Pynchon's sentence structure

[Mark Kohut]

St. Augustine warns against 'heretical punctuation'. Bet that man was
partial to an Oxford comma.

On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 3:51 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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