GR translation: sunfishing in the clouds

[David Morris]

The clunky way of translating it would be "looking and acting like a
sunfish."  But Pynchon shortens that by poetically "verbing" a noun
into "sunfishing."  I don't know if you have taht option in Chinese,
but it would be the truest way.

On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
> That may be so.  Unfortunately, it takes a translator more talented
> than I to avoid losing some of it in the translation.  I have to make
> a choice.  And the bucking horses are already unwieldy enough for me.
>
>
> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 1:59 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>> You are welcome, Mike. But I still believe the author wanted to convey
>> the motion of bucking, maybe even bucking sunfishes, maybe all three
>> meanings: bucking (nervous, cable strumming) sunfishes fishing for the
>> sun (between the clouds).
>>
>> J
>>
>> 2012/5/9 Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:
>>> That makes most sense.  Thanks all who responded.
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 6:59 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> That's a wonderful sentence, Mike, and in my opinion the author means
>>>> in that context (strummed cables, nervous) balloons acting like
>>>> horses, sunfishing like jumpy horses.
>>>>
>>>> J
>>>>
>>>> 2012/5/8 Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:
>>>>> P130.38-131.4   Tonight’s scratch choir was all male, epauletted
>>>>> shoulders visible under the wide necks of the white robes, and many
>>>>> faces nearly as white with the exhaustion of soaked and muddy fields,
>>>>> midwatches, cables strummed by the nervous balloons sunfishing in the
>>>>> clouds, tents whose lights inside shone nuclear at twilight, soullike,
>>>>> through the crosshatched walls, turning canvas to
>>>>> fine gauze, while the wind drummed there.
>>>>>
>>>>> What is "sunfishing"?  Fishing for the sun?  Or acting like sunfish?