Repost: The Big One

[Paul Mackin]

David Payne wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 (23:44:27 -0400), Laura (kelber at mindspring.com) wrote:
>
>   
>> If you're expecting an impassioned defense of TRP's ability to draw well-rounded characters, you won't be getting it from me.
>>     
>
> Well, no, actually, I wasn't, which is why I said it was a joke, satire.
>
> And that's twice I've apparently unintentionally implied something that I did not mean to convey.
>
> I'll try asking questions for the third time and then just shut up, which seems, perhaps, to be desired.
>
> 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?
>
> 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.
>
>
>   

I want to commend David P. for attempting--and succeeding to the extent 
humanly possible--to bring some intelligibility to this thread. It had 
been such a muddle. The suggested change in terminology set forth in his 
previous post is helpful.  I still haven't figured out how to say what i 
personally  think on the topic.  I do pretty well know what I DON'T think.

P.