Watts article

[jbor]

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_watts.html

Some more examples.

Specific, relevant, local, current, statistical data:

    It is perhaps a measure of the people's indifference that only
    2 per cent of the poor in Los Angeles turned out to elect
    representatives to the E.Y.O.A. "poverty board." For a hopeless
    minority on the board (7 out of 23), nobody saw much point in
    voting.

Examples of paraphrase:

    The coroner's inquest went on for the better part of two weeks,
    one cop claiming the car had lurched suddenly, causing his
    service revolver to go off by accident; Deadwyler's widow
    claiming it was cold-blooded murder and that the car had never
    moved.

    Watts people themselves talk about another kind of aura, vaguely
    evil; complain that Negroes living in better neighborhoods like
    to come in under the freeway as to a red-light district, looking
    for some girl, some game, maybe some connection.

No quotation marks = indirect speech or paraphrase. (NB that in the second
example cited above Pynchon emphasises that this is a first-hand report:
"Watts people *themselves* talk about ... ")

Examples of direct quotation:

    "I decided once to ask," a kid says, "one time they told me I
    didn't meet their requirements. So I said: 'Well, what are you
    looking for? I mean, how can I train, what things do I have to
    learn so I can meet your requirements?' Know what he said? 'We
    are not obligated to tell you what our requirements are.'"

    "There was a time," they'll tell you, "you'd say, 'Take off the
    badge baby, and let's settle it.' I mean, he wouldn't, but you'd
    say it. But since August, man, the way I feel, hell with the
    badge -- just take off that gun."

Quotation marks = direct speech. In both examples Pynchon uses quotation
marks within quotation marks to indicate that the speaker is also quoting a
prior conversation. With the second example, even though it's attributed as
"they'll tell you", the speaker actually refers to himself as "I" ("I mean",
"the way I feel"). Why would Pynchon make up a first person utterance and
then label it with a third person attribution?

Anyway, it's clear that Pynchon is aware of the conventions of punctuation
for indicating direct speech, and those for paraphrase or indirect speech,
and of what the implications of each of these two styles of citation are in
the context of a *non-fiction* text.

best

on 30/9/04 8:41 AM, jbor at jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

>>> You've decided that Pynchon has made up these quotes, on no other basis than
>>> that you don't think the way the speakers are speaking is authentic, or
>>> "good", enough.
>> 
>> No other basis?   How many times do I need to point out to you that my basis
>> is that they cannot be authentic as used.   One cannot attribute a direct
>> quote to "they."   One cannot attribute a direct quote to what one is likely
>> to hear.   Such attributions can be nothing other than inauthentic.
> 
> I understand your argument. I disagree with it, and have explained why, many
> times. In the article there are direct quotations which are assigned to
> individuals ("a kid says", "a counsellor recalls"); there are other direct
> quotations which are given more general attribution ("others", "they",
> "you'll hear"); and then there are descriptions and extended scenarios where
> Pynchon is apparently paraphrasing or embellishing on what he's been told.
> The use of speech marks distinguishes between the direct quotes and the
> paraphrases. Every usage of "man" (for emphasis), "baby" and "cats" in the
> article occurs within the direct quotations (i.e. within inverted commas, as
> part of attributed speech).
> 
> Addressing his reader, Pynchon writes:
> 
> "You are likely to hear from them wisdom on the order
> of: 'Life has a way of surprising us, simply as a
> function of time. Even if all you do is stand on the
> street corner and wait.'"
> 
> In other words, if "you" (the reader) ever do go to Watts and talk to the
> people there, you're "likely to hear" this sort of comment, *because it's a
> comment I heard and am quoting to you now*.
> 
> Attributing a direct quotation to more than one person is not as outrageous
> as you are making out. It's easy to imagine the process: in collecting
> material for the article he has been contracted to write Pynchon goes to
> Watts and speaks to various individuals and groups of locals, perhaps even
> tapes these exchanges. When speaking with a group one of them says something
> with which the rest of the group expresses agreement, so Pynchon
> incorporates the quote verbatim and attributes it as the sentiment of the
> whole group. That seems to me a more straightforward way to read Pynchon's
> use of direct quotation, consensus attributions, and black slang in the
> article rather than asserting, over and over again and without evidence,
> that he made it all up.
> 
> best
>