Newbie needs help with "Gravity's Rainbow"

[Dave Monroe]

On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 1:07 AM, Mike Jing <mikezjing at hotmail.com> wrote:

>> > 3. What about "...your sound will be the sizzling night..."? Is it
>> > supposed to be poetic? Out of the mouth of a bum?
>>
>> ... a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma wrapped inside a
>> Pynchon novel, alas. One of The Great Pynchonian Enigmas, even.
>
> Oh, lovely.  A translator's worst nightmare.

... fortunately, there are a few of Pynchon's translators here, plus
those who've read him in translation, so ..

>> > P.S.  Some background information:  English is a second language to me,
>> > although I have been living in North America for almost 20 years.  I am also
>> > trying to translate the book into Chinese so that I can share it with my
>> > mother who doesn't know any English.  There is already a Chinese translation
>> > published a couple of years ago, but as you might expect, it's full of
>> > errors of all kinds.
>>
>> Hoo, boy. Meanwhile, I have a Chinese trans. of The Crying of Lot 49.
>> Know of and/or anything about it?
>
> I haven't yet read The Crying of Lot 49, so I haven't been looking for a
> Chinese translation.  So you know Chinese?

... only in food form, alas.  However ...