Re: GR translation: lined up with the rooms’ diagonals

[Mike Jing]

One problem with the translation is that in Chinese, verbs do not have
participle forms (or even tenses, for that matter). So to translate the
Chinese back into English, it looks something like this:

For 15 minutes, the two of them run all over the suite while screaming,
circle around staggeringly, line up with the rooms’ diagonals.

Or, less literal and more generously:

For 15 minutes, the two of them run all over the suite screaming, circling
around staggeringly, lining up with the rooms’ diagonals.

Either way, it's slightly (or significantly, depending on how you look at
it) different from the original, and the confusion is somewhat amplified,
since "circling around" and "lining up" seem to be incompatible with each
other. Now, if confusion is the intention to begin with, it's probably fine
to just leave it as it is. In any case, the point may be moot since there
is no easy way of indicating the difference in participle forms without
making it unwieldy.


On Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 12:25 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Seems to me that the comma is  a way  of insuring that the reference is
> not to the circles , but it could be to ‘staggering' or 'the two of them'.
> I still don’t get how you stagger around and line up with diagonals. There
> would, however,  be other ways of runnng all over around a suite than lined
> up with the diagonals,  like parrallel to the right angles or in circular
> or non geometric frenzy.
>  Perhaps he deliberately uses a confused  image to amplify the frantic
> state of the runners. The line has the effect for me of being a setup for
> the more directly comical line about Jamf’s celebrated molecule with the so
> called Pokler singularity. It sort of connects a crazed translogical state
> to the peculiarities of the drug. This fits with the translogical effects
> of the drug on Slothrop and hs predictive map.
>   I also connects the imipolex G to Pokler and his part in the swartzgerat.
>
> > On Dec 19, 2017, at 10:25 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Well, in simple grammar, the sentence works, doesn't it, if "staggering
> around in circles" were not there? So, "run screaming all over the suite"
> might be what is lined up with the room's diagonals?..but I don't know what
> that means, I guess...How else would one run around a suite but lined up
> with the diagonals if done 'all over' the suite....
> > ...until I see them staggering around in circles that are lined up,
> etc....
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 7:10 PM, Mike Jing <
> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have no idea. If you have anything in mind, I'd be glad to hear it.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 5:10 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Why the comma after circles?
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 2:34 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Yes.
> >
> > 2017-12-19 20:09 GMT+01:00 Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:
> > V702.29-35, P716.26-32   For 15 minutes the two of them run screaming
> all over the suite, staggering around in circles, lined up with the rooms’
> diagonals. There is in Laszlo Jamf’s celebrated molecule a particular
> twist, the so-called “Pökler singularity,” occurring in a certain crippled
> indole ring, which later Oneirinists, academician and working professional
> alike, are generally agreed is responsible for the hallucinations which are
> unique to this drug.
> >
> > What does "lined up with the rooms’ diagonals" describe here? Does it
> refer to the circles?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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