In Praise of the Non Sentence

Tue Apr 26 01:12:19 CDT 2016

Thanks, Joseph, for providing some material.

And I beg your pardon for riding one of my hobby-horses, the present
participle.

Martin Amis about Riding the Rap (1995):

He has discovered a way of slowing down and suspending the English sentence
— or let’s say the American sentence, because Mr. Leonard is as American as
jazz. [...] We are in a kind of marijuana tense, creamy, wandering,
weak-verbed. Such sentences seem to open up a lag in time, through which
Mr. Leonard easily slides, gaining entry to his players’ hidden minds.

I first read 'Riding the Rap' in mid-January. In mid-March I read it again.
The reviewer curling up with the present participle. Re-reading Elmore
Leonard in the morning, and saying it was work. The experience, like the
book, was wicked and irresistible. This was post-modern decadence. This was
bliss.

Robert Worth about the same book:

Definite articles drop out, as do adjectives and pronouns; everything
occurs in a rolling, improvised present tense. Verbs give way to the
participle: "Bobby watching the fortuneteller standing next to Harry in the
recliner, the fortuneteller looking this way now, brushing her long hair
from her face with the tips of her fingers, looking this way right at Bobby
— Bobby sure of it, the woman calm, still looking this way...." This style
can be hard to follow at first, because the point of view drifts between
characters, like a cloud of exhaled smoke, without ever seeming to settle
on anyone in particular.

Leonard picked it up from Hemingway, I think. One Paragraph? (The most
suspenseful in the novel until then.)

Robert Jordan watching Pablo and as he watched, letting his right hand hang
lower and lower, ready if it should be necessary, half hoping it would be
(feeling perhaps that were the simplest and easiest yet not wishing to
spoil what had gone so well, knowing how quickly all of a family, all of a
clan, all of a band, can turn against a stranger in a quarrel, yet thinking
what could be done with the hand were the simplest and best and surgically
the most sound now that this had happened), saw also the wife of Pablo
standing there and watched her blush proudly and soundly and healthily as
the allegiances were given.

Not bad, don't you think?

Pynchon picked it up from both perhaps, used it quite well, the marijuana
tense, in his detective novel.

2016-04-26 7:14 GMT+02:00 Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>:

> So I did get a library copy of Klinkenborg’s Timothy,…
> I opened randomly to pg 18 at the start of a new section
>
> The true Secret?( no actual verb)…Walk Through the holes in their
> attention. Easier at my speed than at any faster rate. ( no verb)……..
> ..Quickness draws their eye. Entangles their attention. ( No subject)
>
> The humans talk to me. Talk and talk. ( no subject)
>
> in these examples he is using a period as an extra emphatic comma.
>
>
> Here is another form
>
> Mr. Churton walks through the garden, book in hand. Swallows hawk the
> hedges behind him. Rustle of the Summer Wind accross the Bright Sky.
> Sheep’s bells, a calf’s bawling caught in the breeze. Rill of birdsong. Mr.
> Churton glances down at me.
>
> The 1st 2 and last sentences are standard. The other 3 flow and elaborate
> the scene elegantly but are not sentences. They are  noun phrases.
>
> I could find more if this does not convince. I am not arguing for or
> against the minimal Subject /Verb sentence structure, just showing that non
> traditional sentences are not always long and difficult or particularly
> experimental.
>
>
>
> > On Apr 18, 2016, at 2:20 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I hate to contradict you Joseph but I just had a look at the first three
> paragraphs (Look inside!) of Timothy and even though the sentences are
> short they are quite conventional. From the first six sentences (1st
> paragraph) four are very normal subject-verb-sentences. The 2nd paragraph
> begins: "Ground breaks away. May wind shivers in my ears. My legs churn
> (...). I look down on bean tops."
> >
> > In Elmore Leonard's Maximum Bob there's the beginning of one chapter (7)
> told from the pov of an alligator that's better written in my eyes,
> regarding the limitations of the animal in question.
> >
> > 2016-04-18 16:31 GMT+02:00 Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>:
> >  A couple yars ago I got a book, a deeply delightful meditation on the
> natural world as it might be experiencd by another non- human being.
> > Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile by Verlyn Klinkenborg.
> >
> > Timothy turns out to be a female tortoise and was a real “pet” for a
> clergyman/amateur naturalist .
> > The unique thing about the writing is the dipensing with the need for
> subject verb ( optional object)  sentence structures. There are many
> sentences in Timothy  that are simply filling in details about the topic,
> place or time being observed. Sentences without a subject , or without a
> verb. Sentences with lists of gerunds or sentences with lists of nouns and
> adverb phrases. This had to be allowed because the whole thing is told from
> the tortoise's point of view and nobody knows what kind of grammatic rules
> apply in the reptilian mind. The reading flows beautifully and lucidly
> without these rules. As a matter of fact, after the first chapter I thought
> it would make a good read aloud, so Priscilla and I took turns reading it
> in the evenings or when we had a snack or went for coffee. The meaning
> flowed elegantly and without strain. For me the beauty of this book
> suggests that our adherence to the sentence can be inhibiting and is
> clearly not indispensable.
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Apr 18, 2016, at 6:52 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > "I assert that any sort of sound sentence is superior to any
> non-sentence because a sentence contains more meaning than a non-sentence."
> > >
> > > It's like a postgraduate seminar in circular reasoning, confusion, and
> self-satisfaction just to watch Murnane fail to support that assertion. A
> thousand words later, it's actually *less* clear what it might mean.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sun, Apr 17, 2016 at 10:37 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > An infuriating essay I mentioned here a little while ago has had its
> > > paywall removed.
> > >
> > > The (hugely respected) author spends the first few paragraphs arguing
> > > that Pynchon and Frank Kermode wouldn't recognise a grammatically
> > > correct sentence if they stumbled over it.
> > >
> > > https://meanjin.com.au/essays/in-praise-of-the-long-sentence/
> > > -
> > > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> > >
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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