GR translation: For all Slothrop knows he's an agronomist

[Mark Kohut]

Nice...somehow seems nuancedly important about Slothrop. He's lots cipher
even before he turns into one? 


----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Cc: 
Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2012 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: GR translation: For all Slothrop knows he's an agronomist

On 7/5/2012 11:19 AM, Monte Davis wrote:
> Correct: "For all X knows,  the world may be flat or tubular or pyramidal"
> means "X has no information that would help him choose among these
> possibilities."


It may be too obvious to note (but I'll do it anyway) that, apart from 
the strangeness of the stopwatch and notetaking, Slothrop himself--as 
far as we are told--doesn't have a thought in the world about any of 
it?  The paragraph is 90 percent about what S would NOT be able to 
fathom about Sir Stephen, even if he were to try.

P
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
> Of Mike Jing
> Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 9:28 AM
> To: Pynchon Mailing List
> Subject: GR translation: For all Slothrop knows he's an agronomist
>
> P214.8-21  During the lessons he will often look over and catch Sir Stephen
> Dodson-Truck consulting a stopwatch and taking notes. Jeepers.
> He wonders what that's all about. Never occurs to him it might have to do
> with these mysterious erections. The man's personality was chosen- or
> designed-to sidetrack suspicions before they have a chance to gather speed.
> Winter sunlight hitting half his face like a migraine, trouser cuffs out of
> press, wet and sandy because he's up every morning at six to walk along the
> strand, Sir Stephen makes perfectly accessible his disguise, if not his
> function in the conspiracy. For all Slothrop knows he's an agronomist, a
> brain surgeon, a concert oboist-in that London you saw all levels of command
> seething with these multidimensional geniuses. But as with Katje, there
> hangs about Dodson-Truck's well-informed zeal an unmistakable aura of the
> employee and loser. . . .
>
> The part: "For all Slothrop knows he's an agronomist, a brain surgeon, a
> concert oboist", this is just speculation, Slothrop does not know it as a
> fact, is that correct?
>
> I am fairly certain the published translation is wrong again, but I just
> want to be absolutely sure.
>
>