[General] the ocean recedes leaving little pools

[Flogger]

Hello

I have problem with the grammatical rules applied to the following sentence. Hence, I first provide you with my own version and then I ask my questions.

The original text

The boulders show and seem to rise up and the ocean recedes leaving little pools, leaving wet weed and moss and sponge, iridescence and brown and blue and China red.

My version:

The boulders show and seem to rise up and the ocean recedes leaving little pools, wet weed, moss and sponge, iridescence, brown, blue and China red.

I cannot understand the necessity of the second "leaving" after comma! I even think that it is ungrammatical or a poorly structured clause. what do you think?

Is the first leaving, shown in blue color, due to the following trick used by the author? [recedes [STRIKE]and leave[/STRIKE] leaving little pools]. I mean the remove of "and" from the sentence.

source: Cannery Row Kindle Edition by John Steinbeck

 

[jutfrank]

It isn't the case that every word a writer uses is a necessity.

John Steinbeck was an excellent writer. You'd do well to assume he knew what he was doing, and think about why he may have done so.

 

[tedmc]

I think the second "leaving" is intended to separate the two categories of physical features that appear along the shore as the tide recedes - pools of water and the various living organisms distinguished by their characteristic hues.

Steinbeck was brought up in Monterey, on the Pacific coast of California where the novel, Cannery Row, was set, so he should know the place in intimate detail. He has written some classic novels, notably, The Grapes of Wrath and The Pearl.

 

[5jj]

I cannot understand the necessity of the second "leaving" after comma!

Neither can I.

 

[Tdol]

I cannot understand the necessity of the second "leaving" after comma! I even think that it is ungrammatical or a poorly structured clause. what do you think?

Steinbeck is using the repetition to create rhythm and movement through the sentence. He is an author, not someone setting out to create sentences that grammarians would quote. Your sentence runs into a pile-up, while his gives more space for the images to breathe and for us to absorb them. His commas group things into units, yours breaks them down into a list that is hard to follow. His use of and, while condemned by primary school teachers of yore, pounds away with style- he is a stylist, and his interests are artistic, not pedantic. He won the Nobel Prize for literature, not grammatical perfection. Just as songwriters often sacrifice grammar to fit tunes, writers may favour rhythm, music, emotion, etc, over grammatical purity.

 

[5jj]

John Steinbeck was an excellent writer. You'd do well to assume he knew what he was doing, and think about why he may have done so.

He is an author, not someone setting out to create sentences that grammarians would quote. [...]his interests are artistic, not pedantic. He won the Nobel Prize for literature, not grammatical perfection. Just as songwriters often sacrifice grammar to fit tunes, writers may favour rhythm, music, emotion, etc, over grammatical purity.

Flogger asked a question about 'grammatical rules'. I don't think that something written by a Nobel-winning great writer should be beyond question, as jutfrank seems to suggest, and tdol seems to explain away.

 

[jutfrank]

I agree of course that the repetition of leaving is not a grammatical necessity.

 

[Tdol]

But it is not ungrammatical, and Flogger does suggest that.

 

[5jj]

I agree.

 

[Tdol]

Flogger asked a question about 'grammatical rules'. I don't think that something written by a Nobel-winning great writer should be beyond question

I'd agree, though I'd give an exception to Samuel Beckett, whose job is to destroy language.