GR translation: opening as they were moved into new white abyss

[David Morris]

We know how Pynchon feels about pigs...

http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=%22Basher%22_St._Blaise

Saint Blaise (d. c.316) was an early Christian bishop and martyr in
Armenia. One of the most popular medieval saints, he was solemnly
venerated as the patron saint of sufferers from throat diseases.
Although Christianity had been adopted c. 300 as the state religion in
Armenia, the Roman emperor Licinius began a persecution of the
Christians, and Blaise was taken prisoner. While in prison he
miraculously cured a boy from fatally choking. After being torn with
wool combers' irons, Blaise was beheaded.

Ah, but here's the kicker. St. Blasius (as the Germans call him) is
always depicted holding the head of a pig. A wolf stole a widow's pig,
whereupon Blasius called the wolf back and compelled it to return the
pig, alive, to the widow. When St. Blasius was imprisoned, the widow
slaughtered the pig to feed the saint and brought the pig's head to
him.

This passage has provoked lots of commentary:

http://alturl.com/d2hzx
The Style of Connectedness: Gravity's Rainbow and Thomas Pynchon

http://alturl.com/ryj78
Romantic Postmodernism in American Fiction

http://alturl.com/xvuyw
Lines of Flight: Discursive Time and Countercultural Desire in the
Work of Thomas Pynchon

designate
vb [ˈdɛzɪgˌneɪt] (tr)
1. to indicate or specify
2. to give a name to; style; entitle
3. to select or name for an office or duty; appoint

The Angel is designating the bombing of civilian Lubeck by its
presence, by being seen by the bombers.  The event is designated as a
significant one because it is the provocation for Hitler to send the
V-2s into London as retaliation.

As to the specifics of words like "wings," it seems intentionally
indeterminate.  Are these the Angel's wings, or the planes? It's
important to remember that these descriptions are received from the
Other side by Cherrycoke:  "Often he thinks the sheer volume of
information pouring in through his fingers will saturate, burn him
out..."  There is not only information overload, but also many
different versions of the Angel, for instance.  That description
applies also to all of the text of GR.

David Morris

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 1:34 AM, Mike Jing
<gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
> P153.23-30   Basher St. Blaise’s angel, miles beyond designating,
> rising over Lübeck that Palm Sunday with the poison-green domes
> underneath its feet, an obsessive crossflow of red tiles rushing up
> and down a thousand peaked roofs as the bombers banked and dived, the
> Baltic already lost in a pall of incendiary smoke behind, here was the
> Angel: ice crystals swept hissing away from the back edges of wings
> perilously deep, opening as they were moved into new white abyss. . .
> .
>
> Why are the wings described as "perilously deep"?  I assume these are
> the wings of the bombers, am I right?  What exactly is this "new white
> abyss"?  And I assume it is the ice crystals that are "opening", is
> that correct?