BE Spoiler (if that's possible now)

[John Bailey]

The tonal shifts in BE are quite subtle and sometimes beautiful. The
shift across the last quarter of the book especially.

But yeah, like Morris and Kohut those pages are immediately striking.
The closest reference point is surely Pynchon non-fiction essays? Inc
Slow Learner intro?

The last however many decades of P's career have suggested a huge
interest in genres and the different narrative voices available (or
subvertable) therein, and I think it would be dunderheaded to think
the author has necessarily gone all naive on us. The Ground Zero bit
reads like a rant he just had to get out, even though it suddenly
seems to leap blocks away from the Maxine's close third person - she
wouldn't go on that tirade and neither would the meandering but
generally loyal narrator (although maybe I'm wrong...)

BUT perhaps it's entirely appropriate (and deliberate) that this
abrupt and STRIKING shift in voice occurs when it does. The novel's
form reflecting the atrocity itself, subjecting the reader to a kind
of authorial violence (we are suddenly told what to think of all this)
after so many pages of frivolity and zaniness and only whispered hints
of the worrisome.

On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 5:07 AM, Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com> wrote:
> Published essays on Mondaugan, the revisions and so on, should be part
> of this discussion. What about young P's description of Sarah....?
>
> On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 9:20 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Even if you point out other places, Robin, I want to second Morris's perceptions about the beginning of that chapter....I felt the tone shift---I tried to think of that tone elsewhere in his fiction as well and could not easily ( I would not have had the gumption to declare it unique as Morris
>> Did cause I knew some would dispute).....
>>
>> But that tone on that subject does strike one stron fly here, yes?   Naked, no ironies. Death.
>> Besides what I have just written about it, it reminded me of what TRP has not taken on straight---
>> Like the War which almost ended these United States......
>>
>> He took on 9/11 as a massive death as it was felt by New Yorkers, in his observations.
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On Nov 14, 2013, at 7:33 PM, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>> There's a lot of passages in the novel where the narrator's voice becomes very direct and rather pointed as regards his objects of attention and his opinions as regards such.
>>>
>>> On Nov 14, 2013, at 4:18 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>>>
>>>> Remember when it was being said after 9/11 that "irony was dead"....well, for most of BE Pynchon is showing
>>>> how it is never dead, isn't he?........here???
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thursday, November 14, 2013 6:44 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I admit to not yet having finished BE, but I'm getting closer by bits every day.  So when today I got to Chapter 30...
>>>>
>>>> SPOILER ALERT!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ... I was kind of shocked by the sharp change of tone.  The first three paragraphs read like Pynchon directly himself without character mediation observing the post 9-11 history dynamic as a New Yorker, and the larger realm.  Honest and straightforward without sarcasm or judgement, except for the reference to the Newspaper of Record.  These three paragraph are unique in Pynchon's fiction, as far as I can see.
>>>>
>>>> David Morris
>>>
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