Abstract

"Oboy, Oboy," a critical study which dares to grapple with a critically unpopular though not insignificant idea: the determination of ethical rightness in fiction. At a time when literary critics question the validity of ascribing meaning, Truth, or morality to fiction, when philosophers explore the ability or lack of ability of language to convey meaning, and when science suggests that the notions of Truth and reality are at root far more paradoxical and problematic than they once may have seemed, Brian Stonehill's The Self-Conscious Novel: Artifice in Fiction from Joyce to Pynchon takes an admirable risk. In examining the combination of "esthetic neatness and ethical rightness" in modern and contemporary self-reflexive novels, Stonehill sets out to prove that self-consciousness, far from being merely self-indulgent and meaningless, "may in fact be one of the most convincing and compelling forms available to our writers for the expression of what is truly important today" (18).

How to Cite:

Chambers, J., (1987) “The Case For Ethical Rightness”, Pynchon Notes , 135-140. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.342