GR translation: chosen for its affinity for moonlight

[rich]

FWIW

I remember seeing old 1940s cartoons with airplanes like the DC-3 with big
smiley faces on them

rich

On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 7:28 AM, <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:

> 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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