antw. pynchon enters german high-schools!

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

+ no big deal. it's a short (translated) passage from the third part of v's first chapter, starting with "profane sleeped that night at pigs's place down by the old ferry docks..." and coming to close with "'maybe,' said profane, 'we can try it next time with a fig leaf.'". (in my picador edition it's pp. 21-24). not sure that this will evoke the apropriate fascination among these days highschoolkids. taken the heat of nowadays political debates about terrorism, the near east conflict and jewish life in europe, their interest will probably focus not so much on rachel's mg yet on the da conho dude: "during the weeks that followed, when the head chef was looking the other way, da conho would assemble his machine gun, camouflage it with iceberg lettuce, watercress and belgian endive, and mock-strafe the guests assembled in the dining room. 'yibble, yibble, yibble,' he would go, squinting malevolent along the sights, 'got you dead center, abdul sayid. yibble, yibble, muslim pig.' da conho's machine gun was the only one in the world that went yibble, yibble. he would sit up past four in the morning cleaning it, dreaming of lunar-looking deserts, the sizzle of chang music, yemenite girls whose delicate heads were covered with white kerchief, whose loins ached with love. he wondered how american jews could sit vainglorious in that dining room meal after meal with only halfway round the world the desert shifted relentless over corpses of their own. how could he tell soulless stomachs? harangue with oil and vinegar, supplicate with heart of palm. the only voice he had was the machine gun's. could they hear that, can stomachs listen: no. and you never hear the one that gets you." man hört niemals die kugel, die einen erwischt. not many german high school teachers - believe that! - will feel ready to teach such text today ... so the probability that pynchon becomes essential part of the deutsche leitkultur is relatively low ... there's also a short (lousy) summary and a further-reading-recommendation: vineland and !
m&d. no bad advice. but wasn't there a big one in which germany plays a certain role?!
          
            oh, da nich'für: kai (while the stereo's pumping "alligatorsoup") +++          


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>>>                        "how many teachers reach all the kids in the classroom?" (guru)

played into my hands got an advertising booklet of the ernst klett schulbuchverlag (leipzig) which is a leading german publishing house for school-books. the brochure announces the forthcoming appearance of the following publication: "facetten (der modernen weltliteratur). ein lese-und arbeitsbuch deutsch für die oberstufe." the book is designed to be used for the german lessons of 16-19 year old high school kids. it contains translated samples of novels from people like rushdie, murakami, farah, márquez or duras. a-and america? is represented by don delillo, toni morrison & - tätärätä! - thomas pynchon. funny world map they have where the colored dots for don (pink), toni (blue) and thomas (red) are placed somewhere in the middle of the country which, strange enough, seems to suggest that pynchon is writing his books in wyoming ... [schnipp] <<<