GR translation: chosen for its affinity for moonlight

[bandwraith at aol.com]

A couple,  three things. This passage is pathetic in the technical sense:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathetic_fallacy

Airplanes do not have affinities or kind expressions on their faces. Don't take me the wrong way, I love the line, "affinity for moonlight, the kind expression on its windowed face," but the reference is to an inanimate machine. So, it is either very nostalgic, or Disney-like in its embrace of technology. The DC-3 was/is a great plane, but we shouldn't let our appreciation of classic technology carry us too far away from the trajectory of the novel. 

The image of Slothrop "curled among the cargo, metal darkness, engine vibration through his bones...," if not raising alarm bells, should at least be a nudge from beyond, pre-figuring, as it does, a more advanced metallic womb with tanks of LOX and a self-contained engine.

Not sure if you want to work such interpretive considerations into your translation, which may have the effect of opening the text to many different possibilities. For example, is Pynchon setting up a dichotomy between "good" technology and "evil" technology, or, at least the good and evil potential of technology, in general, as he does with magic- as he does with everything from consciousness to orgasm, for that matter? 

Then there is that fellow, later on, who regresses into a piano- another highly evolved form of technology- perhaps an indication of how the more gentle, smurf-like folk of the counterforce, work out their inter-generational conflicts, just to throw in another perspective on nostalgia and technology.

Take these musings for what you will, but you might be interested in the different ways in which this novel has kept me interested over the years. 




-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
To: Pynchon Mailing List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, Mar 12, 2013 5:35 am
Subject: GR translation: chosen for its affinity for moonlight



P269.20-23  The plane is a battered DC-3, chosen for its affinity for moonlight, the kind expression on its windowed face, its darkness inside and outside. He wakes up curled among the cargo, metal darkness, engine vibration through his bones . . .


What does "its affinity for moonlight" mean exactly?  Does it mean it often flies at night, or something else?



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