TRTR 2, 1 - nit picky stuff about an evocative sentence

[Paul Mackin]

Maybe the comma is some attempt to indicate ellipsis.

The sentence has no proper predicate.  Something has to be assumed from the previous sentence. That something is "there is no possibility of completion."

Anyway, we might think of the sentence thus:

Nor for Stanley was (there any satisfactory way to complete) this massive piece of music which he worked at
when he could, building the tomb he knew it to be, as every piece of
created work is the tomb of its creator: thus he could not leave it
finished haphazard as he saw work left on all sides of him.

Gaddis really needed an editor.

P



On 7/14/2011 1:08 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>>> Nor for Stanley, was this massive piece of music which he worked at
>>> when he could, building the tomb he knew it to be, as every piece of
>>> created work is the tomb of its creator: thus he could not leave it
>>> finished haphazard as he saw work left on all sides of him.
>
> Paul Mackin suggested, and I concur:
>
>> Neither for the artist of the Middle Ages nor for Stanley was their work
>> ever finished.
>>
>> Sort of awkwardly the "artist" is embedded in a sentence that is also
>> principally about Stanley.
>>
>> P
>>
> with that in mind, can I think that the comma after Stanley is used
> artistically rather than grammatically? - to suggest a phrase like,
> nor for Stanley either was this principal work ever accomplishable
> amid the detritus of other tasks interposed...
>