GRGR (17): german samples

[rj]

rj/kfl
> >Or is it
> > a refusal of the masculinisation implicit in moving from "Rakete" to
> > "Raketen". Rocketman, on the model of Plasticman: beyond gender? (I'd
> > say all of the above.)
> 
>   uh, difficult. in german, the word "rakete" is feminine in all possible cases.

Yes. But mensch is a masculine word (though not denotation), which I
assume is why there is a problem with the combination of the two parts.
So maybe it's an implied gender balance (the act of naming ... etc), a
superhero who is neither male nor female but contains both genders at
once. But I'm willing to give this one up.

> > I think if Mr Pynchon was made aware of errors in translation, enough so
> > to correct one (Der --> Die Meistersinger), then he would have corrected
> > them all. 
> 
>   that's not 'conclusive' to me. i mean, the original titles of wagner's operas 
>   are somehow standardized trademarks. one probably finds them in each & every 
>   general lexikon. most of the other, well, problematic cases (- getting more 
>   and more cautious ...) are far more complicated.

With the sheer volume of readers *GR* had on publication, I think such
"errors" would have been pointed out pretty quickly by Mr P's
associates/fans/knockers. Just in terms of the protocol of making
editorial changes (not correcting typos, of course), someone would have
asked the author. For all the editor knew Mr P could have been
reinventing Wagner's opera (in the image of Crutchfield's "little
pards", for example, "one each of everything" 68-9), or for whatever
reason -- the lines between fiction and fact are not so clearcut that an
editor would touch something like this with absolute assurance I think.
I'd agree with your cautiousness, however, but I don't think it's
necessary to always swallow what have come to be the critical
conventions. Let's take each case as it comes.

s
> But then Enzian, if not Slothrop, would have
> known the literal meaning you give here...

Slothrop's German's OK though, probably just as good as Enzian's, if not
better. (See 240.3-8, 242.5-15, 286.9)

pablo
> there is never anything judgemental or
> interpretive about someone's pointing out such things in the text as
> anachromisms,  misspellings, departures from the historic record,
> nonidiomatic or ungrammatical renderings of a foreign language.

Have there been *any* of these so far, though? I'd say no. And pointing
out when such observations are incorrect likewise carries no value
judgement. But if you want to label them as errors that's OK by me too. 

(A Porsche by any other name ... Actually, I'm glad I found that picture
because it adds to the visual experience. Slothrop's exaggerated
paranoia is almost self-parodic 379-380; he can hardly believe the
situation he's gotten himself into. The paranoiac state, interestingly
enough, descends on him not as a component of drug reverie but when he's
away from the communal setting of the kif circle. He's cold stone
straight here as he approaches the superhighway after a hard day's
trekking, and it's when he's by himself that his dread that They are out
to get him returns. He reverts to fantasies -- movies, comic books (or
like those girlstars on his London map) -- as his only way to get
through this onset of a psychosis which will paralyse his momentum if he
lets it. He imagines the 30s racing car drivers he's seen in newsreels
380.6, German daredevils, the crowds in the stands (us) living the
thrill and tragedy vicariously, and then, letting that "lean grey
Porsche whir by", he leaps and charges, evading *one* jeep, and does the
melodramatic roll onto the median strip like some comicbook superhero,
by which time he is starting, almost, to believe in it all himself.
"Hey! Leaps broad highways in a single bound!" And, has the strength and
courage to continue.)

best