"It's all about these two rival revivals in Overland Circle -- if you've been
there -- or even if you haven't! A must-read (or 'hear' if you get the audio
version, narrated by Geary his self) for any inhabitant of Memphis -- or
elsewhere!" "Literary This & That," vol. 45.
Mike Geary is kind enough to provide a précis of his novel, "Rival Revivals". I
append it below. But now I want to focus on one of McEvoy's observations about
it. It concerns the précis's utterance -- or actually, Geary's utterance:
i. There's the arrest of Gordon Golightly for the murder of Maxine and other
unexpected developments.
McEvoy observes:
"I found Gordon's arrest all too predictable. The cops were heavy-handed from
when they first came in, if I recall correctly, on page 34. But now I see
you've out-Griced me - by referring to "other unexpected developments" you
could be implicaturing "other developments that were also unexpected" or "other
developments which were, by contrast, unexpected". Which it is, I know not.
Therefore I cannot be sure that my finding Gordon's arrest all too predictable
is any kind of dissent from your claim that there are "other unexpected
developments". I wish I'd never discovered Grice and implicature. I wish my
life were simpler. I wish the Touro external harddrive 4tb were still available
at a reasonable price. I'm concerned for Gordon too."
I think it all starts on page 33: page 34 is just the climax of the incident.
In any case, McEvoy is concerned not just for Gordon, but for the implicatures
of (i). It may relate to
ii. Flying planes can be dangerous.
-- to use an example by one of Grice's mentors: Chomsky (the other was Quine).
Consider variants of the précis's utterance:
i. There's the arrest of Gordon Golightly for the murder of Maxine and other
developments, some of which turn to be pretty unexpected -- even to me as I
wrote them.
McEvoy is too hasty in judging this a case of implicature. Does it fit the six
tests Grice designs for the detection of a conversational implicature. Consider
cancellability:
iii. There's the arrest of Gordon Golightly for the murder of Maxine and other
unexpected developments.
One might just as well say that it's the Maxine's murder which was unexpected.
Latinists, such as Grice was, would call this an 'objective' implicature:
"Maxine's murder" -- cfr. "the love of God."
If an implicature is at play (and not a common-or-garden Mooreian entailment)
Geary should be able to cancel it:
iv. There's the arrest of Gordon Golightly for the murder of Maxine and other
unexpected developments; although of course I do not wish to suggest that
neither Maxine's murder nor Gordon Golightly's arrest were unexpected to McEvoy.
Problem is that perhaps McEvoy is working with a different version. In the
final implicature, the arrest comes on p. 334, so perhaps that was a typo?
"Rival Revivals. The main protagonist, Gordon Golightly is a forty-five year
old ordained Catholic priest who has abandoned the priesthood in search of
some meaningful pursuit. When we meet him he is working as the night dish
washer at the All American Bar and Grill (known affectionately by it's patrons
as the AA). Sharing Gordon's apartment is Jolene Burns whom Gordon rescued
from living out of her car and offered to let her stay in his apartment while
she gets back on her feet -- a no-strings-attached offer even though Gordon is
still virginal but not wanting to be -- still he was a man of principle. He
does not go where he's not invited. Jolene, we learn, had put her husband
through Law School only to have him leave her for a bevy of secretaries once he
had hooked up with a prestigious law firm and started bringing in good money.
Jolene had been raised to believe that she was descended from a long line of
Southern aristocrats (her mother's illusion -- one not so unusual in the South
) and is thereby burdened with the expectation that she behave
aristocratically. Jolene's life is in free fall when Gordon discovers her
sleeping in her car in the apartment building's parking lot. The AA, where
Gordon works, is a working class restaurant-bar in Overland Circle. The Circle,
which was once the Memphis city limits where the trolley cars turned around,
was now a popular entertainment area with several restaurants, bars, theaters,
specialty shops, etc. One of the most popular clubs for twenty-somethings was
Boss Crump's Barrelhouse, a live music dance club -- their parking lot was
gleaned every morning by Dancing Jimmy in his search for dropped coins, bills,
or whatever. Dancing Jimmy was more or less the mascot of Overland Circle
until he found something that changed history. That, my friends is faint
glimpse at the setting. The action? Well, there's murder and mayhem, there's
theft, there's betrayal, there's love, there's f*cking, there's dancing, as
well there's the street closing as two simultaneous outdoor religious revivals
battle for territory in Overland Circle. There's the arrest of Gordon
Golightly for the murder of Maxine and other unexpected developments. It's a
hoot and deadly serious too. You'll either love it or hate it."
