GRGR: TRP's French WAS Re: Une or un (Was: Paris Visit)

[Paul Mackin]

Since Slothrop was in Monaco for a matter of months  (wasn't he)
it shoulda been 'un congE au casino Hermann Goering, n'est-ce pas? But
seriously, my Mansion seems to say that 'un permissionaire' mentioned
by Doug tends to suggest an even shorter  time than 'une permission,' the
former being akin to 'liberty' (in the Navy where I was) where you are
allowed away for a matter of hours or at most a weekend, perhaps needing
to be back to the ship or base by midnight. Perhaps P was being funny or
something.

				P.



On Sun, 29 Aug 1999, Doug Millison wrote:

> It may not be a mistake. It's been a few years since I got my degree in
> French, so I checked the Petit Robert. It's quite possible that with Un
> Perm' Pynchon abbreviates "un permissionnaire", a masculin noun that means
> (my translation from the Petit Robert dictionary) "a soldier on leave"
> ("soldat en permission").  Thus, "Un Perm' " would refer to Slothrop, a
> soldier on leave.  According to the Petit Robert, when used to mean
> "leave" in the military sense", the feminine noun "permission" has an
> abbreviation that is used in familiar speech, and that's "perme", also
> feminine. (As the usage example  for this abbreviation, the Robert
> delightfully offers a line from Proust:  "Le restaurant ou j'avais dine
> avec Saint-Loup, un soir de perme.")
> 
> I'd say Pynchon has it right, and suggest that the French translator got it
> wrong in trying to make an unwarranted correction. I have heard that the
> French translation of GR is not very go od, although I haven't read it
> myself.  Meg?
> 
> 
> 
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