IVIV (1) "She came along the alley and up the back steps ..."

[Mark Kohut]

EFFACED NARRATOR: Third-person narrators can be almost invisible. When the narrator uses only language and sentiments appropriate to the character acting as ...

This is the nature of the narrator in Inherent Vice. It is a technique Pynchon has used from V., at least.  

This understanding covers many paragraphs in the book from the first--John,read the first under this definition and later paragraphs--- through, just for example, the paragraph beginning "Sad but true, as Dion always sez" on page 11.......

As Robin remarks it enables the narrator and doc to bethisclose yet it enables Doc to be talked about as if outside his own remarks and reflections......as in the part of the above paragraph where we learn of Doc's non-heroin use......

This technique helps enable us to see what is 'reliable' in that old unreliable narrator conceit...and what views the author might share with Doc, therefore be the author's "values"....................


--- On Tue, 8/25/09, John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: IVIV (1) "She came along the alley and up the back steps ..."
> To: "Robin Landseadel" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2009, 9:04 AM
> > One thing that's curious, novel,
> & a new category for Pynchon in this novel
> > is a third-person narrator attempting to do the work
> of a first person
> > narrator. Philip
> 
> Yes, except for this very first scene, where it surely
> cannot be Doc's
> point of view.
>