Really enjoying your analysis (M&D is my second-favorite Pynchon novel, tied with ATD). Can we hear more about Rev. Cherrycoke as an unreliable narrator, please, and how that impacts our understanding of M&D? I've always struggled to make sense of that character and his role in the telling of the story.
There are two things going on in regard to him (I'll continue elaborating on this in the coming posts as well whenever we are with him):
1. Since Cherrycoke is a class conscious individual aware of how the Elite and the Lords are controlling the society and exploiting the New Worlds for their resources and the Natives for their slave labor and the citizens in general for their wealth, he wants to harp on these ideas to the LeSpark children as he tells the story. However, since J. Wade is a precursor to the Military Industrial Complex, he would not allow such ideas in his house. Because of this Cherrycoke has to skirt around those ideas while attempting the best as he can to still touch on them, though more subtly. So in this instance, he's unreliable because he is forced to be.
2. The other instance is a historiographic perspective. He is telling a story that he only occasionally was a part of. So his story is either told through memory (which is obviously most often faulty), through the stories of others, through fabrication, etc. Because of this, he is writing history how history is often written, unreliably. The twist is, it doesn't really matter. The overall outcomes are the same and the minutiae that makes up reality versus history can be altered to enhance or show the themes and ideas at play which lead to major events. For example, obviously the talking dog did not occur (and in this chapter, some of the fact of the l'Grande's attack were altered from actual historical textbooks) but the points remain. So while these are unreliable due to the above mentioned reasons, unreliability does not necessitate disbelief or unimportance. It is simply the reality of how we write, read, and learn history.
All that to say, he is unreliable because 1) he is forced to be so he isn't exiled once again, but still attempts to truly educate future generations, and 2) because all history and storytelling is truly unreliable.
There's also a little more to it especially once we get into narrators or books who aren't Cherrycoke, but I'll leave it at that for now!
Also to add to that, those two points could be tied together in that historical/spiritual elaborations on the reality of the story could be made to symbolically get at what Cherrycoke wants to teach the children whereas straight up exposition or explanation would not be allowed.
Thanks so much for this. Makes sense, too, although I must confess I'm a little disappointed in the Learned English Dog. I'm rather fond of that character.
I’ve always read Cherrycoke as somewhat of a stand in for Pynchon himself. Him having to keep the children(the reader) entertained so he has a place to sleep at night.
Yeah he's definitely a stand in for sure. Kinda tracks with the other points I made as well in that 1) the stuff he writes uses pretty obscure allusions, symbols, writing styles, and tangents in order to get the point across both so he doesn't get thrown out of the house and so his work isn't seen on the surface as as revolutionary as it is. And 2), he's telling us America's literal history but peppered with all of those historiographic falsities that show us what made America more than literal historical fact could ever do.
Thank you! It's only a parallel I noticed on this particular read of the novel (fourth one by now). Pynchon loves to put many minor parallels to major events (the dodoes in GR compared to mass genocide, or the cockfights here in comparison to Elite profit rings). His anecdotes are always so good.
Really enjoying your analysis (M&D is my second-favorite Pynchon novel, tied with ATD). Can we hear more about Rev. Cherrycoke as an unreliable narrator, please, and how that impacts our understanding of M&D? I've always struggled to make sense of that character and his role in the telling of the story.
There are two things going on in regard to him (I'll continue elaborating on this in the coming posts as well whenever we are with him):
1. Since Cherrycoke is a class conscious individual aware of how the Elite and the Lords are controlling the society and exploiting the New Worlds for their resources and the Natives for their slave labor and the citizens in general for their wealth, he wants to harp on these ideas to the LeSpark children as he tells the story. However, since J. Wade is a precursor to the Military Industrial Complex, he would not allow such ideas in his house. Because of this Cherrycoke has to skirt around those ideas while attempting the best as he can to still touch on them, though more subtly. So in this instance, he's unreliable because he is forced to be.
2. The other instance is a historiographic perspective. He is telling a story that he only occasionally was a part of. So his story is either told through memory (which is obviously most often faulty), through the stories of others, through fabrication, etc. Because of this, he is writing history how history is often written, unreliably. The twist is, it doesn't really matter. The overall outcomes are the same and the minutiae that makes up reality versus history can be altered to enhance or show the themes and ideas at play which lead to major events. For example, obviously the talking dog did not occur (and in this chapter, some of the fact of the l'Grande's attack were altered from actual historical textbooks) but the points remain. So while these are unreliable due to the above mentioned reasons, unreliability does not necessitate disbelief or unimportance. It is simply the reality of how we write, read, and learn history.
All that to say, he is unreliable because 1) he is forced to be so he isn't exiled once again, but still attempts to truly educate future generations, and 2) because all history and storytelling is truly unreliable.
There's also a little more to it especially once we get into narrators or books who aren't Cherrycoke, but I'll leave it at that for now!
Also to add to that, those two points could be tied together in that historical/spiritual elaborations on the reality of the story could be made to symbolically get at what Cherrycoke wants to teach the children whereas straight up exposition or explanation would not be allowed.
Thanks so much for this. Makes sense, too, although I must confess I'm a little disappointed in the Learned English Dog. I'm rather fond of that character.
Truly a great character. Who is to say that he wasn't an elaboration though!
I’ve always read Cherrycoke as somewhat of a stand in for Pynchon himself. Him having to keep the children(the reader) entertained so he has a place to sleep at night.
Yeah he's definitely a stand in for sure. Kinda tracks with the other points I made as well in that 1) the stuff he writes uses pretty obscure allusions, symbols, writing styles, and tangents in order to get the point across both so he doesn't get thrown out of the house and so his work isn't seen on the surface as as revolutionary as it is. And 2), he's telling us America's literal history but peppered with all of those historiographic falsities that show us what made America more than literal historical fact could ever do.
Nice call on the ship battle paralleling the cockfights...hadn't thought of that. Brutal.
Thank you! It's only a parallel I noticed on this particular read of the novel (fourth one by now). Pynchon loves to put many minor parallels to major events (the dodoes in GR compared to mass genocide, or the cockfights here in comparison to Elite profit rings). His anecdotes are always so good.