Another smalltown librarian

[Joaquin Stick]

On Thu, 3 Jul 1997, john wells wrote:

> Jules Siegel wrote:

> > I didn't deplore his inventions. I said that they made it impossible for me
> > to enjoy Vineland. You live in Virginia. Do you speak with a southern
> > accent? Do you use regional idioms? If so, how do you feel when some Yankee
> > jerk imitates all this on the basis of having read Mark Twain in high school?
> 
> Now, now, let's not pick on Twain. He was one of very few people who,
> reportedly, could write local dialects. But even he commented on the
> difficulty of writing dialects and mentioned other writers for whom it
> was apparently impossible, ie Joel Chandler Harris, if memory serves.
> Still, Pynchon's dialects are, from my limited exposure, positively
> juvenile. And Jules is right, a poorly written dialect makes it
> impossible to enjoy a book because, I think, it kicks the reader out of
> the mind of the character and into the mind of the writer when he (the
> reader) stops to wonder "what the hell is he writing?" when he reads 
> poorly written dialect. It takes him out of the experience created in
> the book and puts him at the desk of the writer, which is NOT where the
> writer should want him. Simply put, it inhibits the flow of the
> narrative.  

Hearty agreement about Twain's skills in writing. If you want to read
what a non-small-town librarian has to say about Twain's use of dialect,
I'd suggest Ralph Wiley's essays on Twain as collected in _Dark Witness_.
However, I have to take some issue with the effect of Pynchon's use of
dialect. Does Washington's improper use of Yiddish REALLY distract you
from what is being said? Does McClintic Sphere's similacrum of "hepcat"
speech distract from the message? Does the fact that the Northen Cali.
dope dealers not speak like Northern Cali. dope dealers make that much of
a difference from a writer whose oeuvre includes fabulism, farce,
purposeful exaggeration and paronomasia to excess? My point is that
Pynchon's delivery is not necessarily detached from the message being
delivered and that he is not a stickler for exact accuracy like
Ulysses/Finnegan's Era Joyce but a user of language for the innate pun and
wordplay that can be accomplished and the wueering effect that can be had
through making Virginia born and bred G.W. use Yiddish. I mean, those
sewer rats in Father Faring's Parish just DON'T talk like New York sewer
rats!   

By the way, Blacksburg may be a small town, but hey, so is Hannibal. Back
of the small-town librarian shit, lest ye wish them to be replaced by am
radio callers from Queens. I don't remember when being a librarian became
an inherent sign of ignorance or inexperience (or when being published in
_Esquire_ made one an authority on small towns). Civility, gents.

D. Alfred Fledermaus