NP Rainbow

[Dave Monroe]

>From Charles Hollander, "Pynchon's Politics: The
Presence of an Absence," Pynchon Notes 26-27
(Spring-Fall 1990): pp. 5-59 ...

   "The title Gravity's Rainbow provides a similar
example. Much as Pynchon leads readers from items in
the text to nearly adjacent items in extra-textual
sources, he also leads us from English to other
languages —in this case German, then to German
synonyms or homonyms (usually thematically loaded
ones), and back to English. If 'rainbow' is der
Regenbogen and 'gravity' is Gravität, then Gravity's
Rainbow becomes Der Regenbogen von Gravität: not too
gripping. But it happens that an idiomatic synonym for
'rainbow' (according to Cassell's) is Parabel, as in
'parabola'; and schwer is also 'gravity,' as in
Schwer-punkt, 'center of gravity.' It seems we are
getting somewhere, except Parabel von Schwer is not
exactly arresting —until we substitute for schwer its
alternative meaning, 'grave, serious, weighty,' and
find that Parabel also mean 'parable.' So for
Gravity's Rainbow, in-and-out-again of schwer parabel,
we get A Grave Parable. Style melds with substance in
a quintessentially Pynchonian penchant, the
polylingual pun."

http://www.vheissu.org/art/art_eng_SL_hollander.htm

--- Otto <ottosell at yahoo.de> wrote:
>
> The German translation for both is the same. This
> double meaning adds a nice extra-layer to the German
> translation of the novel.

Indeed it does ...
 
> > And, of course, a rainbow is neither a parable nor
> > a parabola.

Methinks I hear the grinding of axes ...


		
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