GR translation: even this far out of it

[Mike Jing]

Someone who knows English much better than I do suggested that this line is
in the subjunctive mood.

And from the OED:

though
*B.* conj. (or *conjunctive adv.*).
*2.**a.* Introducing a subordinate clause expressing a supposition or
possibility: Even if; even supposing that; granting that. (With verb. in
subjunctive.)
 1884   *Leisure Hour* Oct. 611   Though knots be tied in the
sunshine..they're meant to hold in a gale.


On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 7:36 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jochen,
>
> Weisenburger says Pynchon 'bends grammar' here too.
>
> But I have always read the line as if Earthliness is an Enduring
> Overwhelming Good, a God-like Everything, so to speak. The word is
> listed as "uncountable' in dictionary definitions, therefore can be
> singular or plural, it seems.
>
> A quick search reveals that some other translations go with 'forget',
> but the most famous, it seems, go with your 'forgets".
>
> To me, 'forgot' does not work. it is all happening forever in the present.
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 11:27 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Another problem of this passage is the Rilke quotation because the
> original
> > has the preterite "Und wenn dich das Irdische vergaß". Pynchon does not
> use
> > an existing translation (And if the earthly has forgotten you) but takes
> his
> > own which is better in parts (the last line for example). The tense in
> the
> > first line – the 12th of the poem – seems strange and I'm nearly
> inclined to
> > think it's a typo for forgot because otherwise it should be: forgets you.
> > Don't you think so?
> >
> > 2015-08-27 14:59 GMT+02:00 Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>:
> >>
> >> In the 1960s and 1970s "out of it" came to mean disconnected, unaware,
> not
> >> part of the scene -- the "it" being a generic, undefined referent for
> "the
> >> world shared by everyone else." Coupled with the Rilkean "though
> Earthliness
> >> forget you," it's another way of telling us about Slothrop's shrinking
> >> temporal bandwidth and increasing distance from -- or dissolution into
> --
> >> the world of rocket plots, history, Firm and Counterforce.
> >>
> >> On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 3:15 AM, Mike Jing <
> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> V622.14-26   Through the flowing water, the holes of the old Hohner
> >>> Slothrop found are warped one by one, squares being bent like notes, a
> >>> visual blues being played by the clear stream. There are harpmen and
> >>> dulcimer players in all the rivers, wherever water moves. Like that
> Rilke
> >>> prophesied,
> >>>
> >>>               And though Earthliness forget you,
> >>>               To the stilled Earth say: I flow.
> >>>               To the rushing water speak: I am.
> >>>
> >>>        It is still possible, even this far out of it, to find and make
> >>> audible the spirits of lost harpmen. Whacking the water out of his
> >>> harmonica, reeds singing against his leg, picking up the single blues
> at bar
> >>> 1 of this morning’s segment, Slothrop, just suckin’ on his harp, is
> closer
> >>> to being a spiritual medium than he’s been yet, and he doesn’t even
> know it.
> >>>
> >>> What exactly does "even this far out of it" mean here?
> >>
> >>
> >
>
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