unreliable narrators

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Alice:

 
> Here is more: turn to pp. 22-25 of McHale's Postmodrnisr Fiction,
> wherein he explains why Oedipa's narrative is unrelaible.

[...]
 
> IV, much like CL49, features an unreliable narrative. Larry questions
> his own Projections, his own solipsisms as Oediap does in CL49.
>
> Case closed.

Case reopened: McHale's argument (and your own) rests on considering Larry 
and Oedipa to be the narrators of their own stories. McHale does indeed 
question Oedipa's reliability as a witness, and rightly so. Oedipa's 
projections certainly are unreliable, I won't argue with that, but the
narrative perspective is, as I have said, not identical with Oedipa's. Even
McHale acknowledges this, when he says that there are "a few discreet
deviations toward narratorial omniscience in early chapters" (p. 23). I 
would argue that those deviations are not as few and discreet as McHale 
says, and they can certainly also be found in later chapters. You'll
not find me arguing that there is no uncertainty in Lot 49. Uncertainty 
and ambiguity are if anything the dominant moods of the novel, as for 
instance Thomas Schaub has argued.
 
At any rate, if I were to describe the narratorial situation in Lot 49, I 
would say that the novel has a single extradiegetical narrator, whose 
perspective most of the time is located close to the main character. I 
wouldn't term this narrator omniscient, since we don't get into any other 
characters' minds than Oedipa's. But even though the narrative perspective
is close to Oedipa's, it remains distinct from her. As I have said, Oedipa
is a character, not a narrator, and the same goes for Doc. And even though
their stories are suffused with uncertainty, even though their perceptions
are unreliable, the narrator remains distinct from them: He has the ability
to enter their minds and uses this ability to tell their story, but this
doesn't make him unreliable. 
 
In short, the extradiegetical narrator provides a reliable narrative of the 
unreliability of the main characters' perceptions and projections. If the 
narrator were unreliable, we would also have to question his depiction of 
those main characters and their unreliability. We might even ask ourselves
whether Oedipa was a reliable witness, after all. But we don't ask that
question, because we implicitly believe in the narrator's depiction of her
unreliability. And we believe that because the narrator is reliable.
 
Case closed? Not necessarily, but I find it crucial to uphold the distinction
between what is told and who is telling it. A story of unreliability
can easily be told by a reliable narrator, who remains distinct from the
unreliable characters, even though his narrative is occasionally tinged by 
their perspective.
 
All best
 
Tore
  		 	   		  
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