GR translation: his hundred glass bureaus about the SS circuit

[Mike Jing]

I actually thought about that too, Laura.  But then it would not make sense
as "his" glass bureaus.  Due to my ignorance, my working assumption is
always that there may be a precise meaning that I am not aware of.

And thanks to everyone for responding.


On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 12:09 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> 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"?
> >
>
>
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