GR translation: his hundred glass bureaus about the SS circuit

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Another tough one, Mike. Some of Pynchon's sentences are so difficult to parse, that at times one has to suppose he's daubing words on the page experimentally, rather than etching them with precision. So my initial gut interpretation (which I have no reason to suppose is correct)is that the bureaus are official government bureaus, though minor ones, scattered through the SS circuit (bureaucracy). Why glass? Because they're about to be shattered into so many sparkling sequins by the Allied tidal wave. Because their functions are transparent and innocuous (Bureau of Train-ticket Refunds) rather than hidden and nefarious (Bureau of Assets Relocation). And there's a nice symmetry between Kristallnacht at the beginning, and this final (metaphorical, but in some instances, real)shattering of the Nazi government at the end of the war.

But Bekah's reading may be more on target.

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
>Sent: May 24, 2013 11:42 AM
>To: Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>Cc: Pynchon Mailing List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: GR translation: his hundred glass bureaus about the SS circuit
>
>My only guess is that the hundred glass bureaus are just cabinets with segmented glass doors - like science classes had - that they keep small equipment in.   Kind of like this: 
>
>http://www.justscandinavian.com/cabinets-bureaus/snow-cabinet-e-with-glass-doors.html
>
>And  the whole phrase or two:   "… meek as his hundred glass the hundred glass bureaus about the SS circuit—  located in time and space always just to miss grandeur..."  refers to the idea that these bureaus are located throughout the Secret Service offices and none will ever be important. 
>
>As I said, that's just my only guess. 
>
>Bekah
>
>On May 23, 2013, at 7:44 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> P328.29-329-2     It’s been a long time now since the two men have seen each other. Last time they spoke was during the move from Peenemünde down here to the Mittelwerke. Weissmann is probably dead by now. Even in Südwest, 20 years ago, before Enzian could even speak his language, he’d seen that: a love for the last explosion—the lifting and the scream that peaks past fear. . . . Why should Weissmann want to survive the war? Surely he’d have found something splendid enough to match his thirst. It could not have ended for him rationalized and meek as his hundred glass bureaus about the SS circuit—located in time and space always just to miss grandeur, only to be in its vacuum, to be tugged slightly along by its slipstream but finally left to lie still again in a few tarnished sequins of wake. Bürgerlichkeit played to Wagner, the brasses faint and mocking, the voices of the strings drifting in and out of phase. . . .
>> 
>> What exactly are these "glass bureaus"?
>