capitalization in M&D

[Doug Millison]

Are you all sure that the capitalization in M&D follows such a regular
scheme? Not all nouns are capitalized, and words other than nouns are
capitalized.  I haven't spent any time recently trying to puzzle out a
pattern, but I paid attention during each of the three times I've read the
novel and didn't find one then.  I suspect that Pynchon is doing something
here rather more subtle than the top-of-mind answers that have thus far
been provided.  He seems to be responding to Sterne, who seems to have been
subverting the then-standard practice -- subverting the subversion, you
might say. And, given the kinds of marvels that Charles Hollander (and
others) have uncovered with their close readings, I think it's foolish to
dismiss the possibility that Pynchon may use the capitalized words to embed
something that hasn't been teased out of the text yet. Maybe not, of
course,-- but why not keep an open mind instead of immediately assuming
that Pynchon has gone for the obvious and superficial?


Otto:
"You must admit
that capitalizing Nouns makes some Sense."