GR translation: What did I make of him?

[Paul Mackin]

On 4/29/2012 7:56 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:


> Bekah has right synonyms..........
> with, if one looks it up, the added nuance that one constructs the notion
> mentally...one doesn't just think it like a Platonic idea or as if one was 'getting' something totally outside one's mind....
>
> 1. to interpret as the meaning of--- what do you make of this news?
>
> Some might argue it is a postmodern tidbit......
>




If the question is really in the past tense (did) as it seems to be then 
I see three possibilities

Back then, who did I think he was

Back then, what kind of person did I think he was

What kind of person have I made him into (as a parent or mentor)

If the prior paragraph was more decipherable we might be able to choose 
a single meaning

In other words, the answer is behind me and not closing in very fast.

P

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Bekah<bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> To: Mike Jing<gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> Cc: Pynchon Mailing List<pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 11:57 PM
> Subject: Re: GR translation: What did I make of him?
>
> "What did I make of him?"  =    "What did I think of him?"  or  "What did I understand him to be like?"
>
> Bek
>
>
> On Apr 28, 2012, at 8:20 PM, Mike Jing wrote:
>
>> Maybe I am not being clear.  What is the meaning of "make of" here?
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 12:10 AM, Mike Jing
>> <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> P102.21  ... Tonight he feels the potency of every word: words are
>>> only an eye-twitch away from the things they stand for. The peril of
>>> buggering the boy under the resonance of the sacred Name fills him
>>> insanely with lust, lust in the face—the mask— of instant talion from
>>> outside the fire . . . but to the boy Ndjambi Karunga is what happens
>>> when they couple, that’s all: God is creator and destroyer, sun and
>>> darkness, all sets of opposites brought together, including black and
>>> white, male and female . . . and he becomes, in his innocence, Ndjambi
>>> Karunga’s child (as are all his preterite clan, relentlessly, beyond
>>> their own history) here underneath the European’s sweat, ribs,
>>> gut-muscles, cock (the boy’s own muscles staying fiercely tight for
>>> what seems hours, as if he intends to kill, but not a word, only the
>>> long, clonic, thick slices of night that pass over their bodies).
>>>                  What did I make of him? Captain Blicero knows that the
>>> African at this moment is halfway across Germany, deep in the Harz,
>>> and that, should the Oven this winter close behind him, why they have
>>> already said auf Wiedersehen for the last time. ...
>>>
>>> What's the meaning of the question: "What did I make of him?"
>