Repost: The Big One

[Bekah]

On Jul 14, 2008, at 11:32 PM, David Payne wrote:
>
> Sticking with the topic at hand, don't most writers create rounded  
> characters by presenting a moral dilemma and then demonstrating the  
> character's inner struggle and the resulting moral evolution?

No,  there are many writers who don't create rounded characters by  
presenting moral dilemmas.  Detective and science fiction novels  
don't usually have rounded characters - for a couple entire genres.    
Their focus is on plot and ideas or technology (there are some  
exceptions, of course).  And some novelists  may want to tackle  
issues other than the ones where a couple well-rounded characters  
demonstrate personal character growth through moral problem  
resolution.   (And just about all novels have several "stock" type  
characters - flattish, undeveloped/under-developed ) so that the  
focus is on two or three main ones.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez has flattish characters (although this may be  
in the mind of the beholder) because he wants the focus on the  
folkish tales which make up his magical realism.

Don DeLillo has flattish characters because he wants the focus on the  
"big-issue" themes - media, paranoia, etc.  Actually,  I think quite  
a lot of post-modern fiction has flattish characters because the  
author is putting emphasis on the style or structure as well as "big  
issues."   Alienation can sometimes come off as flat.

I think Pynchon used flat characters in much of his fiction so that  
he could explore other very "generalized" issues like the patterns of  
history,  the beliefs in/of technology,  systems of belief, religion  
and the occult,  recurring class and cultural issues,   stuff like  
that.   I think he uses a lot of characters in his books so that he  
can dig into the themes from more angles.  Who needs two well rounded  
characters developing a theme of class issues or "revisionist/ 
alternative"  history when you can have a dozen flat ones coming at  
it from a dozen perspectives?

Bekah

(and the rest of David's post:

> Does Pynchon do this?
>
> If not, why? If so, where and why? (Some postings have already  
> answered this as "yes"; specifically, both Laura and Mark pointed  
> to Frank and the train crash on page 985.)
>
> Finally, does Pynchon's moral view point extend beyond the reaction  
> of his characters' individual personal reactions to their  
> individual dilemmas?
>
> Please take my comments a face value, b/c my son bought ice cream  
> from an ice-cream truck for the first time yesterday. Boy-oh-boy  
> was he ever excited to learn that people actually drive around in  
> trucks full of ice cream on hot summer days, trying to unload their  
> merchandise.
>
>