah]

Perhaps the Chums are always fiction.  I like that sliding scale. 
The Chums have an author who gives them directions, orders, from 
somewhere.   They can be at the fair without ever quite  "crossing 
over,"  but the readers and author sometimes feel that they are so 
very, very close.   The author is inspired by real events and the 
books are read in situations like WWI for escape (the Chums are in 
Switzerland) from the horrific situations .  The ending is like any 
ending in which the heros ride off into the sunset.

Bekah


At 12:42 PM +0000 3/26/07, Carvill John wrote:
>
>This is a realy interesting suggestion, that in witnessing the 
>Chums' arrival at the Chicago Fair, we may also be party to their 
>transition from fiction into reality. Of course the lines are 
>blurred, but if we accept your idea then are we saying that the 
>Chums have now entered 'reality' and tat's that? Almost certainly 
>not. BUt perhasp they can only cross over between the 'real' and 
>'fictional' worlds at suitably fictional points such as the Chicago 
>Fair and, eg., the Tugunska event?
>
>
>Probably the only ting we can say with any certainty about whether 
>the Chums are 'real' or not, is that they reside somewhere in 
>between the real and the fictional and that the point at which they 
>reside does not remain static.
>I think Tore put it best when he described the Chums as 'sliding 
>back and forth along a scale between fiction and reality' (I'm 
>paraphrasing him).
>
>It's posssible that the Chums had a chance at taking up permanent 
>residence in the 'real' world, and tried several times to cross 
>over, not on a visit but permanently, but the way in which the world 
>was heading - WWI, WWII, etc. - meant that the Chums couldn't exist 
>in our graceless atmosphere, thus they sailed off into a fictional, 
>fairy tale existence instead.
>
>>I get the feeling that the Chums are stand-ins for "us" -- 
>>Americans as a whole.
>
>Not so sure about that one. Pynchon's outlook is very much an 
>international one, and attempts to confine him to the subject of 
>America always fall flat...
>
>Cheers
>JC
>
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