Reading GR in Brazilian Portugues

[David Morris]

No one "understands" GR, as a whole, on their first read, but that's OK,
because it is so enjoyable on many levels.  Its prose is often extremely
beautiful.  It's stories (there are many) are sometime haunting, hilarious,
mesmerizing... poetic at the highest level.  It is best read slowly, and
without a study guide for the first read.  Just let go if something is
unclear.  You will want to read it again someday, and those passages will
make more sense each time you read it again.

MD would be my second suggestion if GR is too daunting.  But if you read GR
in English your English will be much better by the time you finish it.

David Morris

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 5:14 PM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't know if there is a translation from American English to Brazilian
> Portuguese, but from what has been discussed so far, I'm assuming that
> readers, in Brasil, want to read GR, and, if this is the case, I strongly
> recommend, if possible,  reading the book in American English and posting
> questions to the P-List. I can help, as I am fluent in Brazilain
> Portuguese, but so much is going to be next to impossible to translate.
> Think about it this way, a common expression in Brazilian Portuguese, cala
> a boca, or cala a boca  Magda!, is quite difficult to translate, though a
> simple translation might be, shut up! or shush up!, dropping Magda, a
> television character, the origin, or etymology of the phrase, while not so
> idiomatic as to render translation impossible, is still, important, and,
> when we appraoch such phrases in Pynchon, say in VL, where television
> phrases are uses frequently and with subtle complexities that are often
> derived from the TV-etymology, say in how Homer Simpson says Doh!, or how
> the Skipper says "Little Buddy" or how, in Brazil, "Jesus's blood has
> power", a church phrase that made its way to television, in a famous soap
> opera, and then became a common phrase in ordinary conversation, of the
> spiritual and Christian masses, that Jesus will protect us, nothing bad
> will come to us...etc...a phrase that, for poor people working people,
> especially, in the neighborhood, where trafficking and police are a
> constant threat, is like a spell, like the fuck you spell that Slothrop
> uses in GR.
>
> Anyway, I'm no translater, clearly, but I suggest reading it in American
> English and going to school on the P-listers.
>
>
>
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