shaved his upper lip every morning three times with, three times against the grain

[Mark Kohut]

Nice, deep context...

Thanks.



----- Original Message -----
From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Cc: 
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 6:48 AM
Subject: Re: shaved his upper lip every morning three times with, three times against the grain

Right, like the Romantics he is so indebted to, and like the certain
modernists (see Slow Learner Intro pp.6-7: "At its simplest level it
had to do with language."), Pynchon, despite his weak ear and his
lyrical lapses, prefers common speech language.  This preference can,
as James Wood notes, debade the author's own language and make for an
ugly prose style. It is a problem inherent in free indirect style.

Although Aristotle advises against the use of omission schemes in
writing, he applauds the use of them in speech because they can be
used to dramatic effect. Pynchon is fond of ellipsis, that is, the
omission of words, the meaning of which is provided by the overall
context of the passage. Although Pynchon often punctuates his ellipses
with dots, this example does not use or need the dots. The "missing"
conjunction is yet another rhetorical scheme of omission called,
asyndeton. Again, it is a technique that Pynchon uses to suggest the
speech patterns of the characters and establish the tone.  In the
example, the narrative is free indirect and the language and tone are
Oed's: "You're too sensitive. Yeah, there was so much else she ought
to be saying ... "there was your Mucho: thin-skinned."

> this does replicate the way I would say it out loud:
>
> I shave every day, new blades I invariably draw blood.
>
>
> It's like if you're talking to somebody and you've already got them
> envisioning you shaving, you don't need to say "when I use" ---
> instead, into the ongoing shaving thought-form, you simply add the
> temporary variable "new blades"
>
> I know this passage is narration, rather than Mucho speaking, but this
> technique gives a closer, more colloquial feeling as if Mucho or maybe
> Oedipa (having witnessed it) is telling me about it.