unreliable narrators

[Joseph Tracy]

On Dec 11, 2009, at 8:39 PM, alice wellintown wrote:


> No, not all narrators are unreliable.
  I am not arguing against the usefulness of the term, only that it  
can't be easily applied and retain that usefulness.
That is because most sophisticated contemporary thinkers accept that   
narratives are all unreliable to some degree. No one knows enough or  
is untainted enough or has access to a language subtle enough to  
shape a reliable narrative. Human communication deals in  
approximations, ratios, metaphors, symbols and generalities, that and  
a fair amount of bullshit. Pynchon exposes and keeps his readers  
aware of the inherent bias of any narrative by giving voice to  
multiple perspectives.
You did not really try to understand what I wrote, I have no absolute  
position on this. I'm pondering it. Your whole argument amounts to"  
you're wrong; I'm right". This is boring.

> All of P's novels, however,
> feature unreliable narration. I have provided clear and explicit
> examples and academic readings of the what "Unreliable narration"
> means. I have provided several seconday sources, from the most
> respected critics of Pynchon, to support my claim. I have provided
> evidence from the texts.
>
No you have not.

>
>
> Here is more: turn to pp. 22-25 of McHale's Postmodrnisr Fiction,
>
Don't have it sitting on my shelf and wont' be rushing out to find a  
copy  just so I  can understand what you are saying. If you can't  
explain it don't tell me about someone else who can.

> wherein he explains why Oedipa's narrative is unrelaible.
>
> So, V., CL49, M&D, VL, all feature unreliable narrative, as defined  
> by Booth.
> I tabled GR, but others are freee to argue.
>
> IV, much like CL49, features an unreliable narrative. Larry questions
> his own Projections, his own solipsisms as Oediap does in CL49.
>
> Case closed.
>
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>  
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Dec 11, 2009, at 5:24 AM, alice wellintown wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Cherrycoke narrates sections of M&D.
>>> He is one of the narrators.
>>> He is unreliable.
>>> Why is this so difficult to understand?
>>> We know that Cherrycoke's narrative is suspect from the start, his
>>> motives for telling his tales, his painting himself into historical
>>> events he could not have been present for, his painting himself in a
>>> favorable light, his arguments about fictions and histories and how
>>> they should be handled. His didactic and even subversive motives;  
>>> his
>>> audience and their role, the competing narratives and other  
>>> lements of
>>> the works that contradict or at least cast serious doubt on his
>>> reliability. On and on...unreliable.
>>>
>>
>>  Of course there is no God's eye view of anything, or at least  
>> none that we
>> mortals have access to. This makes all narratives unreliable as  
>> regards some
>> theoretical absolute truth about what happens.
>> Perhaps that is the central appeal of fiction . It being the one  
>> place where
>> there is a true story within the bounds of its world, because its
>> "creator/god/author" is a person like the reader who lives in a  
>> narrative of
>> his/her own making.
>> If Pynchon is deliberately undermining the convention that a 3rd  
>> person
>> narrator doesn't "lie" about events in the story being told, and  
>> therefore
>> breaking down the barriers between the real and unreal and  
>> between  history,
>>  realistic fiction and myth and provoking us to question all  
>> frames, all
>> narratives, then this unreliability has consequences that  
>> ultimately make
>> all traditional methods of literary analysis exercises in self  
>> delusion.
>> This would seem to undermine the very idea of a more relatively  
>> accurate
>> reading. And that is an idea which you seem to favor and contend  
>> for along
>> with many others. The problem being that any interpretation of any  
>> event
>> becomes impossible if both the event and all events surrounding it  
>> may not
>> even be true events within the story.
>>
>> For me, Cherrycoke is the most reliable kind of narrator because I  
>> know he
>> is not "God" and that he is telling a version of the story he  
>> likes , and
>> that "truth" and "meaning" is something that is up to me.
>>
>> This is nice in that I am not accountable to literary high priests as
>> interpreters, and discomfiting (but not so bad) for me because my  
>> reading is
>> also just another unreliable narrative.
>>
>> Anyway this whole exercise is pretty interesting and unsettling  
>> and opens
>> new doors.
>>
>> So far I am unable to find a clear evidence of unreliability in the
>> narrative voice of IV. Pynchon even goes to pains to do a kind of  
>> Biblical
>> thing (One witness shall not rise up against a man for any  
>> iniquity , or for
>> any sin, in any sin that he sinneth : at the mouth of two  
>> witnesses , or at
>> the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. Deu  
>> 19:15)of
>> letting every key fact or piece of evidence have several  firsthand
>> witnesses. Example:  Police records, Bigfoot, Fritz all point to A  
>> Prussia's
>> nefarious activities. This is a consistent pattern.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 5:11 AM, Carvill, John  
>>> <john.carvill at sap.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Cherrycoke is another unreliable narrator.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Oh, ok then!
>>>>
>>>> Isn't it even harder than usual to deal with a term like  
>>>> 'unreliable
>>>> narrator', when who or what is the 'narrator' is in itself  
>>>> pretty hard to
>>>> pin down? Who, for instance, is the narrator of Conrad's 'Heart of
>>>> Darkness'? With Pynchon - as pointed out by John Bailey - it's  
>>>> often very
>>>> hard to say, and there is often a 'kaleidoscopic' narrator. In  
>>>> IV, there's
>>>> what appears to be (or what cal be taken as) a little  
>>>> narratorial blip right
>>>> at the start, as we watch Shasta come up the steps, as if from  
>>>> an omniscient
>>>> point of view, before snapping into a sort of 'Doc's point of  
>>>> view' for much
>>>> of the remainder of the book. However we dice the general term  
>>>> 'unreliable
>>>> narrator', I don't think it fits Doc, not just because he is not  
>>>> literally
>>>> the narrator. The idea that his dope smoking might make him  
>>>> unreliable is an
>>>> interesting one, but ultimately I don't think that really fits  
>>>> either - even
>>>> leaving aside the question of how stoned he is most of the time.
>>>>
>>>>