VLVL Narrative agency and register are separate features (was ...

[jbor]

>> Simply put, I don't agree that the shifting in and out of characters'
>> perspectives is the same thing as the "diction" which Pynchon uses. The
>> mingling of colloquial and formal registers occurs across the board. It's a
>> separate feature (though there is, obviously, considerable overlap at times,
>> most prominently in characters' direct speech). I agree that it is
>> characteristic of Pynchon's style to mingle these registers in his
>> narratives, but it's certainly not as extreme as "hipster vernacular" vs
>> "austerely poetical diction", and there are many shades of grey in between
>> the poles of formality and informality which Pynchon does adopt.

on 23/6/03 1:24 AM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:
 
> Agreed. take a look at the long paragraph on page 29. detached. but
> notice the language--ay muere (italics), badass, upping the ante (Z and
> H relationship is often described as a game of cards or a gamble, in
> terms of virginity lost etc).
 
I think the "*ay muere*" is the narrative voice adopting, momentarily,
Hector's idiomatic Spanish. Note how it is defined in plain English right
afterwards. So, yes, it's Hector's "voice", mingled in with the detached
narration. 

More often than not in this early part of the novel this sort of thing is a
technique of characterisation. As with "rude updates" and "Dream on"
earlier, nothing in this paragraph is what I'd describe as "hipster
vernacular" either, though the informal and idiomatic vocab you note is
present. But it's idiosyncratic to the different characters, I think, rather
than to the '60s. This section of the narrative is set in 1984 anyway.

>> 
>> And the seamlessness isn't between formal and informal registers - these are
>> quite conspicuous - it's between detached and engaged narrative povs.
> 
> and there are many degrees of detached and engaged as well.

Though the shifts back and forth between different narrative povs do
*appear* to be seamless, and characteristic of Pynchon's style, as I
originally noted, I'm inclined to say that whether it's detached or engaged
is strictly an either/or thing. Or, if anything, it's ambiguous -- maybe the
one or the other. (But I'm happy to defer judgement on this aspect until
I've had the chance to have another close look at a bit more of the novel.)
But with register, between the furthest instances of formal and informal
language which Pynchon does use in the narrative sections of the text -- and
it's not a huge range, as I said, there are other novels where narration is
much more extremely "colloquial", or extremely "poetic", or which run a far
wider gamut of formal and informal registers, than _Vineland_ does -- there
are certainly varying *degrees* of formality and colloquialism.

best