GR translation: Lotta those fags still around

[Mark Kohut]

A further thought on Pynchon's possible meanings via use here. Fag's
meaning came as a shortened form
of faggot, from the 1920's, say the online dictionaries.

To italicize means to emphasize, of course. Why the emphasis on *fag*?

Here is the APA Style Guide.
APA does not maintain a list of technical or key terms—this is intentional.
... For these, you should italicize each time the word is used as a label.

In an associative way, is this TRP sorta saying that *fag *is a label, a
known label-- suggested by italicizing? After all, we do know
that The American Psychiatric Association (APA <http://www.psych.org/>) did
not remove homosexuality from its official Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-IV#DSM-II_.281968.29> (DSM) until 1973.

Not that TRP here "says' it is a mental illness--and we know he uses the
concept with more symbolic intent in key situations and characters in GR,
but maybe here, the italicizing is like that later overused way of
indicating "irony" since--with postmodern quotation marks, so to speak?

On Sat, Jun 3, 2017 at 10:11 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> The word is italicized. Not sure how a translator deals with this in
> the published translation, but maybe this is significant. The
> denotation (fags =homosexuals) seems obvious enough given the context
> and the 175 badges. The italics here seems to place emphasis on the
> word. A traditional usage, but the free indirect speech may also
> characterize Slothrop, his attitudes toward homosexuals. Does the
> italics contrast his attitude toward the African DP and the American
> Redneck, an obvious enough allegory for racist America.
>
> On Sat, Jun 3, 2017 at 6:48 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > V289.26-30, P294.5-9   Slothrop wanders into a roofless part of town.
> > Old people in black are bat-flittering among the walls. Shops and
> > dwellings here are all long-looted by the slave laborers liberated
> > from the Dora camp. Lotta those fags still around, with baskets and
> > 175 badges out on display, staring moistly from doorways.
> >
> > Just to make sure, the word "fags" here is used in the homosexual
> > sense, right? I'm asking because the published translation treated it
> > differently.
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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