GR translation: sweat drops in the air

[Mark Kohut]

Speaking of Rilke and angels and Angels, I have just reread "Crying of Lot 49" again, he says, making a redundant point again
and once more and I think an obviously circumstantial speculative case might be made that Pynchon read (and read and felt and even self-translated)  Rilke after "V." but before Crying of Lot 49 as angels and Angels appear in it more than I'd ever noticed at any other reading nor remember from V. although
I haven't done what a thorough plister might do and do that checking of the word angels (and Angels) in "V." which both appear in C of L49 especially
a capped Angel which is what clued me into this insight---or gassy wasted bloviation.  

From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2011 12:13 PM
Subject: Re: GR translation: sweat drops in the air

The Norden was on the EG and was used to drop the bomb on Japan. It
had no humidity shield and was known for its accuracy and its
delicacy; Weisenburger provides a note worth looking at. The angel?
Now, who wrote that book on GR and Rilke? No, not Eddins....but his
book is a big help here....
Hohmann, Charles.  Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow: A Study of its
Conceptual Structure and of Rilke's Influence.  New York:  Peter Lang,
1986.

This book is invaluable to these episodes.



On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
> On 10/30/2011 4:46 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 2:33 AM, Mike Jing
>> <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Again, I completely misread the sentence.  So it is the Norden device
>>> that is "bewildered", is that correct?  The published translation
>>> seems to have got that part right.
>>>
>>>
>> so to speak...
>> anthropomorphizing the bombsight?
>> etymology of bewilder is "thoroughly led astray"
>> so if the bombsight's purpose is to sight where to drop the bombs, and
>> it isn't pointing toward the ground...
>>
>> which sort of relates to how the pattern recognition of Basher and his
>> wingman changes from perceiving a target to perceiving an angel
>>
>> but such leading astray from homicidal purposes is not necessarily a
>> bad thing...
>>
>>
>> then too remember the beginning of Vineland, where he talks about how
>> maybe an angel is composed of the lives and deaths of human beings (1s
>> and 0s)
>>
> Up until the angel sighting, the plane was probably under at least partial
> automatic control, with the Norden linked into the process.  Then all of a
> sudden that control gets wrested away, this being very puzzling to the
> Norden.
>
> P
>
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