VLVL2 (9): Opening Line

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy

--- Tim Strzechowski <dedalus204 at comcast.net> wrote:
> 130.1:  "How did we meet," DL's voice finding some agitated soprano
> level.
  Is it
> possible to do this without the remark *sounding* like a question?

Restating, or rewording, a question is a common way of stalling for a
little time while figuring out an answer and is often interpreted as a
"liar's tell". Rumsfeld does this sort of thing in an agressive and
evasive way. When my kids do it, their voices go a bit flat and the
question is transformed into a declarative. The voice goes flat because
the mind is elsewhere sorting the possible replies into a
multi-dimensional matrix of consequence, and also as a rhetorical
device to imply, in the Rumsfeltian manner, that the question or
questioner is stupid. Perhaps DL's voice rises in aggitation because of
her complex of guilt and anger. 

> This ambiguity between declarative and interrogative reflects not
> only the style of P's work -- which often blurs the distinction
> between reality and illusion, between and among narrative
> points-of-view -- but also reflects the themes of paranoia and
> illusory perceptions found in this and other P works.

I think this makes too much of what is often (yes, even in P's work!)
fairly straight naturalistic evocation of common human behavior.

> By the way -- and forgive my being really nit-picky here -- but has
> anyone else noticed the use of four ellipses when a piece of dialogue
> trails off in this novel?  
>  
> cf.  "Gee, thought it was a pretty innocent question. . . ."
> 
> Is it not standard practice in typesetting to use three ellipses,
> each with a space between, as well as a space separating the last
> word from the first ellipsis?  I've noticed that this is done pretty
> consistently throughout VL (8.20, 91.14, for example) and I find it
> sorta curious, is all.

Standard practice with ellipses is to use three points to mark an
editorial deletion in a quote, in which case the ellipsis is in
brackets, or to indicate an expressive discontinuity within a sentence.
Three points plus the period --- making four points --- is used where a
sentence does not resume. P often uses ellipses to indicate an
indecisive trailing off of a character's thought or voice. He also (if
I remember correctly) uses them sometimes within descriptive passages,
ascribing emotion, uncertainty and fallibility to the narrator.

Isn't that a wonderful and humane word? Fallible. Fall-able. I
digress....

He also uses question marks at the end of simple declarative sentences
to render that annoying habit *all* teenage girls (including the
notorious "Valley Girls" of California) have of vocalizing every simple
statement of fact as a question, impicitly begging for agreement and
toleration? This device doesn't indicate a general ambiguity between
interrogative and declarative in the manner you suggest above. It is
instead an expressive rendering of vernacular speech, and probably
shouldn't be over-interpreted.

Mark

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