GR translation: chosen for its affinity for moonlight

[rich]

no Disney but Looney Tunes for sure. well-grounded in the latter really
helped me understand Pynchon better (and life in general)--dialect,
cross-dressing, anarchic wonderful buffoonery, yup more of that please

On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 11:45 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>wrote:

> Me too <http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1538R-55016>, but
> bandwraith’s right: organic/animal/sexual connections with hardware,
> human/technological hybrids and chimeras and Bad Priests, have almost
> always been bad news in Pynchon since Rachel Owlglass’s dalliance with the
> MG stick shift and Benny Profane’s tete-a-tetes with SHOCK and SHROUD. I’m
> wary of “evil technology,” but evil  **relationships** with technology
> abound.****
>
> ** **
>
> A-and “Disney-like” is anything but a sign of benevolence… ‘cause foax,
> when Tyrone or the narrator drops us into a weekly strip, comic book, or
> animated cartoon, a-and talks like an excitable slangy 1940s teenager, why
> that’s when you REALLY gotta watch yer moral ass!
>
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] *On
> Behalf Of *rich
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 13, 2013 11:09 AM
> *To:* bandwraith at aol.com
> *Cc:* pynchon-l at waste.org
> *Subject:* Re: GR translation: chosen for its affinity for moonlight****
>
> ** **
>
> 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?****
>
> ** **
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130313/22627f1b/attachment.html>