Good verbs

[Mark Kohut]

A terrific mini-essay....this is part of the reason GR's prose is so ALIVE, so electric (as some say, but since TRP doesn't much like electricity, I won't say it)


--- On Tue, 11/11/08, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> Subject: Good verbs
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 8:30 AM
> One key to avoiding bad writing - and Strunk & White
> will tell you all
> about this - is good verbs. They do the heavy lifting, and
> provide all
> the punch for a sentence. If you're looking at a
> paragraph that just
> isn't working, examine the verbs. Here's a case
> study. I've gone
> through two paragraphs of Thomas Pynchon's
> Gravity's Rainbow (page 610
> and 611 to be precise) and highlighted the verbs. He's
> describing a
> car chase featuring a Red Cross Clubmobile, sort of a
> roadside stand
> on wheels.
> 
> 
> "Tra-la-la," Krypton now looting the cash
> register, gobbling Hershey
> bars and stuffing his socks with packs of smokes,
> "love in bloom."
> About then Bodine slams on the brakes and goes into a great
> skid, ass
> end of their truck slewing toward an icy-lit tableau of
> sentries in
> white-stenciled helmet liners, white belts, white holsters,
> a
> barricade across the road, an officer running toward a jeep
> hunched up
> and hollering into a walkie-talkie.
> 
> "Roadblock? What the shit," Bodine grinding it
> into reverse, various
> goodies for the troops crashing off of their shelves as the
> truck
> lurches around. Shirley loses her footing and staggers
> forward,
> Krypton grabbing for her as Slothrop leans to take the
> handgun off the
> dashboard, finding her half-draped over the front seat when
> he gets
> back around to the window.
> 
> 
> That's just 131 words. Of those 131, 18 are verbs
> (excusing my poor
> grammar skills, which might have caused me to miscategorize
> a few). Of
> those 18, zero are the pitifully weak "to be,"
> which does very little
> work compared to something muscular like
> "looting" or "gobbling".
> Notice I used 3 instances of it in this mini-paragraph of 4
> sentences.
> 
> http://weaponsgradeennui.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/nano-2008-day-9/