I respectfully diagree Scottie--I take the word "novel" seriously and often that means changing the conventions and rules to fit the story--take for example cormac mcarthy's unorthodox use of no quotes (and other stuff, it's been a while since I read him) or David Markson's incredbile intertextuality in _Reader's Block_--craft and tradition with language may be important, but good fiction breaks rules as well as following them...I base my point on _Literature Against Itself_ by Geral Graff. I am the one who is questioning mr. salinger's captialization scheme, but before I sluff it off as "arch," I think I want to think about tim's point about using caps to empahsize parallel to his use of italics, as well as the idea that capitalization quirks could be about Buddy's quirks... will Mar 1998, Scottie Bowman wrote: > > > 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. >