MDDD Ch. 72 Dixon's act of violence

[jbor]

on 13/3/02 2:57 AM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

> Try as you may to change it, Pynchon clearly writes that "Dixon places his
> fist in the way of the oncoming Face"), he  holds his fist stationary, does
> not throw a punch.  (My interpretation:  Dixon absorbs the force of the
> slave driver's charge with his body, in a manner similar to the way a line
> of protesters might passively await the charge of a line of police.) You
> reverse what Pynchon wrote, when you say " a punch
> lands forcefully in the slave-driver's face"  when Pynchon is unambiguous
> in writing that the motion belongs to the slave driver, "the oncoming
> Face." You're changing Pynchon's phrase, replacing his passive sentence
> structure with your own an active sentence construction.

It's not a passive sentence structure at all. "Dixon places his Fist" is in
the active voice. Dixon is the subject of the sentence and the agent of the
punch. He "places" his fist deliberately, and obviously with force.

best