Pynchon's sentence structure

Sun Mar 20 14:51:57 CDT 2016

If God is dead, so is Grammar----Somebody, (maybe Nietzsche)?

On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 9:29 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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/?listpynchon-l
>
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