GR translation: down the vast unreadable underslope of Russia

Mark Kohut mark.kohut at gmail.com
Tue Nov 8 07:08:05 CST 2016


Too early this morning, the linguistic and conceptual associations of
undertone and underslope entered me. Not surprising with the word under and
No, I do not think Pynchon intended any association but

I could not help thinking of the grounding, so to speak, of the music of
the spheres. (If I were a real commentator)

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 4:48 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 斜率 is slope in the mathematical sense.
>
> Thanks everyone for replying. I think I understand now.
>
> On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 10:10 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > It's before dawn: spatially, the sun is still far "down" over the eastern
> > horizon. All that territory is invisible, thus unreadable. In military
> > tactics it's the "reverse slope": the far side of a ridge, hill or
> > embankment which you can't hit with flat-trajectory weapons. Goo9gle
> > translation of that yields
> >
> > 反向斜率 - Fǎn xiàng xiélǜ
> >
> > To me "underslope" is a one-off, idiosyncratic coinage: if I saw it in
> > isolation, I'd guess it means the lower face of an overhanging ledge, or
> > maybe a strip of flat ground at the base of a slope..? Citations
> > notwithstanding, I don't think it has any clear consensus significance to
> > English-speaking readers. So you have a free hand.
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 4:24 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> V468.13-18, P475.40-376.4   The sun is still hours away, down the vast
> >> unreadable underslope of Russia. Fog closes in, and the engines slow.
> >> Wrecks slide away under the keel of the white ship. Springtime corpses
> >> caught in the wreckage twist and flow as the Anubis moves by overhead.
> >> Under the bowsprit, the golden jackal, the only being aboard that can
> >> see through the fog, stares ahead, down the river, toward Swinemünde.
> >>
> >> Apparently, underslope is a type of earmark:
> >>
> >>
> >> https://books.google.ca/books?id=ZjjYpBRkB_8C&pg=PA9&dq=
> underslope&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjb3ICxpZbQAhUW8YMKHfr5A
> FYQ6AEIKTAC#v=onepage&q=underslope&f=false
> >>
> >> Is that the meaning used here?
> >> -
> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >
> >
>
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