BEER Ch. 6, 57-61: Reg reports in
Fiona Shnapple
fionashnapple at gmail.com
Sun Oct 27 12:29:23 CDT 2013
Readers of P, after VL, are aware of his norms (Booth-the implied author),
and some reject his commentary, as either too intrusive, too political, too
obtuse, abstruse, whatever, or they reject him for his politics, they are
insulted by his anti - liberal, and even anti-left politics, and, for what
hey see as his hypocritical position-- he includes himself in the poor and
powerless proletariat in SL. But his satires, obviously not postmodern
satires, satires that are not corrective, are designed to tickle us out of
our faults and bad deeds. Something Seinfeld doesn't do. Now the Simpsons,
yes, that's satire that exposes and seeks to correct. Banksy Simpsons yes.
On Sunday, October 27, 2013, Fiona Shnapple wrote:
>
> Pov, as Booth taught us long ago, tells us nothing, really. Narrative is
> so very complex, it is, rhetorical, meaning, everything an author does,
> puts on the page, to evoke a response. And the old rhetorical triangle
> functions, the shifts are given cues and markers, only they are not tagged
> but are far more dependent on an active reader who can identify the style
> shifts, by listening to the language, the diction, the arrangements. So,
> like Maxine sniffs out the code switching, as more Anglo in named
> businesses and business names, she also notes the language code switches to
> and away from more Anglo speak. When the lights shift or dim, change color
> or shade, a prop is rolled in or out, a word, a dot on the page, these are
> the cues and language flows we are tuned into. Or we toss the book, walk
> out of the theater.
> On Sunday, October 27, 2013, Monte Davis wrote:
>
>> MK> P's jump cuts, like tonal switches in classic dramatic comedy, imply
>> the non-linear in a way most ****
>>
>> tragedies or even tragicomedies do not****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I was highlighting not the non-linearity (nested flashbacks are old and
>> common in all narrative genres) but the absence of cues to mark the
>> transition from Maxine and Reg now, with a quick dip into Maxine’s mind
>> (“’..he’s so paranoid,’ yeah, Reg, ‘he only likes to meet face-to-face on
>> the subway’”)****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> …to Reg and Eric at an earlier moment on that subway. No line break, no
>> “Today [they had met as] an insane white Christer at one end of the car
>> was…” I was thinking stylistic, not thematic.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Not a big deal. Having been enlightened recently about the simple,
>> straightforward third-person narration in GR, I now see that I never
>> understood the basics of POV in forty years of professional writing,
>> editing and English teaching. So when I go off about what I find to be
>> interesting tricks in P’s voice, consider it just my own eccentric
>> hobbyhorse. J****
>>
>
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