narration

[alice wellintown]

What Pynchon does here and what you describe is not effaced narration.
At least not as Henry James used it or as Henry James defined it. It
is not effaced narration as James Wood defines it or as Wayne Booth
does.

So, I don't know what is meant by corresponds to what Mark has been
arguing since all Mark has argued is that Pynchon doesn't use
unreliable narrative. Mrk's claim has been soundly defeated by the
examples I've provided from both V. and M&D and from the critical
sources I've quoted and cited here. I look at the Bierce again, but I
reamin dubious.







On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Rob Jackson <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
>>> Who narrates Coy's history in this chapter?
>>
>> Certainly not Doc. which is what you have been saying.
>
> It's third person detached narration which is filtered through Coy's pov
> (pp. 299-302). The transition comes at the bottom of p. 299. Doc and Coy
> drive into a tunnel under the airport where they 'lost the music for a
> minute', Doc asks about the Boards, and then Coy begins to launch into his
> story, which then morphs into a flashback which gives details of Coy's
> history, jumping back occasionally to the current time conversation between
> Coy and Doc. It's a narrative technique much used in film but this mode of
> flashback narration in literary prose goes back at least to Ambrose Bierce
> (see 'A Horseman in the Sky'). As Mark has been pointing out, it corresponds
> directly to Henry James' notion of 'effaced narration'. The same technique
> is used in Lot49, where the narrator has insight into Mucho's perspective
> ('But at least he had the cars ...', pp. 8-9), Roseman's ('But Roseman had
> also spent a sleepless night ...', p. 11), and later those of Hilarius and
> Arrabal as well to fill in the details of their back stories. In this way
> the omniscient narrative vantage can shift back and forth between different
> characters' povs.
> The dialogue between Coy and Doc is reported accurately by the narrative
> agency.
> The events in Coy's past history are reported accurately. Coy's perspectives
> on those events are also reported accurately.
> In V., there are deviations from this standard technique where the notion of
> an 'unreliable narrator' might be applicable. Stencil's narration is first
> person (though Stencil uses the third person to refer to himself), as are
> Fausto's confessions.
> saludos