Certain Typographical Issues (M&D spoilers thru 253)

[Paul York]

(general, mostly vague, spoilation)

RE a question posted earlier concerning TRP's system of capitalization 
in M&D:  I don't think there's any strict consistency to Pynchon's 
Capitalization in M&D, which itself may be consistent with that whole 
18th Century thing.  Fielding, in both _Joseph Andrews_ and _Tom Jones_ 
capitalizes his nouns.  On the other hand, Richardson's use of 
capitalization in _Clarissa_ (talk about a huge book) is more consistent 
with 20th Century practices.  Both make use of the ,-- ;-- and :-- as 
well, as do most 18th Century novelists when read in editions that 
remain more or less faithful to the original typography.  Like most such 
editions, however, TRP does do away with the more archaic aspects of 
typography.  As someone else has recently posted, he does not make use 
of the f-looking long s, nor does he employ quotation marks at the 
beginning of each line in his longer quotes.

In a sense this neither here nor there approach to capitalization and 
typography fits right in with other elements of the book.  For example, 
we have a narrator whose voice is given an old-timey edge through a 
semi-archaic method of spelling, punctuation, and capitalization, yet 
whose narration is very contemporary.  There is something very cinematic 
about the segues between many of the scenes (more cinematic, often, than 
in GR).  Any number of scenes begin without any narrative cue, opening 
with a bit of dialogue, for example, in the voice of, say, Mason, whose 
very presence indicates to the reader that a shift in time and/or place 
has occured.  It's much like the way dialogue following a change of 
scene in a movie often hastens the audience's efforts to relocate 
themselves in a new set of circumstances.  There are even scenes that 
are narrated as if from a camera's POV (I don't remember which page this 
occurs on, but there is the scene with Mason leaping (or falling) out of 
a window, during which the POV of the narration remains from within the 
room, though not with any one character in particular, recording only 
Mason's scream and the sound with which he completes his fall).

	Paul