Dialogue

[LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu]

Andrew posts:
"Brian is quite right to refer to Ulysses. Gaddis' only speech mark is
JJ's leading dash. Where Gaddis differs is that there is almost no
interlarded descriptive to connect the dialogue - voices just drift
from one scene to the next (this most extremely and brilliantly in JR,
less so in The Recognitions). The voices are realistic *and*
distinctive so it is not as hard work as it seems at first read (and
of course that implies, like JJ and TRP, that you have to reread).
 
If you really want to appreciate Gaddis technique at his best then
read the opening section of JR (about 3-4 pages) and reread until you
can identify the voices, characters behind them and their family
history in miniature (it's all there - Gaddis, like Pynchon and
despite appearances to the contrary, puts all the info you need right
on the page). Then go back and be boggled by the skill with which so
little text and no overt *interference* from a narrator has rendered
so much understandable."


Gaddis isn't the only one.  Manuel Puig's KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN consists only
of dialogue (and a few written "documents"), as well as some stream-of-conscious-
ness narration.  This has given my students pause when I have taught the novel
but eventually they come to terms with it.  (Apparently it gave pause to several
American reviewers when it was first published in English.)

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)