Back to AtD. Another use of 'grace"

[Mark Kohut]

Literal or figurative, he used the word 'Grace" and it meant a bit of time or enough time to not get harmed
or not harmed.
 
That matters for grace.


________________________________
From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: Back to AtD. Another use of 'grace"

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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