Voices and Time

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

David offers:
"I find a fourth, particularly enjoyable class of anachronism: the way
Pynchon slips in and out of his familiar, slang-sprinkled 20th-century
American idiom.  He does it so slick!  I can damn near believe he chose
to invent his very own 18th-century style just to set off his
20th-century style and have the sport of dancing back and forth between
them."


Good addition--case in point, the visit to Mt. Vernon.  I won't add more
for those who have yet to discover its delights, but this is indeed one
of those interesting slippages.

Question, though: who's doing the slipping here?  Is this Revd. Cherrycoke?
Who is telling the tale of the Reverend himself?  (And I think not only of
the opening sentence and the reported interchanges between Wicks and his
listeners, but the kids reading from THE GHASTLY FOP later on.)

BTW, I love the title of that oft-cited work.  It sounds like something
Edward Gorey might have created.

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)