What is a reliable narrator?

[Joseph Tracy]

 I would say the difference is that Pynchon’s unreliability as a narrator, which is the unreliability of anyone trying to in some sense play the role of omniscience, is not hidden but open. He feels free to insert opinions and speculations into the narrative flow. It seems to me he thinks this an honest way to do fiction, to make the reader aware of the voice of the writer.  
  
> On Apr 7, 2016, at 2:58 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The narrator has biases, opinions, judgements, but they are not rigid, and they include speculations.  So in that regard, if the narrator is not openly omniscient, he is holding back, leading us down paths of reason and perception for his own purposes.  In THAT regard he might be considered unreliable.  He is spinning a yarn, creating art.
In that sense I see all narrators as unreliable.  But what did the concept mean when it was introduced? To me it has always implied that the narrator, who is usually a major character is being  deceptive, dishonest, lying  to whoever is hearing/reading her/his story.  

But traditional fiction where anything that was narrated on one page might be changed on another would have no attraction. A lying character can do this, but anyone who tried that strategy as  narrative storyteller would find themselves without an audience.

> David Morris 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 1:29 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, I think you could call the narrator of GR omniscient, perhaps so with a vengeance because sometimes he seems a bit more than omniscient, playful in His hyper-omniscience, as one keen reader called it (spoiler!) regarding the pinball game on p.583-5. (There is more to it, of course.)
> 
> http://www.thekevinsun.com/2012/08/extracts-from-thomas-pynchons-gravitys.html
> 
> 2016-04-07 15:43 GMT+02:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
> 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
> >>>
> 
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> 
> 
> 

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