GR translation: her European darkness

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/20/2012 7:37 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> And perhaps. to add an oversimplified sentence to Kai's sentences: he 
> simply doesn't get her....
>
> *From:* Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> *To:* Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>; Pynchon Mailing List 
> <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, June 20, 2012 6:24 AM
> *Subject:* Re: GR translation: her European darkness
>
>
> On 20.06.2012 06:09, Mike Jing wrote:
>
> > P211.3-14  She shakes her head. He understands that it’s something
> > back in Holland, before Arnhem—an impedance permanently wired into the
> > circuit of themselves. How many ears smelling of Palmolive and Camay
> > has he crooned songs into, outside-the-bowling-alley songs,
> > behind-the-Moxie-billboard songs, Saturdaynight open-me-another-quart
> > songs, all saying, honey, it don’t matter where you’ve been, let’s not
> > live in the past, right now’s all there is. . . .
> > Fine for back there. But not in here, tapping on her bare shoulder,
> > peering in at her European darkness, bewildered with it, himself with
> > his straight hair barely combable and shaven face without a wrinkle
> > such a chaste intrusion in the Himmler-Spielsaal all crowded with
> > German-Baroque perplexities of shape...
> >
> > What does "her European darkness" refer to exactly?
> >
> >
>
> Perhaps there is no exact reference here.
> Perhaps the word "darkness" is primarily there for poetic reasons.
> It sounds very good in the sentence.
> Better than "weariness" or "decadence".
> Something like that it needs to contrast with the "straight hair barely
> combable and shaven face without a wrinkle such a chaste intrusion"
> of US origin.
> Immediately, "European darkness" refers back to "But now and then ...
> too insubstancial to get a fix on, there'll be in her face a look,
> something not in her control, that depresses him, that he's even
> dreamed about and so found amplified there to honest fright:
> the terrible chance that she might have been conned too."
> (pp. 207-8, Picador edition)
> So the "European darkness" Slothrop recognizes is at least partly
> a projection of his own fear and depression.
>
>
>
>
I think Kai's explanation and Mark's addition are very good.

Thinking of male American friends who had met European women during or 
shortly after the War, I can sort of see how the contrast say with 
American women might translate to 'darkness.'

The European women had been through so much--hunger,  death close at 
hand, lost hopes and prospects,  the necessary buying and selling that 
Katje knew.

Not to say American women had not been devastated by war as well, but it 
was different.

P





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120620/d2705b44/attachment.html>