GR translation: noise and change

[Joseph Tracy]

Gottfried is seeing himsellf as a hero character in a movie, where  " the hero always walks out of the heart of the explosion,…” .  So change is just a change of scene, either onward to the next amazing escape from death or to some other part of the plot. But no hidden or special meaning, just change.

There is an interesting contrast P may be playing with here between his own( and movie maker’s)  use of explosions  as mythic portals, and  a more prosaic and grim view of death. He seems to be saying something like “wake up, Gottfried, you may be a side character in this novel, not the hero survivor.”


> sooty-faced but grinning 
> On Jun 15, 2016, at 4:41 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> V102.30-38, P104.28-36   Gottfried styles himself a passive observer.
> He has waited for his present age, and the conscription notice, to
> catch him, with an impudent terror like watching the inrush of a curve
> you mean to take for the first time in a controlled skid, take me,
> gathering speed till the last possible moment, take me his
> good-nights’ one prayer. The danger he thinks he needs is still
> fictional for him: in what he flirts and teases with, death is not a
> real outcome, the hero always walks out of the heart of the explosion,
> sooty-faced but grinning—the blast is noise and change, and diving for
> cover.
> 
> What's the meaning of "change" in "noise and change"?
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list

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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l