GR translation: ride him a green-doped and silent hound

Monte Davis montedavis49 at gmail.com
Thu Mar 24 07:53:33 CDT 2016


Zooming out, this passage has turned into an interesting anticipation of
drone warfare (and beyond that in SF, the individually targeted and homing
"knife missiles" in Dune and in Iain M. Banks' "Culture" novels, the "Rat
Thing" in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, etc.) In many places in GR, the
Rocket has the usual associations of indiscriminate mass destruction -- but
here

... and in Pirate's "for a split second you’d have to feel the very point,
with the terrible mass above, strike the top of the skull..." (7)

...and in Tantivy's “Think of it as a very large bullet, Slothrop. With
fins.” (23)

...and to some extent on the final page, it becomes very discriminate, very
personal. More of that good ol' Pynchonian oscillating either/or/both/and...

On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 10:11 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think either the like/as or the implied comma might work here. Lean more
> toward the comma.
>
> Www.innergroovemusic.com <http://www.innergroovemusic.com>
>
> On Mar 22, 2016, at 9:34 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So you would say the he of him is the hound – ride him, the [...] hound?
>
> I think it's more colloquial than that.
>
> I think in direct speech it would be like: I'll ride you a hound, you
> watch it.
>
> 2016-03-22 13:25 GMT+01:00 kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com>:
>
>> I agree with the implied comma.
>>
>>
>> Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I have always read this as Morris sez, I think. But I have thought there
>> was an implied 'like' or 'as' missing, as when one drops
>> for effect those words indicating a metaphor is coming. In a different
>> context one might write "He is a hound dog" or "He is a hound" and we know
>> that is a metaphor.
>> I have also, and this might be personal and not objectively IN P's
>> meanings---but with him every allusion might be real---have always thought
>> of the very historically famous poem "the Hound of Heaven" subversively,
>> heretically,  alluded to here. (a Catholic favorite I think)
>>
>> http://www.bartleby.com/236/239.html
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 2:39 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Laura, Monte, Marks, anybody up to help Mike and me and perhaps David to
>>> understand that P sentence better? Would you, too, say that there's an
>>> implied comma between "him" and "a green-doped and silent hound"? It's part
>>> of GR after all.
>>>
>>> 2016-03-22 1:32 GMT+01:00 David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> You sure? I think Ur wrong. There's an implied comma after "ride him."
>>>> The silent hound is the rocket at the "intended's" back, hunting him. It's
>>>> not that complicated.
>>>>
>>>> David Morris
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Monday, March 21, 2016, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "To ride, to hound, to hunt."  These are what the personally
>>>>> calibrated rocket has been programmed to do "its intended."
>>>>>
>>>>> You don't seem to understand what I mean. In P's sentence "hound" is
>>>>> not a verb; ride him is not like hunt him; you'd have to explain what is
>>>>> meant by: ride him a hound.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 2016-03-21 21:09 GMT+01:00 David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>:
>>>>>
>>>>>> "each Rocket will know its intended and hunt him, ride him a
>>>>>> green-doped and silent hound, through our World, shining and pointed in the
>>>>>> sky at his back, his guardian executioner rushing in, rushing closer . . .
>>>>>> ."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "To ride, to hound, to hunt."  These are what the personally
>>>>>> calibrated rocket has been programmed to do "its intended."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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