VLVL The deal

[jbor]

on 27/3/04 4:40 AM, Paul Mackin wrote:

> My high school English teacher would have said the sentence was
> ambiguous and needed to be rewritten to make clear whether the
> "unobserved" phrase refers to both guards or only to Ron. Or possibly
> even to Zoyd as well.
> 
> 
> The interesting thing however is to observe that Pynchon is deliberately
> (IMHO) making the scene in its totality difficult to absorb. The reader
> is left (as is often the case with P) not being able to form a stable
> image of what is going on. We know roughly but not very precisely. Does
> or doesn't Frenesi know that Zoyd is there watching her suffering under
> Brock's control? It would seem that a part of Z's humiliation might be
> in having his wife see him there helpless and unable to rescue her or
> possibly unwilling to even try. We would like to know if this is part of
> Brock's sadistic point. But we don't know. Not for sure.
> 
> Is the ambiguity here and elsewhere a part of the author's artistic end?
> If so his sometimes questionable grammar can be brought into service of
> that end. I remember the plastic fiction piece by Gore Vidal in which V
> cites examples of P's incorrect grammar. Vidal's bigger point was that
> Pynchon's writing generates more heat that light. (which seems to me a
> little bit extreme but not without some truth)
> 
> Correct me if I'm wrong. I only reread the paragraph, not the entire
> chapter.

No, that's pretty much right. It's Zoyd's perspective on the "final
routine", and he only has a partial understanding of the implications.

As far as the grammar goes it could have been written differently, with the
phrase in question following "Zoyd" or "the two marshals", or with the
insertion of "all of them" before "unobserved", but it hasn't been. Taken as
written the syntax communicates that it is "his assailant Ron, unobserved in
the afternoon shade", and NOT the other two, and that isn't ambiguous at
all. It's only when a reader demands that the modifying clause refers back
to Zoyd and the other marshal as well to shore up an interpretation of the
text that Pynchon's syntax is called into question.

best