GR translation: with edges fine and combed as rain

[Mike Jing]

No problem.  I was just confused and thought "combed" might mean something
completely different that I didn't know about. But it clearly does not mean
"comb-shaped" here,


On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Ruth Flatscher <ruflatsch at gmail.com> wrote:

> hm, I'd definitely go for Bekah's mental images. Just I think the main
> aspect is not so much on the "straightening", but the resulting pattern of
> fine, more or less densely arranged parallel lines, like a comb's teeth...
> which kind of blurs or dissolves otherwise solid outlines.
> I also have to think of the old techniques for making those marbled book
> covers, which often involve the use of a comb... (like this:
> http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n0IU2yu_Tys/Te9VNLGPwxI/AAAAAAAAAGw/yVNaJSrIRls/s1600/Marmorieren+054+b.JPG).
> Not so unlike the effect of a rippling water surface on the shapes of a
> reflected landscape....
>
> (sorry for nit-picking, Mike. Maybe it's also just kind of strange for me
> because in German we have related but different words for "straightened
> with a comb" and "comb-shaped", while both meanings could apply in this
> context).
>
> best regards,
> Ruth
>
>
>
> On 13 March 2013 18:34, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, a most beautifully visual passage indeed.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 1:24 PM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>> That passage is very visual to me.    A very fine rain - really a rain,
>>>  not a drizzle -  will look like tiny little lines coming down. Reflections
>>> in a lake,  even a very, very smooth lake,  will have really tiny lines at
>>> the edges -   I can see it in my mind.  Minnesota lake with little cottages
>>> around - reflections in the totally "mirror smooth" lake except there are
>>> tiny,  tiny lines at the edges of the reflections.   Think of seeing your
>>> own reflection in the mirror-smooth lake.  The edges are just a bit off.
>>>
>>> Bekah
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 13, 2013, at 6:58 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > P272.29-36   The city below him, bathed now in a partial light, is a
>>> necropolis of church spires and weathercocks, white castle-keep towers,
>>> broad buildings with mansard roofs and windows glimmering by thousands.
>>> This forenoon the mountains are as translucent as ice. Later in the day
>>> they will be blue heaps of wrinkled satin. The lake is mirror-smooth but
>>> mountains and houses reflected down there remain strangely blurred, with
>>> edges fine and combed as rain: a dream of Atlantis, of the Suggenthal. Toy
>>> villages, desolate city of painted alabaster. . . .
>>> >
>>> > What does "combed" mean here?
>>>
>>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130315/c0d35a0d/attachment.html>