unreliable narrators

[Tore Rye Andersen]

alice:
 
> 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."

While I absolutely agree with those points, I can't really see how they
make the narrator unreliable. Your sensible definition of an unreliable 
narrator as "a narrator whose credibility has been seriously compromised"
certainly holds true w/r/t Cherrycoke, and it holds true w/r/t Stencil.
But how can GR's narrator's struggle to interpret events of the novel
be construed as unreliablity? I don't think the narrator's "credibility
has been seriously compromised." The narrator of GR does indeed talk, 
discuss, argue with characters and struggle to interpret events, and he
does provide choices to the reader. As I said, reality itself is unreliable
in GR, but the narrator's depiction of this unreliablity and his struggle 
to come to terms with this unreliablity doesn't make him unreliable, does 
it? A chaotic text does not necessarily an unreliable narrator make.
 
> For a reader of Pynchon to deny that an unreliable narration is an
> essential part of his works is just silly nonsense.
 
You have still to account properly for just how GR's narrator is unreliable
(I don't accept the unstable-reality-equals-unreliable-narrator-argument), 
and you haven't made it clear just how Lot 49's narrator is unreliable. 
Until you do so, I guess I'll persist in my silly nonsense. 		 	   		  
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