M&D Deep Duck 7-9: Why doesn't Mason sleep with Austra?

[Joseph Tracy]

I guess I don't get who is trying to bash a characters or narrator's reliability. 
On Feb 5, 2015, at 11:49 AM, David Morris wrote:

> I think the task of trying to establish or bash a character's or narrator's reliability in this novel, MD, is an utterly futile task.  It will only result in discounting everything that the author has written.
> 
> David Morris
> 
> On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 10:46 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> Isn't there an implied difference between Cherrycoke's  youthful post revolutionary audience who might not question how he knows this shit and the more canny post-modern readers.  Which of these audiences might get the real import is up for grabs. But the fact that the narrative portrays historical figures gives Pynchon's assertion of fictional freedom negotiated through Cherrycoke less encumbrance.   Pynchon cares about history deeply and though he uses it for satire he seems also  to want to catch us by surprise with historical realities often glossed over or found only in the fine print. These devices tell us he is conscious of narrative issues but allows us to enjoy the ride.
>  The " think of it like a movie" take seems good advice.
> 
> 9 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> 
> > Agree with Morris, Becky, terrif guidepost. Thanks.
> >
> > Becky writes: "I think  Cherrycoke is *understood* (by the reader)  to
> > be telling the story to his audience but that's in the background of
> > the omniscient narrator parts and he's using his own words back there
> > with the kids,  not the words we're reading in the less personal (I,
> > us, we)  sections of the narrative.  Cherrycoke introduces a vision or
> > something - a flashback,  but the omniscient narrator is there at the
> > scene."
> >
> > I would say that this paragraph of yours is how I think I have been
> > reading it. Once Cherrycoke became the frame narrator, I presumed he
> > SOMEHOW told the whole story, Pynchon-cagy-like IN some scenes,
> > witnessing some scenes he could not have---told to him, if we want to
> > pin down how; and for some of the stories that Mason might never tell
> > the Reverend, I believe he would, ultimately, after their long
> > intimacy, have told Dixon who would recount. That Cherrycoke SOMEHOW
> > (part of Pynchon"s magic realism?, so to speak, along with Talking
> > Dogs, etc.)) tells the whole story is needed, it seems to me, to
> > explain how the Rev's audience would even get a 'whole story'. See p.
> > 75, where the Rev comes back to say, "Even by then", etc...implying,
> > yes, that he has told his audience of the preceding 'objective'
> > omnisciently seen Astronomy stuff at least. And the preceding risqué
> > stuff, per Jochen's challenge? Seems so to me.
> >
> > Here is more words on omniscient fictional narration than most want to
> > read: "Certain third-person omniscient modes are also classifiable as
> > "third person, subjective" modes that switch between the thoughts,
> > feelings, etc. of all the characters.This style, in both its limited
> > and omniscient variants, became the most popular narrative perspective
> > during the 20th century. In contrast to the broad, sweeping
> > perspectives seen in many 19th-century novels, third-person subjective
> > is sometimes called the "over the shoulder" perspective;
> >
> > "The third-person omniscient narrator is the least capable of being
> > unreliable--although the omniscient narrator can have its own
> > personality, offering judgments and opinions on the behavior of the
> > characters.
> > In addition to reinforcing the sense of the narrator as reliable (and
> > thus of the story as true), the main advantage of this mode is that it
> > is eminently suited to telling huge, sweeping, epic stories, and/or
> > complicated stories involving numerous characters."
> >
> > But, I do think Jochen is right on my lazy remark that because
> > Cherrycoke is an unreliable narrator, Austra's story is therefore
> > unreliable. No therefore at all. Jochen, and you and Laura and others
> > have to be right about some distinction between Cherrycoke's
> > self-confessed unreliability and Pynchon's historical reality. He has
> > to, as Jochen repeats---but I'd love him to make the case with
> > examples---be writing a real historical novel (of some kind) or else
> > there is no ground to his vision, no history there (allusion to: "no
> > there there").
> >
> > I think that his vision IS contained in the writing that is that
> > third-person omniscient narrator but often Not in the events but in
> > the prose, the subtexts, the intellectual notions embodied in reasons
> > behind the scenes, the words of those scenes, etc.(and his framings
> > and unreliabilities hold that vision too. Like an Ampersand)
> >
> > With talking dogs, mechanical ducks, other things, we cannot be in a
> > usual historical novel, right?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 10:52 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> "Think of it like a movie."
> >>
> >> Better Pynchon advice could not be had!
> >>
> >> DM
> > -
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> 
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