Back to AtD. Another use of 'grace"

David Morris fqmorris at gmail.com
Thu Dec 27 21:55:25 CST 2012


Logorrhea


On Thursday, December 27, 2012, alice wellintown wrote:

> Does he get 90 seconds here? I mean, a minute and a half seems a long
> time when we consider how quickly the conflict begins, and how
> suddenly it evolves, how tense it is, how swiftly the scene moves
> along.
>
> Itz not time.
>
> So we can't take the time (a minute and a half or 90 seconds)
> literarally; it's figurative language; moreover, the bit about it
> being just enough is a bit of humor;  of course it's just enough, it
> turns out OK for our man here, of course it does. It just so happens
> that our man saved a man who now saves him; he speaks just enough of
> the language to slap a stick and the top of the thigh.
>
>
> And, it must move quickly to work, not 90 seconds of time, but one and
> a half, not two. Not anything complete here as it is a grave comedy.
>
> P has introduced comic relief, designed to, paradoxically, release the
> reader from the intense and grave themes here even as it calls
> attention to them, which slows the scene down as the men, each in turn
> raises both the gravity of what they plan to do to him and his mother.
>
> It is in their evil one-up-manship, as they contemplate more and more
> evil, that Grace saves him.
>
> Kinda like in O'Connor. Itz a Catholic kind of Grace, so its
> figurative and outside of prafane time and space.
>
> > p. 970...After Reef has had the drop taken on them by three Albanians,
> and
> > Reef says the gleam from barrels
> > all around and says he is a dead duck in Albanian...which
> > "'Buys' him a minute and a half of grace", "which turns out to be just
> > enough"....
> > Grace here meaning time, of course,
> > And I think that is no accident or outlier use and dovetails nicely with
> > other uses....
>
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