unreliable narrators

[alice wellintown]

> To speak of GR's narrator in terms of reliability and unreliablity
> seems pretty much besides the point. The whole universe of GR is
> so complex, unstable and heterogenous, and the narrator moves in and
> out of so many heads that it makes little sense to ask whether this
> narrator is unreliable w/r/t any real "reality" behind the surface
> of the text. Reality itself is unreliable in GR.,

It's not besides the point. It's a very important element of the work
as your paragraph above admits. The narrator in GR becomes
increasingly self conscious, proceeding from rhetorical questions to
statements that presume reader participation.

see Siegel, Mark Richard. "Creative Paranoia: Understanding the System
of GR." Critique 18, No.3 (1977).

"The narrator does not seem to be much more certain of the nature of
reality than are the characters of the novel, except that he is certain that
it is not as simple as some of them maintain."

Fowler

 "Pynchon splices passages together because they illustrate a sequence
of ideas, not because their textures ar compatible, and he frequently
ignores his characters in talking directly to his reader."


The narrator talks, discusses, even argues with characters, struggles
to interpret the events of the novel, questions the reader, provides
choices to the reader--"Is the baby smiling, or is it just gas?" --and
dismisses the readers as he shifts in tone and style and position.
"You want cause and effect. All right."

see Slade "Escaping Rationalization"

and Schaub "Pynchon."

This type of relationship between narrator and characters and narrator
and story and narrator and reader is an essential part of the modern
and postmodern narrative.

see "How does one begin to map a field as vast, as various as modern
fiction?" David Lodge 'After Bakhtin, Essays on Fiction and Criticism'


see any encylopedia of moden fiction or of American fiction.

For a reader of Pynchon to deny that an unreliab;e narration is an
essential part of his works is just silly nonsense.