GRGR(1) : scumbled

[John Boylan]

  Dead leaves off decorative trees, manure from prize sows, vomited meals
"all scumbled together, eventually, by the knives of the season, to an
impasto, feet thick, of unbelievable black soil in which anything could
grow, not the least being bananas."(p.5)

  Defining scumbling ( a favorite word of Nabokov's, btw, maybe TRP's
source?) as, in this context, softening or blurring the lines of a
drawing by rubbing lightly, this passage has always struck me as an analogue
for TRP's stylistic agenda. The effect of Pynchon's imagery *is* soft-edged
(and frequently constructed from deitrus) -- he achieves this effect by
condensing his images to phrase length and placing them next to other
images. His images rarely stand alone.

  His style, in this respect, is more akin to Joyce's that to, say, Proust
or Nabokov, whose imagery is highlighted more.


                                         --John Boylan