Started measuring out liquids from two or three different bottles, keeping up a sort of patter meantime, hardly any of which Merle could follow—"Pyrogallic, mumblemumble citric, potassium bromide . . . ammonia . . ."
* * * * * * * * * *
Sometimes Pynchon is just writing about the effort it takes to read what he's written. And then he ends in an ellipsis in a closed quotation mark without adding a period outside the quotation mark to indicate the sentence is over and it's time to move on. But when you do move on as if the sentence were continuing outside of the quotation mark, the next sentence begins with a capital letter so, apparently, the sentence did end?
I'm not an expert on punctuation or grammar or writing or the English language (being that it's my native language, I don't have to actually know anything about it. That's how native languages work! You're just an amateur speaker your entire life unless you actually take some time to learn about it) so I'm probably just mixed up because of those reasons. I'm sure Pynchon did everything exactly correct here. Especially in his use of an em dash and the word "mumblemumble". Perfect! No complaints!
"keeping up a sort of patter meantime"
That's Pynchon. Keeping up a sort of patter for 1100 pages.
"hardly any of which Merle could follow"
Merle's us trying to read those 1100 pages and constantly saying, "Duh?" while scratching our heads and asses. I try to keep a drool cup next to me while I read Pynchon so I can discreetly hide my idiotic shame when I'm done by dumping it down the toilet instead of wearing my "incomprehension drool" on my chin and shirt. That's a free tip for other readers!
"Pyrogallic"
I'm not going to look this word up because I'm pretty sure it means an arsonist from France.
"citric"
Like a lime or an orange or that comedian, Citric the Entertainer.
"potassium bromide"
This pair of words has both "ass" and "bro" in them so you might think it has something to do with a Fraternity. In actuality, it's used to treat epilepsy in dogs. Which is weird because where did the epileptic dog come from and what's it doing in the dark room? Oh wait! It's also used in developing photos as it "improves differentiation between exposed and unexposed crystals of silver halide, and thus reduces fog" according to Stephen Anchell and Bill Troop in their fascinating book, The Film Developing Cookbook (which I did not read. I just got the quote from Wikipedia).
"ammonia"
This is also part of the magic solution which creates photos from light stained on glass. Oh, did I not mention that another thing I'm not an expert in is science and photography?
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