Pynchon Interview Playboy Japan -- Translation Questions

[Tim Strzechowski]

From: <barbara100 at jps.net>

> Well as many have also said here, David, you're lame, lame, lame!
> Thanks, Tim, for fulfilling your promise and for your effort. Did you post
part 1 yet? I must have missed it. How did you come by this translation? I
take it you don't actually read Japanese. Or do you?

I scored a copy from a lister last year.  No, I do not speak Japanese, but I
knew I could pass this along to a friend who does and he'd be able to
translate it for me.  He's not an avid literature reader, and isn't a fan of
Pynchon in any way, so when his translation came to me with references to
paranoia and the final quip, I kinda figured something must be to this
piece; it's not the sort of thing my translator would have known about.

> In a translation so rough, I can't see any stylistic nuances that mark it
Pynchonian, but what it's essentially saying, absolutely--the need of an
enemy,  the money trails in politics, the poor's (justified) hatred of the
rich, the easy shift between points of view--all sounds like Pynchon to me.

I agree ... acknowledging the whole time, of course, that it *is* in
translation!

Tim