What is a reliable narrator?

[Mark Kohut]

One of the early reader-critics has written something like "Gravity's
Rainbow
has an omniscient narrator...who seems to have many personae."....

And, yes to confusion, and another remark bubbles up,--sorry for no
footnotes all---
an early reviewer or essayist about Pynchon wrote something like the book is
confusing to read because everything in it is supposed to show
confusion---[that is
a named literary fallacy when it is not organized for effects under the
mind of a Pynchon,
mostly without any confusion about the confusion, even if he trips on a
pebble or three] ...
....esp as we count Slothrop the 'main' character.

And then spying, ontological and epistemological confusion up the wazoo.

On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 9:02 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> As readers we are aleady moving from one frame of reference to another
> with alarming regularity. Slothrop’s take on things is one the reader is
> much more inclined to see as reliable than Poinstman or Pirate Prentice
> because he is so honestly unsure of every frame of reference that has been
> offered to him. He too, like the reader is shifting through ways of
> understanding his life, his time, who and what can be trusted.
>
>  The doubts cast on what we actually have of his own accounts are not
> direct textual contradictions of action but differences among spies about
> what can be discovered about Slothrop and his map by spying. The
> contradictions mentioned by the spies are based on presumptions about the
> map and its meaning, and dependent on after-the-fact research. The
> contradictions are generalizations put forth by people with a limited
> access to the evidence, and by people with   furtive and tainted patterns
> of behavior.  We as reader’s cannot be sure how important or real these
> contradictions are or if they are contradictions with Slothrop’s version of
> the meaning of the map, which I don’t think we actually have, or just
> contradictions in the spies’ own theories.
> > On Apr 6, 2016, at 8:40 PM, Gary Webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Lets just say Slothrop is the fulcrum of the narrative... As readers we
> are put into the Slothropian frame of reference... I would argue making
> factual claims, or constructing chronology or sequence,  inside Slothropian
> frame of reference is potentially unreliable... Hahhaha ya dig ??
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > On Apr 6, 2016, at 7:21 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Would you like to describe the meaning/difference? GR has a narrator
> (maybe numerous ones), but Slothrup isn't one of them.
> >>
> >> David Morris
> >>
> >> On Wednesday, April 6, 2016, Gary Webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Maybe Narrator isn't the right word, how about interlocutor...?
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPhone
> >>
> >> On Apr 6, 2016, at 6:32 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The current thread has provided no examples of Slothrup narrating, as
> far as I can tell.  Can you provide some text as example?
> >>>
> >>> David Morris
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 5:28 PM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>> see current thread under this subject where examples are provided and
> >>> the question of reliability is discussed.
> >>>
> >>> BtZ42, 21: Slothrop backstory in UK
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 4:45 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>> > Please show an example of Slothrup narrating.  Then we can discuss
> the
> >>> > reliablility of said narration.  Otherwise, this is a worthless
> question.
> >>> >
> >>> > David Morris
> >>> >
> >>> > On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 3:36 PM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Anyone care to explain?
> >>> >> What do posters mean when thy say Slothrop is a reliable narrator?
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Hard to find anything we can rely on in this book, so if have a
> >>> >> reliable narrator in Slothrop, if, we have something to hang our
> hats
> >>> >> on. Right?
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Papa wasa rolling stone.....
> >>> >> -
> >>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> -
> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >>>
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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