GR translation: have been faces of children out the train windows

Mike Jing gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
Sat Sep 5 19:34:10 CDT 2015


I'd be glad to hear your analysis.  Thanks in advance.

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 9:00 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> As usual for Pynchon, the sentence is constructed in a much more complex
> way. The faces noun and the verb aren't related by proximity.  I will try
> to construct its relational parts, as I see it, tomorrow. The "have been"
> includes all of his associations with the detritus of the preterite.
> Pynchon's can often be parsed, but often in labrynthian ways.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Sunday, August 30, 2015, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> This actually confuses me more, David.  I was trying to figure out the
>> "have been" in "have been faces of children out the train windows".
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 9:24 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> All of the detritus "have been," " in each,  an entry in a record, a
>>> history: his own, his winter’s, his country’s "
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, August 30, 2015, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> V626.3-15   . . . picking up rusted beer cans, rubbers yellow with
>>>> preterite seed, Kleenex wadded to brain shapes hiding preterite snot,
>>>> preterite tears, newspapers, broken glass, pieces of automobile, days when
>>>> in superstition and fright he could make it all fit, seeing clearly in each
>>>> an entry in a record, a history: his own, his winter’s, his country’s . . .
>>>> instructing him, dunce and drifter, in ways deeper than he can explain,
>>>> have been faces of children out the train windows, two bars of dance music
>>>> somewhere, in some other street at night, needles and branches of a pine
>>>> tree shaken clear and luminous against night clouds, one circuit diagram
>>>> out of hundreds in a smudged yellowing sheaf, laughter out of a cornfield
>>>> in the early morning as he was walking to school, the idling of a
>>>> motorcycle at one dusk-heavy hour of the summer . . .
>>>>
>>>> How does "have been" fit into the overall structure of the sentence?
>>>>
>>>> I understand that it must be inverted.  is it something like this:
>>>>
>>>> faces of children out the train windows etc. have been instructing him
>>>> in ways deeper than he can explain
>>>>
>>>> or something else entirely?
>>>>
>>>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20150905/f291a27a/attachment.html>


More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list