Die Science Faction des Thomas Pynchon

[Otto]

Hi Michael,

re-reading that episode from _on the phrase "Ass backwards"_ on p. 683-84 I
admit that I don't think it's that awful:

"Säure got a lotta gall picking on other people's language like this. One
night, back when he was a second-story man, he had the incredible luck to
break into the affluent home of Minne Khlaetsch, an astrologer of the
Hamburg School, who was, congenitally it seems, unable to pronounce, even
perceive, umlauts over vowels. That night she was just coming on to what
would prove to be an overdose of Hieropon, when Säure, who back in those
days was a curly-haired and good-looking kid, surprised her in her own
bedroom with his hand around an ivory chess Läufer with a sarcastic smile on
its face, and filled with good raw Peruvian cocaine still full of the
Earth-- "Don't call for help," advises Säure flashing his phony acid bottle,
"or that pretty face goes flowing off of its bones like vanilla pudding."
But Minne calls his bluff, starts hollering for help to all the ladies of
the same age in her building who feel that same motherly 'help help but make
sure there's time for him to rape me' ambivalence about nubile cat burglars.
What she means to scream is "Hübsch Räuber! Hübsch Räuber!" which means
"Cute-looking robber! Cute-looking robber!" But she can't pronounce those
umlauts. So it comes out "Hubschrauber! Hubschrauber!" which means
"Helicopter! Helicopter!" well, it's 1920-something, and nobody in earshot
even knows what the word means, Liftscrewer, what's that? nobody except one
finger-biting paranoid aerodynamics student in a tenement courtyard far
away, who heard the scream late in Berlin night (...)."

Otto

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael J. Hußmann" <michael at michael-hussmann.de>
To: "Pynchon Liste" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2005 2:40 AM
Subject: Re: Die Science Faction des Thomas Pynchon


Richard Romeo (r.romeo at atlanticphilanthropies.org) wrote:

> Unlike say Joyce, Pynchon has a great knack for using a foreign word,
> phrase or term and then in due course translating the meaning without
> interrupting the narrative in any way.
> I like that about him

Well ... the German in Gravity's Rainbow reads like it was translated
word by word, and by someone who disn't speak German at all. His attempts
at word-play in German are just awful ("hübsch Räuber"/"Hubschrauber" for
example). He even admitted to the careless mis-use of a foreign phrase
such as "grippe espagnole" in "Slow Learner", and I would say he was just
as careless when inventing "German" words or phrases in GR.

- Michael


Michael J. Hußmann

E-mail: michael at michael-hussmann.de
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