Creeping Figs

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

hey, if it's still morning, it isn't really late!

Zoyd's a powerhouse compared to some amotivated slackers

also, in the translation, "Feigenblaetter" omits the "creeping"

my implicit trust in Pynchon means among other things that I've never researched what makes a fig "creeping" - I suppose it's a legitimate variant of fig - but as a reverie-prone reader, I tend to associate the "creepingness" of the fig with time creeping up on Zoyd's gentle daydreamy ways, and coupled with the bluejay's alarum, see it as a reminder of events moving on, memento mori and so forth

...but also as a reminder of the vegetable kingdom and how plants grow up around and between and in the structures we build, and also nature's "creeping" growth quietly renewing things when it can (even the hemp plants being burned)


-an amotivated slacker

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Otto [mailto:ottosell at googlemail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2006 04:38 AM
> To: 'Pynchon-L'
> Subject: Re: Creeping Figs
> 
> The translation kills that "inaccuracy" by adding a new sentence with
> a new subject after a komma, there it's the "sunlight" that is
> "oozing" or "leaking" through the fig leaves outside the window:
> 
> "Später als sonst dämmerte Zoyd Wheeler an einem Sommermorgen des
> Jahres 1984 aus dem Schlaf, hinein in ein Sonnenlicht, das durch die
> Feigenblätter vor dem Fenster sickerte  (...)." (7)
> 
> But what always struck me was that "Later than usual" -- as if we ever
> get a chance to see a "normal" day in Zoyd's life in the course of the
> novel!
> 
> And at what time we expect a hippie to get up normally? What is "late"?
> 
> Otto
> 
> 2006/9/16, Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com>:
> > Much as I love Vineland, and definitely *not* wishing to stir up the whole
> > political debate around it, I've always found the opening sentence quite
> > odd:
> >
> > "Later than usual one summer morning in 1984, Zoyd Wheeler drifted awake in
> > sunlight through a creeping fig that hung in the window, with a squadron of
> > blue jays..." etc.
> >
> > Ok, leaving everything else aside, does that 'in sunlight through' strike
> > anyone else as slightly jarring, as if we'd expect something else between
> > 'sunlight' and 'through'? Some variant on, say, 'in sunlight that', I dunno,
> > 'shone through', 'filtered through'.......?
> >
> > Any thoughts?
> >
> > Cheers
> > JC
> >
> >
> >
> 
>