GR translation: snarling inward toward that famous S-curve

[alice wellintown]

Also, what I love about his style is that it is natural, not contrived
as the academic experimentors tend to be--think Sukenick.

On 7/11/13, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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?****
>>>>
>>>
>