AtD translation: a busy development of small trailside shapes tumbling . . .

[Monte Davis]

I thought of this passage while reading
https://www.amazon.com/Forest-Unseen-Years-Watch-Nature/dp/0143122940

On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 10:10 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm thinking the shapes of foliage, mushrooms snail shells, pillbugs,
> pebbles. "Tumbling" and "precision" are oxymoronic: random at first sight,
> but the more you know about their sources, seasons, uses (as the
> wildcrafters do), the more order you find.
>
> Chance and Necessity, Monod called it.
>
> On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 7:39 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> What about this line specifically:
>>
>> "a busy development of small trailside shapes tumbling in what had to be
>> deliberately arranged precision"
>>
>> What is it referring to? Is it the herbs, or something else entirely?
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 7:26 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> That passage (69-72) is one of my favorite in all Pynchon. I wrote in
>>> 2007: "Like Annie Dillard in the ecstatic _Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_ and
>>> _Holy the Firm_, Pynchon here insists that we *look* at every leaf, at the
>>> bridal secrets in the moss, at evanescent sparks when the iron wheel-rim
>>> and the rock and the shadow in the rut are all just so. If this be exile
>>> [from Dally's "princess" memories of the White City], make the most of
>>> it... And somehow it isn't exile any more, it's a home three states high
>>> and wide. Years are going by. This density of detail, these undescribed
>>> exchanges with the wildcrafters, are adding up: they're a childhood, a
>>> stroboscopic study of the heart of a continent -- and a Dally who will grow
>>> into a queenly confidence that's all in the details. Where does that come
>>> from? Right here."
>>>
>>> The lines you quote are describing the making of an American, from the
>>> ground up.Call it another version of "Roots."
>>>
>>> https://i4.imaiges.com/wallpaper/771/464/835/leaves-meadow-n
>>> ature-forest-floor-1920x1080.jpg
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 6:59 AM, Mike Jing <
>>> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> P70.19-29   —flowers in bells and clusters, purple and white or yellow
>>>> as butter, star-shaped ferns in the wet and dark places, millions of green
>>>> veilings before the bridal secrets in the moss and under the deadfalls,
>>>> went on by the wheels creaking and struck by rocks in the ruts, sparks
>>>> visible only in what shadow it might pass over, a busy development of small
>>>> trailside shapes tumbling in what had to be deliberately arranged
>>>> precision, herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of and
>>>> which the silent women up in the foothills, counterparts whom they most
>>>> often never got even to meet, knew the magic uses for. They lived for
>>>> different futures, but they were each other’s unrecognized halves, and what
>>>> fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with
>>>> grace.
>>>>
>>>> What is this sentence describing? Just wondering.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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