Narrative Distance "the price of developing any real life shared with an adult woman" (SL.10)

[alice wellintown]

Again, like our readings of Henry James, our readings of Pynchon, made
far more difficult because of  post-Jamesian narrative unreliability
and critical readings of ambiguity and irony, are augmented by a
reading of his (Pynchon's) essays.

In SL Introduction Pynchon discusses how the youth movements placed
too  much emphasis on youth, including the eternal variety. (SL.9)


A major target of Pynchon's satire is this quest to remain forever
young. And, for the most part, it is the males who are targets--the
Flanges, Zoyds and Reefs and so on.

In SL,  now, looking back on the story of Flange, "Lowlands," Pynchon
says that the narrator was him; a  young Tom Pynchon who thought that
Flange was kinda cool.

As a mature author and a mature man he sees that Flange was not ready
to "pay the price of developing any real life shared with an adult
women." (SL.10)

This has become a standard in Pynchon's novels. His American males are
little boys inside, unwilling to pay the price and grow up and into a
new inter-dependent relationship--have a family.

In AtD, Reef has his baby in an explosives box-crib. He doesn't quite
give his child or his woman the credit for being real human people
because he's such a little boy. Moreover, he has inherited a very bad
form of the eternal youth disorder from his Pa and is thus in love
with Death--the Death Instinct. Pynchon sets Reef up as a target of
his "American men are Little boys inside and they need to grow up"
satire)  in several ways but mostly through the dialogues Reef has
with Stray.

But also the actions, like shooting off dynamite with that old Fox's
grin just daring the law to come round his way and also with narrative
asides and commentaries.

Stray is no Angel, but that Stray is so mature, so smart, so ready to
pay the price, so ready to hang with him from the gallows if it comes
to that while Reef fails to see her as an equal, or dare I say, a more
than equal, at least in terms of her ability to "pay the price" and
knows what things are worth paying for, tells us that Pynchon's
feminist critique of American males is important one in his late
fiction.

There is a narrative distance between Pynchon and Reef, Pynchon and
Doc.  Doc is a much the target of satire as the genre Pynchon has
elected to parody.