"Rival Revivals. The main protagonist,"
As opposed to the co-protagonist. Grice noted once to his Greek teacher that
'prote agonistes' as qualified by 'main', as 'otiose', and got properly
reprimanded by that. "Surely," his Greek teacher at Clifton told him, "many of
Euripides's tragedies have as many as five protagonists -- and three main of
them, Grice!"
"Gordon Golightly is a forty-five year old ordained Catholic priest who has
abandoned the priesthood in search of some meaningful pursuit."
Implicature: there was this long essay in today's NYT about Scorsese's latest
film, "Silence". He would disqualify that a priesthood is meaningless.
"When we meet him he is working as the night dish washer at the All American
Bar and Grill (known affectionately by its patrons as the AA)."
and by the cook as the AABG!
"Sharing Gordon's apartment is Jolene Burns whom Gordon rescued from living out
of her car and offered to let her stay in his apartment while she gets back on
her feet -- a no-strings-attached offer even though Gordon is still virginal
but not wanting to be -- still he was a man of principle."
Once Grice criticized his Latin teacher for calling a Roman male 'virginal'.
"Surely it's 'chaste' what you want". He was properly reprimanded, since Cicero
does use 'virginal' as applied to males --.
"He does not go where he's not invited. Jolene, we learn, had put her husband
through Law School only to have him leave her for a bevy of secretaries once he
had hooked up with a prestigious law firm and started bringing in good money.
Jolene had been raised to believe that she was descended from a long line of
Southern aristocrats (her mother's illusion -- one not so unusual in the South)
and is thereby burdened with the expectation that she behave aristocratically."
There's aristocracy and aristocracy. Grice was once reprimanded for calling
someone who wasn't an aristocrat -- in his Greek classs -- an 'aristocrat' --
His teacher rightly reprimanded him: ""aristo-kratos", the power of the best,
Grice!". "Sorry, I guess I meant nobleman!". "No, you didn't! -- Or you would
have said it!"
"Jolene's life is in free fall when Gordon discovers her sleeping in her car in
the apartment building's parking lot. The AA, where Gordon works, is a
working class restaurant-bar in Overland Circle. The Circle, which was once the
Memphis city limits where the trolley cars turned around, is now a popular
entertainment area with several restaurants, bars, theaters, specialty shops,
etc. One of the most popular clubs for twenty-somethings is Boss Crump's
Barrelhouse, a live music dance club -- their parking lot was gleaned every
morning by Dancing Jimmy in his search for dropped coins, bills, or whatever."
Especially, whatever, knowing Jimmy.
"Dancing Jimmy was more or less the mascot of Overland Circle until he found
something that changed history. There's murder and mayhem, there's theft,
there's betrayal, there's love, there's f*cking, there's dancing, as well
there's the street closing as two simultaneous outdoor religious revivals
battle for territory in Overland Circle."
-- and which gives the novel its title, the implicature being.
"There's the arrest of Gordon Golightly for the murder of Maxine and other
unexpected developments. It's a hoot and deadly serious too. You'll either
love it or hate it."
I loved that. It's Aristotle's 'tertium exclusum'.
As the White Knight once told Alice:
v. Either the song will bring tears to your eyes or ... (long pause)
Alice: Or else what?
White Knight: Or else it won't, of course
(cited by Ramsey, "The foundations of mathematics"). Geary is well aware that
'to hate' is not the antonym of 'to love' -- cfr. "I love to hate you" -- and
the variants of Geary's closing sentence of his précis':
vi. Either you'll love it or hate it.
Surely zillion times less otiose than Grice's duet:
vii. Either you'll love it or not.
and
viii. Either you'll hate it, or not -- of course.
Etc.
Cheers,
Speranza