Pynchon's sentence structure

[ish mailian]

There is no classically  correct sentence in American English or even
in American Grammar. Traditional grammar, taught by nuns like Sister
Bernadette with her Barking Dog


see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Bernadette%27s_Barking_Dog

or, by grammar enthusiasts in public schools, like those young Pynchon
attended, where texts like Warriner's English Grammar and Composition

see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriner%27s_English_Grammar_and_Composition

were supplemented with handbooks on style, like, The Elements of Style

 see here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style

was abandoned by the National Council for the Teaching of English and,
though it is making something of comeback, was replaced by several
methods of instruction based in theoretical linguistics.

When I say that P sentences are more rhetorical than strictly
grammatical, I'm not saying that he is writing nonsense, though of
course he is free to do so, but that the grammar is less important
than rhetorical impact.

To apply a classical grammar or prescriptive grammar to a long P
sentence can be a productive exercise. It may turn up an error that
the editor missed. It may also be useful to translators. It may also
identify ambiguities. We may discuss the meanings and purposes of the
use of ambiguity and even argue its intentionality or if authorial
intent matters.

There are grammar rules or guidelines for the use of punctuation when
introducing series.  There are obvious errors, for example, a missing
comma that makes the sentence illogical, but there is latitude that in
the interest of rhetorical impact or style far outweighs the value of
strict grammatical clarity.


On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 10:58 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree with all but can also parse it as an almost classically
> correct sentence if the "after a while" clause is seen as the second
> part of a list:
>
> ...and before she knew it
> (1) there they were in another motel room,
> (2) after a while her visits to Sasha dropped off and
> (3) when she made them she came in reeking with Vond sweat...
>
> I haven't changed any grammar or punctuation there, just emphasised
> the listiness.
>
> Is this incorrect? As Ish says it's fiction and Pynchon is free to
> write damn near incomprehensible goobledygook if he cares to, but I
> think the argument that this isn't a classically correct sentence is
> false.
>
> On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 1:12 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>  I think there just needs to be a semicolon after motel room for the whole to work as a single classically correct sentence.
>>> On Mar 19, 2016, at 9:31 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I would say those are two long sentences, or one with an "and" missing between "motel room" and "after". No real problem for a grammar freak and no pretending that I can see. (Although I'd have to say that Kermode could have seen that.)
>>>
>>> 2016-03-19 11:15 GMT+01:00 John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>:
>>> I've been reading a recent essay by one of Australia's pre-eminent
>>> novelists, Gerald Murnane, an extremely private man (the more common
>>> description is 'reclusive') only two years younger than Thomas Pynchon
>>> and whose work is characterised by obscenely long sentences that are
>>> nonetheless grammatically correct. His great obsession is Proust and
>>> most would say he is the Antipodean answer to Proust. The essay is on
>>> the long sentence's profound potential to produce meaning - which he
>>> associates with 'connections' - that short, descriptive, declarative
>>> sentences can't access. But as an obsessive grammarian, he begins the
>>> work decrying Kermode's review of Vineland, in which is quoted the
>>> following loooong sentence. Murnane says it isn't a sentence, but a 66
>>> word sentence followed by a bunch of unconnected clauses. He goes on
>>> to call Pynchon and Kermode 'pretenders' as a result (did I mention
>>> Murnane is a serious grammar freak?) but eventually produces quite an
>>> interesting essay.
>>>
>>> My question is: I can see how he can't parse the following as a
>>> classically correct sentence past "another motel room" but I can also
>>> see how it does work. I don't know how to argue for it, however. A
>>> puzzle fit for a P-list.
>>>
>>> The 'after a while her visits to Sasha' clause is where things get hairy.
>>>
>>> "By the time she began to see that she might, nonetheless, have gone
>>> through with it, Brock Vond had reentered the picture, at the head of
>>> a small motorcade of unmarked Buicks, forcing her over near Pico and
>>> Fairfax, ordering her up against her car, kicking apart her legs and
>>> frisking her himself, and before she knew it there they were in
>>> another motel room, after a while her visits to Sasha dropped off and
>>> when she made them she came in reeking with Vond sweat, Vond semen —
>>> couldn't Sasha smell what was going on? — and his erect penis had
>>> become the joystick with which, hurtling into the future, she would
>>> keep trying to steer among the hazards and obstacles, the swooping
>>> monsters and alien projectiles of each game she would come, year by
>>> year, to stand before, once again out long after curfew, calls home
>>> forgotten, supply of coins dwindling, leaning over the bright display
>>> among the back aisles of a forbidden arcade, rows of other players
>>> silent, unnoticed, closing time never announced, playing for nothing
>>> but the score itself, the row of numbers, a chance of entering her
>>> initials among those of other strangers for a brief time, no longer
>>> the time the world observed but game time, underground time, time that
>>> could take her nowhere outside its own tight and falsely deathless
>>> perimeter."
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l