Writing convincing English

jbor at bigpond.com jbor at bigpond.com
Wed Jun 21 21:04:02 CDT 2006


Yes (p.19), referring to his "perennial Bad Ear" in relation to 'Under  
the Rose'.

I think the criticism of GR's British characters' dialogue is fair  
enough. (Both Pirate and Roger sound like Americans to my ear, and  
Tantivy sounds like a caricature of what an English toff might speak  
like.)

But I think that the dialects and speech tics of M&D are really well  
done. (And I think some of the touches to the dialogue in Vineland --  
e.g., did'tn, rilly, at least as ... of a, Vato's and Hector's  
inflexions etc -- are pretty good too).

best

On 22/06/2006:

> Didn't Pynchon mention in the intro to Slow Learner something about
> his inability to write British dialogue, making it sound mostly like
> the pip pip cheerio stereotype sort?  Seems he at least readily admits
> it.
>
> On 6/21/06, James Kyllo <jkyllo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> From last Saturday's Telegraph (sorry to take so long to post) an
>> article about the difficulties english speaking writers from either
>> side of the Atlantic have in creating convincing dialogue from the
>> other side:
>>
>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/06/11/ 
>> bodialogue.xml
>>
>> The Pynchon mention says:
>>
>> "Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, mostly playing safe with Dick van
>> Dyke versions of English speech - "Thinking about me Xmas shopping" -
>> falls flat when attempting Welsh English in the character of
>> Gwenhidwy."
>>
>> the conclusion of the article is that Philip Roth is the only American
>> able to write convincing British dialogue
>>
>> best
>>
>> James
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://www.last.fm/user/Auto_Da_Fe
>> http://www.pop.nu/show_collection.asp?user=2412
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/kjamesk/
>> http://www.thedetails.co.uk/
>>
>




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