VLVL2 (3) A Finesi Romance #1

[jbor]

on 12/8/03 5:31 PM, Paul Nightingale at isread at btopenworld.com wrote:

>> 
>>> The flashback runs three pages (22-25) and offers Hector, in Ricardo
>>> Montalban mode, trying to write, ie produce, a narrative that
> features
>>> Zoyd as snitch.
>> 
>> I don't think this is correct. For example, the new paragraph
> (starting at
>> 24.12) contains information provided by a detached narrator.
> 
> As you can see, above, I wrote that the passage features Hector etc. I
> didn't write that it necessarily features his pov exclusively

You wrote that Hector in pages 22-25, was "trying to write, ie produce, a
narrative that features Zoyd as snitch". Maybe I misunderstood you, but it's
actually a detached narrator who narrates the paragraph from "That fatal
five-spot" (24.12) to "in the first place" (25.7), and in the section of
text down to 24.31, wherein the observation is made that Zoyd "was content
to go on eating the groceries, burning the gas, and smoking the pot the
others obtained" with snitch money, it is *Zoyd's* pov which is
foregrounded.

My point below, seeing as it needs to be spelt out, is that there is none of
that characteristic Hectorial TexMex Spanglish in the section of text where
you're claiming that Hector's pov is "dominant". And, in fact, throughout
this chapter the narration switches back and forth between Hector's pov,
Zoyd's and a detached narrator.

Like I said, though, nice try.

best


>> And unless
>> Ricardo Montalban was renowned for idiomatic Irish characterisations
> ("to
>> be
>> sure" 24.20), I don't see how you can read it as Hector fabulating.
> 
> I'm not aware that "to be sure" is, specifically, idiomatic Irish, but I
> guess I'm prepared to withstand enlightenment here. It doesn't really
> matter: whatever your point is, it fails to get off the ground.

best