GR translation: White Visitation

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/26/2011 9:42 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> The mental hospital/nut job connotation, while there, isn't the primary meaning of the phrase.  It's there, but it's unlikely that the first image that would enter a reasonably well-read person's mind is that of a mental hospital.  The primary connotation (I think) is the suggestion of a visit from the Virgin Mary (possibly the original historical meaning of the name of the then-hospital) with the ironic twist that any visitors to the current incarnation of the place are likely to be supernatural but non-religious (and therefore un-Christian).  I agree that Paul's approach (a non-literal translation of the name) is the best.  So perhaps something that evokes an ironic interaction of the Christian versus the non-Christian?

Yes, balance between the two seems definitely needed.

On the religious side of the equation "The White Visitation"  suggests 
to me, in addition to "The Visitation" of Luke's gospel,  the way 
devoted nuns in white habits (I see Deborah Kerr) might go about tending 
to (visiting) the sick in their rooms. I even see them carrying 
lanterns, or candles in bygone days, in the darkened wards, which brings 
in the ghostly aspect of it all.

Oddly, perhaps,  Pynchon does not get around to giving us much of a 
physical description of the place until the final paragraph of the 
section.  The eccentricities of the place are many.  And quite nutty.  
It is said that the place might almost have been built as a Folly.  
Folly is close to the word folle as in La Cage aux Folles.  Crazy in 
other words.

Certain religious features are also described, though strangely, 
perhaps, they are Methodist rather than Anglican or R.C.

P.
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>
>> Sent: Jun 26, 2011 7:11 AM
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Subject: Re: GR translation: White Visitation
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> I had a thought during the night.
>>
>> Is there a comical phrase in Chinese that means roughly what we mean in
>> the U.S. (and maybe Britain too) when we say "the men in the white coats
>> are coming to get you."  It means you're alarmingly psychotic and have
>> to be institutionalized.  That's the image I think I receive when I hear
>> "The White Visitation" in the context of what's going on in GR.  The
>> place formerly, in now sadly gone peacetime,  housed mental patients.
>> Now it houses another groups of nuts who are trying every possible
>> scheme they can think of to help win the war. Could you think up a place
>> name that would be suggestive of that?
>>
>> I do also hear the religious, devotional overtones of a care-giving
>> facility (like St. Verionica's) so if that could be worked in, all the
>> better.
>>
>> P
>>
>>
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