unreliable narrators

[alice wellintown]

First, I do not read Oedipa or Larry/Doc as simply characters or
protagonists.  They function as unreliable narrators. We can not, as
Mark as argued, read them straight or attribute the author's norms to
them.


Second, while the narrative in CL49 and IV are similar, and while the
narrative perspective in both texts remains close to the protagonist's
perspective throughout, there are significant differences in the CL49
narrative and the IV narrative: "parody" or better the "stylization"
presents a favorable or sympathetic view of Larry but an unfavorable
and an unsympathetic view of Doc. This is not the case in CL49, where
Oedipa's development or progress, while trapped in a cul-de-sac of
Being & Knowing,  does move toward the author's norms. Doc, on the
other hand, moves away from the author's norms.

Third, the "distance" (Booth) and free indirect style (Woods)
"intensifies" the "illusion", and "bewilderment" of the reflector
narrative agent (James, Booth), that is, a greater authorial distance
in IV frees the narrative from Larry/Doc's reflector and, among other
things, opens the work to the epistemological and ontological elements
found in P's novels after CL49.