Elfriede Jelinek's radio essay on Pynchon from 1976

[Jochen Stremmel]

I was mistaken, obviously. More so as the title is nearly 42 years old:

Die Rede ist von Elfriede Jelineks ideologiekritischem Pynchon-Essay,
erschienen erstmals *1976* als Nachwort von V und im selben Jahr leicht
überarbeitet in der Zeitschrift *manuskripte*.

Title of the essay: kein licht am ende des tunnels.

2018-02-01 9:57 GMT+01:00 Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>:

>
> Naumann is certainly pretentious, but what gives you the idea that it was
> him who fucked up the title? Actually *Die Enden der Parabel* was
> published in 1981; Naumann didn't start to work for the Rowohlt publishing
> house before 1985 ...
>
> > Laut Übersetzer Thomas Piltz wurde dieser Titel gewählt, weil sich der
> Originaltitel *Gravity’s Rainbow* nicht befriedigend ins Deutsche
> übertragen ließ. (eng. 'According to translator Thomas Piltz this title
> was chosen because the original title *Gravity's Rainbow* could not be
> translated into German in a satisfying way') <
>
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Enden_der_Parabel
>
> What Piltz here says is - see the French and the Dutch example - obviously
> nonsense. He  simply didn't get it respectively couldn't find any meaning
> that made enough sense to him. But that doesn't give the translators the
> right to withhold the beautiful original title to the German readership.
>
> Not that the title is easy to decipher. We had several debates about it
> here. It doubtlessly has religious connotations. The story from the Old
> Book  - "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a
> covenant between me and the earth" (KJB, Genesis 9:13) - and Simone Weil's *La
> pesanteur et la grâce* (Gravity and Grace) were mentioned in this
> context. But there's another, more concrete meaning of the title *Gravity's
> Rainbow*, that was first hinted at by Friedrich Kittler: During the
> blast-off the V2's exploding liquid fuels were generating a rainbow. Well,
> I don't know if this goes through as an adequate technical description
> (Monte?), but I remember having read more than once that Kittler always
> insisted that this concrete meaning is the most important one.
>
> Do Pynchon's letters, as far as they are known yet, contain thoughts about
> the title *Gravity's Rainbow*?
>
>
> Am 01.02.2018 um 06:14 schrieb Jochen Stremmel:
>
> I'm sure that Jelinek/Piltz would have translated it literally. The German
> title sounds like Michael Naumann, a pretentious asshole.
>
> Am 31. Januar 2018 um 11:12 schrieb Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> lorentzen at hotmail.de>:
>
>>
>> On Pynchon in general and Jelinek's (co)translation of *Gravity's
>> Rainbow*. I nominate "Blocksbergsausgelassenheit" as word of the week ...
>>
>> I still do not understand why Jelinek/Piltz didn't translate the
>> beautiful title literally. (Actually *Die Enden der Parabel* sounds
>> quite unattractive.) The French --- *L'Arc-en-ciel de la gravité *---
>> did it, the Dutch --- *Regenboog van Zwaartekracht* --- too. So why
>> can't we have *Der Regenbogen der Schwerkraft*?
>>
>> https://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/essay/swr2-essay-
>> am-29-januar-2018-nachricht-ueber-thomas-pynchon/-/id=
>> 659852/did=20867062/nid=659852/21g0z9/index.html
>>
>> „Pynchon würde ich nicht noch einmal übersetzen. Nicht, dass ich ihn
>> nicht genial fände. Es ist ein Witz, dass er den Nobelpreis nicht hat, und
>> ich habe ihn. Ich halte Pynchon für einen der bedeutendsten lebenden
>> Schriftsteller, weit vor Philip Roth übrigens. Ich kann doch den Nobelpreis
>> nicht kriegen, wenn Pynchon ihn nicht hat! Das ist gegen die Naturgesetze.“
>> Gab Elfriede Jelinek 2004 in einem Interview zu Protokoll.
>>
>> Bereits 1976 hatte sie für die Essay-Redaktion des SWF einen Text über
>> diesen Pynchon und ihre Übersetzung seines opus magnum „Die Enden der
>> Parabel“ geschrieben, der hier in der SWR-Archiv-Reihe wiederholt wird.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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