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

[David Morris]

Cherrycoke is a performer, singing for his supper. Or if as
in Scheherazade's case, life itself.  Every story he tells is a fabrication
made for an audience.  The price of admission varies.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade

David Morris

On Thursday, February 5, 2015, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:

> Absolutely,  David.   The term “reliable” is problem enough in serious
> fiction,  so I sure don’t understand trying to apply it to historiographic
> metafiction of a very humorous variety.
>
> About the history - this is fiction!  If I don’t know a thing to be
> generally accepted as history - that is, documented, verified, etc. then I
> expect it’s fiction.   I look a LOT of stuff up when I read historical
> fiction - if it turns out to be generally true then kudos to the author and
> his research.  If it turns out not to be true but works in terms of the
> novel then I applaud the author’s imagination.  And I also ask why he wrote
> it that way.  This is not a rhetorical question,  I’m  serious in wanting
> to find out.  In Pynchon’s case I think Cherrycoke is obviously a
> fictitious character - why is he presented as unreliable?  I’d say it’s
> because Pynchon is showing that history, as we receive it, is not
> particularly reliable. The outline may be generally accurate in terms of
> reporting events but everything else is suspect to interpretation,
> revisionism, over-interpretation,  etc.
>
> In what way is Cherrycoke unreliable?  Is he insane (like Benji of The
> Sound and the Fury)? Is he being deliberately deceitful (like the Briony in
> Ian McEwan’s Atonement)?  Is he a child (like the kid in Emma Donahue’s
> Room)?  Many others who range between the drunks, the aged, the insane and
> the criminal - between naive and deliberate.
>
> With Cherrycoke it’s hard telling - he’s a jokester at heart and he loves
> the attention of the audience - he exaggerates,  tells tall tales, just
> goes with the flow of a good story.  lol -
>
> Becky
>
>
> > On Feb 5, 2015, at 8:49 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> 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
> <javascript:;>> 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
> <javascript:;>> 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
> >
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20150205/24acb13a/attachment.html>