unreliable narrators

[Mark Kohut]

Is Lew Basnight 'unreliable' in AtD?  That is one analogy to Doc for me.

I do not see how Lew B. is in anay way. 

--- 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.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>