spoiler? 200 to be safe

[Paul York]

Unknown User wrote:

> i agree with the idea that pynchon is epoch-splicing, but i don't see
> how it contributes to your point here ie 18/20 century convention
> mixing='random' capitalization---???

What I was thinking (but perhaps didn't express so well) is that the 
capitalization is yet another example of Pynchon's deliberately 
half-assed approach to historical accuracy.  I'm not necessarily talking 
facts here so much as expressions of speech, word choice, punctuation, 
and some of the other trimmings (though he certainly doesn't seem to 
hesitate to play around with the facts when it suits him).  I think 
Pynchon's inconsistent use of caps is his way of having some fun.  That 
is, he uses caps with just enough frequency to evoke 18th Century 
conventions, but stops short of developing any systematic use of them.  
Why?  Maybe this is Pynchon's idea of a joke (wouldn't surprise me if it 
was).

As Dennis Grace noted, my use of the phrase "18th Century convention" is 
misleading in that there is no one "18th Century convention."  In 
Fielding's _Joseph Andrews_, for example, we find all the dominant nouns 
capitalized (and proper names are italicized as well), whereas in 
Richardson's _Clarissa_ the capitalization seems much more in keeping 
with more modern conventions.  (Someone on this list (I don't remember 
who) recently noted that these variations may have had more to do with 
the printers than with the authors themselves.)

So, in Pynchon's case I think 18/20 Century mixing does = random 
capitalization.  Along the same lines, the spelling of _M&D_ is much 
more consistent than you would find in many (probably most or even all) 
18th Century novels, though Pynchon does evoke the earlier epoch by the 
use of -ck instead of -c, for example, and he even works with the idea 
of inconsistent spelling with his use of both "smoak" and "smoke," the 
former of which in *some* of its appearances in the book does merely 
denote "smoke," as in something coming from a pipe.

I guess what I'm saying is that the simplist and most interesting 
explanation for the capitalization thing is that there is no 
explanation, at least not in the sense of there being some way to 
*systematize* Pynchon's use of caps in _M&D_ (though I have noted that 
he seems to capitalize the first word of every sentence--anyone have any 
thoughts on *that*?).

	Paul