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

[Mark Kohut]

The "deliberately arranged precision" is the intellectual puzzle in my
reading. TRP is NOT going to be smuggling in the Argument from Design, is
he? Hey, perpetual ambiguity and we can vote, right?

I have read this, since no plant or life growth is otherwise mentioned, as
the 'development'--changes--of 'shapes' made by the wheels and animals and
humans--"deliberately arranged"--human-caused-- yet precise, as ruts and
tracks and little mounds look, since we deliberately (sometimes) use the
same ruts or try to avoid a hole or rut, or watch where we guide the
animals and walk ourselves.....

Like trail hikers always even without wheels.

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-
>> nature-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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