unreliable narrators

[Joseph Tracy]

On Dec 12, 2009, at 11:54 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> Who narrates Coy's history in this chapter?
Certainly not Doc. which is what you have been saying.
> THE relaible narrator?
What part contradicts the rest of the narrative?
> That excahnge at the bottom of pg. 302 seems pretty importnat to me.
> Like outside their own head, dude. Seem P is telling us something
> about these so-called reliable narratives here,
Which so called reliable narratives?
> including the one that
> appears to be a relaible narrative with privledge. It holds like piece
> of the real cross wedged into the hole in the hold. That's as close as
> we get to holding in a P novel.
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>  
> wrote:
>>
>> On Dec 12, 2009, at 10:37 AM, alice wellintown wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> Right. The place where we disagree, as noted in a prior post, is  
>>> that
>>> I call Oedipa and Larry/Doc narrators.
>>
>> This just doesn't hold up.  I n this chapter for example the narrator
>> follows Denis then Shasta and sees and observes things that Doc  
>> doesn't:
>> "For Shasta this was often the best part of the day, busy with early
>> deliveries, ...-still cool, smelling like the desert after rain,  
>> garden
>> exotics, shadows everywhere to shelter in for  a bit before the  
>> day's empty
>> sky asserted itself." p. 310
>>>
>>> They are not merely characters
>>> that a traditional reliable narrator has "privledge" to (Booth).  
>>> When
>>> a narrative, like Larry/Doc's so "tinges" the narrative proper,  
>>> we can
>>> not continue to discuss this as a tinge or even as privledge.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>
>>