MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver

[Doug Millison]

Terrance:
>The italics are only anger emphasis, a
>cracking,   straining breaking in Dixon's voice. This is in fact what
>the narrator says. "His voice breaks."

Yes, that's how I read it.


>The broken tooth?
>
>Maybe the driver is not a liar.

He could  have broken his tooth when he ran into Dixon's stationary fist,
especially if the tooth hit the whip handle Dixon was clutching.

>
>he is violent by nature

That's one element of human nature, imo, alongside the loving, peaceful
impulses (and  others) that are so often knocked aside by the violent urge.

If Pynchon's preaching a sermon (and I'm not saying he is, and never have
-- that's somebody else's strawman), it's more complex and nuanced than any
I've ever heard in any church -- which probably would take what he's doing
here, nuanced and layered and allusive and indeterminate as it is, out of
the sermon genre altogether.

Or not, as you like it.