BE Ch 9 summary - Chunky Monkey

[David Morris]

On Thu, Dec 16, 2021 at 1:11 PM Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
wrote:

And David—"sorta?!?"
> Even the word is funny


I use “sorta” in tribute to Pynchon.  I think he’s used it around (kinda,
sorta) a few times.  Pynchon’s got a fairly large stable of word
contractions and combinations that are kinds of speech that feel to me like
“aw-gee” phrases that you might hear on 50’s TV shows like the “Andy
Griffith Show” or “Bonanza.”  To me they feel like a mid-western dialect
from the Wonder-bread era.  And he uses them all the  time in contexts that
aren’t really true to the locales or eras of the mouths they come from.
For example, in ATD a detective boss tells Lew Basnight that an anarchist’s
gathering is happening “down the El line a couple-three stops.”  And
Pynchon uses that one all the time.  Some feel like maybe they come from
the LA valley in the 70s.  I should start gathering up a list of examples.
I think BE is full of them.  They might be more locale-correct than I give
Pynchon credit for. But I think maybe (probably) he uses them incorrectly
on purpose.

David Morris

>