GR translation: past such mild citrus light

David Payne dpayne1912 at hotmail.com
Wed Oct 26 13:37:58 CDT 2011


That is strange. If it helps anyone, here's the full paragraph:
 
She crosses the complex room dense with its supple hides, lemon-rubbed teak, rising snarls of incense, bright optical hardware, faded Central Asian rugs in gold and scarlet, hanging open-ribbed wrought-ironwork, a long, long downstage cross, eating an orange, section by acid section, as she goes, the faille gown flowing beautifully, its elaborate sleeves falling from very broadened shoulders till tightly gathered into long button-strung cuffs all in some nameless earth tone-a hedge-green, a clay-brown, a touch of oxidation, a breath of the autumnal-the light from the street lamps comes in through philodendron stalks and fingered leaves arrested in a grasp at the last straining away of sunset, falls a tranquil yellow across the cut-steel buckles at her insteps and streaks on along the flanks and down the tall heels of her patent shoes, so polished as to seem of no color at all past such mild citrus light where it touches them, and they refuse it, as if it were a masochist's kiss. Behind her steps the carpet relaxes ceilingward, sole and heel-shapes disappearing visibly slow out of the wool pile. A single rocket explosion comes thudding across the city, from far east of here, east by southeast. The light along her shoes flows and checks like af-
ternoon traffic. She pauses, reminded of something: the military frock trembling, silk filling-yarns shivering by crowded thousands as the chilly light slides over and off and touching again their unprotected backs. The smells of burning musk and sandalwood, of leather and spilled whisky, thicken in the room.
 
(http://www.e-reading.org.ua/chapter.php/1002432/31/Pynchon_-_Gravity_rainbow.html)

----------------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 02:52:54 -0400
> Subject: GR translation: past such mild citrus light
> From: gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>
> P151.36-37 ..., so polished as to seem of no color at all past such
> mild citrus light where it touches them, ...
>
> Does this mean that the shoes seem to be of no color at all except
> where the light touches them and then they takes on a little color
> from the light? Am I understanding the word "past" correctly? 		 	   		  


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