unreliable narrators

[Mark Kohut]

John,

too tired for a fuller response and anyway I largely agree......yes, ATD is very different in its narrative/authorial voices.   

my small point is that when you look at a couple sentences in a paragraph, you will often see how something is said OF the person who, as you have been reading along, seems to be one with the events he is having. When the voice lifts kinda above Benny to describe him as Teflon takes a photo while he is doing it..........this is common now in fiction after james used and defined it. it happens in IV.

larger ways to describe the narrator(s) voice(s) in all the books are a great field but what you say in general seems okay before I reared it all..

yes, the missing day might be a way for someone to make the unreliable narrator case...but I can't. I just saw it as a slip. In Remains of the Day, we learn what happened that the butler never recorded for us; we learned what happened that the narrator was abolutely bling about.....
we do not in IV, that I can see,,,

In The good Soldier, we learn so much the whole books is recast. 

not in IV, nor in his earlier books as I can see, not like Booth's meaining, not at all. P's books are as clear as Shakespeare's plays, i,e.
very subtle, very nuanced, very difficult to fully get---which is why we keep exploring. But Shakespeare does not have trap doors all over the brilliant deep surfaces--with depth analysis---of the action. 

I disagree with you in general about Doc as protagonist.....some groaners which do NOT function as some groaners in his other works...but his voice, presence, case-solving, meanings are good albeit minor Pynchon imho. 

Here's what i cannot understand from the naysayers re reliability: did the case(s)get solved?..did Doc move them along with clear thinking often? Do things follow and lead somewhere---with some things mysterious? How do you read the 'authorial voice'---or is it NOT---of Doc at the thematic end and at key points? 

i just hosted Chapter 16---what is the meaning of the jefferson stuff IF Doc isn't getting it straight for us? 



--- On Thu, 12/10/09, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: unreliable narrators
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Thursday, December 10, 2009, 9:30 PM
> I draw a distinction between P's
> novels which do relentlessly track a
> leading character - Oedipa, Doc - or two - Benny &
> Stencil, Mason &
> Dixon - and the kaleidescopic narratives of GR, VL and AtD.
> I agree
> that perhaps the authorial voice in these does align itself
> with
> particular characters at many points, but I reckon that
> overstates
> things. In fact, in M&D and AtD the authorial voice is
> more of an
> hilarious 'character' than the ostensible subjects it
> narrates. In M&D
> this voice might be attributable to Rev. Cherrycoke but it
> wanders off
> a fair bit. I still maintain that AtD's 'voice' is very
> much concerned
> with genres, their imitation and their about-with-messing.
> 
> Re-reading AtD at the moment, I was struck by what must be
> P's only
> deployment of the first person in fiction - the Chums of
> Chance author
> suddenly mentions letters he's (?) received from regular
> readers. Of
> course this is a completely fictional voice in itself.
> 
> Not sure of my point now. In any case, the narrative voice
> of IV is
> one of the strangest things about the novel. It's the
> least
> lyrical/poetic/complex/whatever voice he's used. For
> someone with such
> an incredible control over his 'narrators' it seems like a
> first
> draft, or that he decided not to care too much in this
> instance. Or
> something. But perhaps the hidden unreliability of the
> narrator is
> only there for the really deep reader to draw out.
> 
> I like the Remains of the Day mention there Mark. Haven't
> read it but
> we've raised this similar chronology problem with IV and it
> doesn't
> add up, right?
> 
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 1:06 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > I use it in the same way, yet many varieties of
> 'unreliablity' exist.
> >
> > First, most of p's novels have an authorial narrator
> who is merged with a leading character. This voice sees
> straight and seldom reports events differently than we have
> experienced them throguh the narrator.
> >
> > And, i cannot believe we are---i am---talking about
> ALL PYNCHON'S NARRATORS in one post....Such analysis,
> criticism is particiular or it
> > is balloon gas.....
> >
> > So, again, Doc gets it right over and over. Which is
> why when his voice merges with the larger one---the end---we
> believe it straight. [fog, what's been lost, etc.]
> >
> > --- On Thu, 12/10/09, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: unreliable narrators
> >> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> >> Date: Thursday, December 10, 2009, 8:27 PM
> >> As I noted in previous posts, when I
> >> use the term, I use it as it was
> >> first used and defined by Booth.
> >>
> >> In fiction (as implemented in literature, film,
> theatre,
> >> etc.) an
> >> unreliable narrator (a term coined by Wayne C.
> Booth in his
> >> 1961 book
> >> The Rhetoric of Fiction  is a narrator whose
> >> credibility has been
> >> seriously compromised. The use of this type of
> narrator is
> >> called
> >> unreliable narration and is a narrative mode that
> can be
> >> developed by
> >> the author for a number of reasons, though usually
> to make
> >> a negative
> >> statement about the narrator. This unreliability
> can be due
> >> to
> >> psychological instability, a powerful bias, a lack
> of
> >> knowledge, or
> >> even a deliberate attempt to deceive the reader
> or
> >> audience.
> >> Unreliable narrators are usually first-person
> narrators,
> >> but
> >> third-person narrators can also be unreliable.
> >>
> >>
> >> All of Pynchon's novels have unreliable
> narrators.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>