rools
Scottie Bowman (bowman@mail.indigo.ie)
Mon, 02 Mar 1998 07:38:30 +0000
Tim tells us he cringes to confess he's never read A.A.Milne.
In England, by & large, we cringe to confess we *have* - & try
to blame it on careless guardians of our childhood. (Remember
Dorothy Parker's Tonstant Weeder ?)
I can't speak for Pynchon (who is to me what Milne is to Tim)
but surely people like Blake & Swift (& innumerable writers of
those periods) used capitals in what was then the straightforward
convention of the time & not - as seems to be case with Milne
& Salinger - to achieve a rather deliberate, contrived effect.
I know I'm not adding to my popularity by saying so, but no one
seems willing to question if Salinger may occasionally be mistaken
in his mannerisms. It's understandable that a Salinger list should
attract Salinger enthusiasts but isn't it permissible occasionally
to question some of the great man's habits ? Personally, I find
his use of upper case in the way we're presently discussing one
of the things that put my teeth on edge. It seems so ARCH.
Boredom quickly settles in, no doubt, when I return yet again to
lower case sentences, but I wonder why no one seemed to notice
when I pointed out that Salinger himself warned against `Cubism'
in writing & that one should follow one's modest, lower-middle-class
instincts ?
Whatever about Dylan's honesty condoning unorthodoxy, it seems
to be the case, sadly, that the more restrictions an artist places
on himself - whether rules of scansion or rhyme or grammar or
whatever - the cleaner, leaner & more enduring the final product.
Scottie B.