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

[Mark Kohut]

I am going to agree with this generally, but I do think there is
reliability in this novel and SOME deep insights into History,
American history, into Reality
and we can unearth more of them.

Look: it can be a THEME that History, in a big H 'theoretical way" is
a created metanarrative now, but the fact of slavery was not and is
not in this novel.
What perspectives does P bring to THAT/



On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 1:28 PM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
> I hear you.  But we could also look at it this way:  Using '...the task of
> trying to establish or bash a character's or narrator's reliability in this
> novel, MD...' as a starting point, and traversing the frustrations that are
> bound to result from it, so finally coming to the realization of its
> futility - that there's no such Thing as Historical Reality, and no Reliable
> Narrator, only lenses and more lenses and mirrors and arbitrary lines...,
> isn't so futile.
>
> On Feb 5, 2015, at 8:49 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
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
>
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