GR translation: mirror-rotation of sorrow

[Laura Kelber]

Pokler sees his image, rotated 180 degrees in the mirror, and the image of the sorrow on his face, while it may be more palpable than what he's actually feeling, even making it seem more real, is still just an image, unable to pound on the glass, rage, etc., i.e. it's impotent. 

Laura

On Aug 21, 2013, at 3:51 PM, malignd at aol.com wrote:

> My read is that mirror rotation means that one is equivalent of the other.  One's inability act, to effect change (impotence) is the root or equivalent of sorrow, the only emotion available (as opposed to "let's fix this").  The reverse would be that sorrow creates an inability to act (by its emotional weight).  There may be other, better interpretations.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> To: Pynchon Mailing List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, Aug 21, 2013 5:07 pm
> Subject: GR translation: mirror-rotation of sorrow
> 
> V432.32-433.8  (p439.37-440.13)   The odors of shit, death, sweat, sickness, mildew, piss, the breathing of Dora, wrapped him as he crept in staring at the naked corpses being carried out now that America was so close, to be stacked in front of the crematoriums, the men’s penises hanging, their toes clustering white and round as pearls . . . each face so perfect, so individual, the lips stretched back into death-grins, a whole silent audience caught at the punch line of the joke . . . and the living, stacked ten to a straw mattress, the weakly crying, coughing, losers. . . . All his vacuums, his labyrinths, had been the other side of this. While he lived, and drew marks on paper, this invisible kingdom had kept on, in the darkness outside . . . all this time. . . . Pökler vomited. He cried some. The walls did not dissolve—no prison wall ever did, not from tears, not at this finding, on every pallet, in every cell, that the faces are ones he knows after all, and holds dear as himself, and cannot, then, let them return to that silence. . . . But what can he ever do about it? How can he ever keep them? Impotence, mirror-rotation of sorrow, works him terribly as runaway heartbeating, and with hardly any chances left him for good rage, or for turning. . . .
> 
> What is "mirror-rotation" referring to?  Also, what is the meaning of the "turning" at the end of this passage?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130821/6e5e5ef3/attachment.html>