GR translation: his hundred glass bureaus about the SS circuit

[János Széky]

My idea would be the following, Weissmann is portrayed as both as a demon
obsessed with the rocket as the embodiment and bringer of death and as an
utrarational bureaucratic manager type. Also as a kind of foreign body in
the military and SS hierarchy with considerable indenpendent powers of his
own, now appearing here, now appearing there at "a hundred" points of that
hierarchy. Here Enzian is unaware that Weissmann had by then picked
Gottfried for "the lifting and the scream that peaks past fear", and
imagines this as Weissmann's own probable death. The "glass bureaus" might
be some kind of Glasschrank (Google it with images), a piece of office
furniture, where books or files are stored, a rather common object in
Central Europe. The "stained-glass bureau" that Mark referred to is a good
approximation, and Pynchon might have also liked the allusion to
bureau-cracy.

János


2013/5/25 Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>

> 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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