GR translation: more steeply than the waking will ever need

[Monte Davis]

Nowhere better or more explicit than in the Himmler-Spielsaal at the Casino
Hermann Goering -- where, as Paul sez, Slothrop is catching on, and where
TRP's wonderfully ambiguous/transitional voice draws attention to its own
coding:

Deserted in noon's lull, here are resonant reaches of mahogany, green baize,
hanging loops of maroon velvet. Long-handled wood money rakes lie fanned out
on the tables. Little silver bells with ebony handles are turned mouth-down
on the russet veneer. Around the tables, Empire chairs are lined up precise
and playerless. But some are taller than the rest. These are no longer quite
outward and visible signs of a game of chance. There is another enterprise
here, more real than that, less merciful, and systematically hidden from the
likes of Slothrop. Who sits in the taller chairs? Do They have names? What
lies on Their smooth baize surfaces?
	Brass-colored light seeps in from overhead. Murals line the great
room: pneumatic gods and goddesses, pastel swains and shepherdesses, misty
foliage, fluttering scarves . . . . Everywhere curlicued gilt festoonery
drips-from moldings, chandeliers, pillars, window frames . . . scarred
parquetry gleams under the skylight . . . From the ceiling, to within a few
feet of the tabletops, hang long chains, with hooks at the ends. What hangs
from these hooks?
	For a minute here, Slothrop, in his English uniform, is alone with
the paraphernalia of an order whose presence among the ordinary debris of
waking he has only lately begun to suspect.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Markekohut
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 12:57 PM
To: Paul Mackin
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: GR translation: more steeply than the waking will ever need

Nice..".perceptible signs of a different order".....a phrase that could have
come from Crying of Lot 49 and yes to double meaning (at least) 

Sent from my iPad

On Oct 29, 2012, at 11:51 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:

> On 10/29/2012 8:28 AM, Markekohut wrote:
>> Perhaps all, each and every object? The contrast between order and
randomness.
> 
> Slothrop senses some kind of disruption in the randomness of the room--a
Maxwell's Demon perhaps. The room is "coded." There are perceptible signs of
a different order.  Order is double meaning here.  There is the order (or
lack of order) in the arrangement or rearrangement of objects, but  also
there seems to be a Secret Order--the kind of order that takes oaths.
Another Order.
> 
> Consider the use of the word "debris" in the book--it occurs 27
times--first time by Sloat in observing Slothrup' s desk.  It's a godawful
mess, completely random, without significance to Sloat's spy mission. Except
for one thing--the map of London tacked over the desk--it does seem to have
meaning, relevance.  It's coded. Sloat snaps it with his spy camera.
> 
> Sloat is still watching Slothrup at the Casino.  Only this time it's
Slothrop who is beginning to Observe.
> 
> He's not in Kansas anymore.  The normal, waking world is not a closed
system.  It's been penetrated.
> 
> P
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> On Oct 28, 2012, at 10:23 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:
>> 
>>> I should really have searched my own email before firing that one off.
>>> But this discussion of "the waking' is giving me new ideas.  Now I 
>>> am thinking of the act of waking up from a dream, and the lingering 
>>> images from the dream, which can be thought of as some kind of 
>>> "debris".  Or is it actual debris floating and turning in the wake 
>>> of a boat?  I may have finally gone off the deep end here.
>>> 
>>> Anyway, it seems reasonable to assume that "the ordinary debris of 
>>> waking" are the ordinary, everyday objects around Slothrop.  Now the 
>>> question becomes, which objects belong to "the paraphernalia of an 
>>> order whose presence he has only lately begun to suspect"?
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 3:05 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>> 2012/10/28 Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:
>>>>> On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 10:56 PM, David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>
wrote:
>>>>>> Although see how "waking" is used on p. 205..12::
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> "For a minute here, Slothrop, in his English uniform, is alone with
the paraphernalia of an order whose presence among the ordinary debris of
waking he has only lately begun to suspect."
>>>>> That reminds me, what are these "ordinary debris of waking" anyway?
>>>> Until now I thought Laura had the right answer (from the 12th of June):
>>>> 
>>>> It's a nice thought experiment: you're sitting in a cluttered, 
>>>> really messy room, because you're pretty much of a slob (the room's 
>>>> filled with "the ordinary debris of waking.").  But then you're 
>>>> told (Slothrop only suspects) that someone has selected certain 
>>>> items in the room and moved them, slightly, without your knowledge, 
>>>> for purposes beyond your understanding ("Their" order) .  Which
objects?
>>>> Why?  That's how Slothrop feels.
>>>> 
>>>> Seems still plausible to me.
>>>> 
>>>> Perhaps we should ask Max what he made of the two wakings in his
translation?
>