GR translation: firm among the stoneswept hair

Monte Davis montedavis at verizon.net
Wed Jul 11 04:04:58 CDT 2012


Tough one: P tests the limits of description whenever he talks about the
"watchers," those half-seen figures at the horizon, the angel over Lubeck,
the Kirghiz Light. 

 

I think "stoneswept" is his nonce word
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_word>  combining the fixity of stone and
the lightness/mobility of windswept hair. I picture it something like the
coiffures in this Arno Breker relief.
<http://cdn.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Breker_ApolloAnd
Daphne2.jpg>  

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Mike Jing
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 3:34 AM
To: Pynchon Mailing List
Subject: GR translation: firm among the stoneswept hair

 

P221.13-20  Nora still carries on her Adventure, her "Ideology of the Zero,"
firm among the stoneswept hair of the last white guardians at the last
stepoff into the black, into the radiant. . . . But where will Leni be now?
Where will she have wandered off to, carrying her child, and her dreams that
will not grow up? Either we didn't mean to lose her-either it was an
ellipsis in our care, in what some of us will even swear is our love, or
someone has taken her, deliberately, for reasons being kept secret, and
Sachsa's death is part of it too.

 

What is the meaning of "stoneswept" in "stoneswept hair"?

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