GR translation: snarling inward toward that famous S-curve

[alice wellintown]

The short and non-technical answer is that P is not a journalist, but
an American author who writes in a style like his great masters,
writers like Melville and Hawthorne, and  so he prefers the dash. He
loves the overstuffed sentence that grammar geeks and journalists find
awkward and confusing. It's his style.

On 7/11/13, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Terrif.....Wood-like.
> I have little time for this discussion on the list but isn't one
> perspective: why isn't there a comma after Slothrop?
>
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 8:12 AM
> Subject: Re: GR translation: snarling inward toward that famous S-curve
>
>
> I'm curious. How does the other translator deal with this passage? It
> is certainly difficult, though I wouldn't characterize the phrase
> Monte has labeled "awkward" as awkward, but rather typical Pynchon,
> Monte's suggestion works for me. That is, move the phrase between the
> comma and the dash (",promising a lively sprint for Slothrop--"),
> perhaps, to the beginning of the sentence, and we have almost the same
> meaning.
>
> But the structure of the passage is so typical of Pynchon's style that
> it seems to me that if one is going to characterize it, or even a part
> of it, as "awkward" or as having an "awkwardly inserted"  phrase or
> whatever, then one is going to have to fix or edit a materpiece,
> re-arrange hundreds off such passages, thousands of sentences.
> Moreover, P continues to write with these "awkwardly inserted"
> phrases, so it seems that he, and his editors, don't think of them as
> awkward or in need of revision.
>
> A minor quibble, sure. But, while I agree with Monte's reading of it,
> and with his solution, for getting at the meaning, moving the phrase
> also alters, ever so slightly, the meaning of the original. How slight
> is the alteration?  Well, it's the kind of change that Wood, the
> famous English critic, who would fix Pynchon's style by re-arranging
> the use, Wood would say, abuse, of the free indirect. Here, of course,
> we have the author's free indirect causing some confusion because
> some, as MalignD has, will misread the passage because P has elected
> to place the "snarling" cars as close to Slothrop, on the page, and in
> the mind of the character, as possible. It works, brilliantly. The
> author wants the reader to experience Slothrop's difficulty navigating
> the dangerous crossing of the highway, wants the reader to experience
> the paranoia in THEY and THEM, somehow controlling the system of cars,
> and to experience the allusion to Opel and so forth, through
> Slothrop's paranois point of view. Moving the "awkward" phrase may
> clear up some ambiguity that, a closer reading resolves without
> editing, but at a price.
>
> On 7/10/13, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>> OK.  The other translation is totally off then.  Thanks, Monte.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 12:48 PM, Monte Davis
>> <montedavis at verizon.net>wrote:
>>
>>> “Snarling” (like the later ”shrieking”) works for the noise of racing
>>> automobile engines, and “inward” reinforces the idea from the sentence
>>> before your quotation:****
>>>
>>> ** **
>>>
>>> “The drivers are out tonight because They need them where they are,
>>> forming a deadly barrier.” ****
>>>
>>> ** **
>>>
>>> Something is drawing traffic in from all over Berlin.****
>>>
>>> ** **
>>>
>>> Maybe it’s the awkwardly inserted “promising a lively sprint for
>>> Slothrop”
>>> that causes trouble – read the passage without that, or move it
>>> elsewhere,
>>> and it’s clear enough.****
>>>
>>> ** **
>>>
>>> *From:* owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] *On
>>> Behalf Of *Mike Jing
>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 10, 2013 8:33 AM
>>> *To:* Pynchon Mailing List
>>> *Subject:* GR translation: snarling inward toward that famous S-curve****
>>>
>>> ** **
>>>
>>> P386.9-16  Amateur Fritz von Opels all over the place here, promising a
>>> lively sprint for Slothrop snarling inward toward that famous S-curve
>>> where
>>> maniacs in white helmets and dark goggles once witched their wind-faired
>>> machinery around the banked brick in shrieking drifts (admiring eyes of
>>> colonels in dress uniforms, colonels’ ladies in Garbo fedoras, all safe
>>> up
>>> in their white towers yet belonging to the day’s adventure, each waiting
>>> for his own surfacing of the same mother-violence underneath . . .).****
>>>
>>> Who or what is doing the "snarling" here?****
>>>
>>