IVIV20: They both knew, 356-359

[Joseph Tracy]

I don't buy either idea as enlightening or strongly defensible from  
the text. Something I have noted and neither of you has addressed is  
the multiple witnesses of all key events in the story line. One can  
question whether  Tom Jefferson really talked through the wooden  
nickel but not whether there is a Boat in the story whose name has  
been both the Preserved and the Golden Fang. Otherwise you may as  
well imagine your own story. The world is full of  many people who  
smoked a lot of reefer and they still know what actually happened in  
their lives. They don't see boats where there are no boats or  
buildings where there are no buildings.
And as long as I am feeling ornery  I am also more and more convinced  
that the pimp who couldn't control his hookers is a nasty and  
accurate little cartoon of Obama.

On Jan 24, 2010, at 8:29 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> We should consider the possibility. As this advice should be applied
> to a great deal of what Larry/Doc constructs, as well as what is
> constructed by other competing narratives in IV, we can say with
> confidence that most if not all of the narrative is compromised or
> encumbered by a narrative perspective that is either unreliable
> because it is tripping or otherwise intoxicated with drugs, although
> these narrative trips paradoxically afford insights not available to
> what would seem a more reliable (sober) perspective, or is undermined
> or at least rendered only a possibility by competing narratives and
> the consistent use of subjunctive ambiguities.
>
>> I think we should consider that the Preserved doesn't exist  
>> outside of Doc's
>> construction of it (ie "during the acid trip ..." etc, 356). Yes,  
>> there is
>> the archeological account, courtesy of Sauncho, that speaks of  
>> beginnings
>> and emergence on 90-93; but what we have subsequently is Doc  
>> insisting that
>> he sees the Preserved, denying the makeover (reversing the process  
>> with
>> Lew/Kareem). It is a going back. On 340: "... it's real name".
>>
>> The dream on 340-341 ends thus: "Doc wanted to believe that Coy,  
>> Hope and
>> Amethyst were somehow on board ..." etc. And then Doc and Sauncho  
>> "bicker
>> about it" (341). Sauncho the lawyer has a thing about facts.