Gothicism in Postmodern Anglo-American Narratives and Media

[jbor at bigpond.com]

As it's written. The translator told the guy who wrote the article that 
he found the title _Gravity's Rainbow_ somewhat meaningless. There's 
nothing there about convincing Pynchon that the title was meaningless.

Not being fluent in German I'm not qualified to comment on the 
rewriting of the title for the German version of the novel. But I 
suspect that in a literal translation of the title from English to 
German some of the denotations of the word "gravity" are lost, for 
example, and that the phrase itself ends up somewhat bland and 
one-dimensional (and, yes, meaningless). My guess is that the 
translator went for the pun on "parabel" because it opened up 
connotations and possibilities of meaning in the same way that the 
phrase "Gravity's Rainbow" does in English. I agree that it's likely 
that Pynchon approved (of) the translated title. And I agree that all 
translations are, in the first instance, interpretations.

best

On 20/08/2005, at 9:07 PM, Otto wrote:

> How do you read it?
>
> jbor at bigpond.com wrote:
>
>> Sorry, it doesn't imply that at all.
>>
>> best
>>
>>> The way it is said here seems to imply that Thomas Piltz had 
>>> convinced Pynchon that the title "Gravity's Rainbow" is "somewhat 
>>> meaningless" which of course is nonsense.
>>
>>
>>>> The (adequate) German translation of
>>>> the book (publ. by Rowohlt Publ.) bears the florid title /Die Enden 
>>>> der
>>>> Parabel/ ('the ends of the parable/ parabola') because the 
>>>> translator
>>>> (as he admitted to me (H.U.M.) found Pynchon's title somewhat 
>>>> meaningless.
>>>> http://webdoc.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic97/mohr/4_97.html
>>>
>>
>>
>