Positive Redundacy: The Everlasting Story Of Nory

Positive Redundancy

Since the border controls were lax at several points, the result was that the smugglers were successfully able to move the contraband into the neighboring country.
. The phrase “the result was that” is not necessary. The structure of the sentence, beginning with “Since” and ending with an independent clause, already tells us that the second clause will reveal the “result” of the sentence.
Since the border controls were lax at several points, the smugglers were successfully able to move the contraband into the neighboring country
Interest in everyone he encounters, in their lives and feelings, has led to Joe’s encounters with not only many interesting strangers but also a few which are very dull to him.
The following examples how Redundancy could enhance the Literature
“Nory was a Catholic because her mother was a Catholic, and Nory’s mother was a Catholic because her father was a Catholic, and her father was a Catholic because his mother was a Catholic, or had been.” Nicholson Baker, The Everlasting Story of Nory
Six repetitions in this sentence! Catholic is repeated six times, and by the end, it’s actually funny. That’s really important about repetition — it’s essential for humor. So many jokes rely upon repeating the same word in different ways. In fact, in the stand-up comedy world, there’s a term for it: A Callback. It’s when you reference a joke that you made earlier in a new context, and through that repetition it’s funny in a whole new way.
But what makes this sentence great is the ending. Those last three words, which break the tense of the previous 6 verbs (was, was, was, was …) and then “had been.” Ha! The father was a Catholic simply because his mother was formerly a Catholic.

2. “I felt happy because I saw the others were happy and because I knew I should feel happy, but I wasn’t really happy.” Roberto Bolano,