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

Sat Jan 20 09:53:59 CST 2018

I happen to be at a Tree Pruning class as I write this. The arborist posted a safety tip that, gracefully, I think, applies to my post on top of my own post: 

Avoid pruning with your arms crossed.

Lol. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 20, 2018, at 10:26 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I was continuing my observations--out of which this observation comes-- on Pynchon's use as I read and keep reading him.
> 
> All your fine explication and nuances might NOT--I would say ARE NOT--contained in all of P's uses. 
> Just as when he satirizes other concepts, such as Marxism, entropy--as he himself stated--the whole of the Protestant Ethic, the Gokd Standard.
> 
> Just sayin' 
> 
> I think TRP consciously secularizes "Grace" yet
> In his poised ambiguity, kept it spiritualized it as well.    That time with Lew; the end of ATD, best examples. 
> Most like SImone Weil in my pac-man magpie reading. 
> 
> I grew up flooded with the Western Christian tradition definition and Amazing Grace still moves me like any redemption. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Jan 20, 2018, at 9:38 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Grace is not synonymous with epiphany. 
>> 
>> In the western Christian tradition grace is not a momentary experience or a specific revelation. It is not in fact tied to the moment or to perception. It is the ever present reality of divine love made manifest though Christ. This abiding abundance  makes either its epiphanous or enduring perception possible. 
>> 
>> Listen to the words of amazing grace.
>> 
>> As to the Dao. It is not the Zen-like living of a moment. I have 3 translations of the Dao De Ching which I read frequently, and I study and teach Chi Gung and Tai Chi. The Dao is the way, the way things are, the balance of cosmic forces;  It implies both an active harmonizing and a passive surrender,  the inherent wisdom of that harmonizing and surrender.
>> 
>> What you are talking about with epiphany seems to me to be more like satori or nibbana, a sudden release from illusion and conceptual thinking. 
>> In my mind, the difficulty and difference has to do with emotional content. The Western tradition around grace has to do with a release  from sin and is emotionally laden. The embrace of grace is perceived as a leap into joy, a liberation from debt. There is a parallel to sin in the cocept of Karma, but the emphases in the 2 traditions are different and there are also differences within both traditions. The question here is whether there is a Chinese word that is close enought within that tradition to work for translation. 
>> 
>> I don’t know why Mike thinks Dao is not appropriate but my own sense is that Dao is too big conceptually and Chi is too small. I thought there might be a word somewhere in between like a Feng shi for the human spirit. It might be better to look toward the Confucian tradition for a word that is like benign favor as one would want from a ruler but more like the favor of heaven. 
>> 
>> Not knowing Chinese I was just throwing out ideas that probably have been considered. I was trying to think of parallels between the Chinese words and concepts I know through translation  and the western concept of Grace.  
>> 
>> It is interesting in the song amazing grace that he compares it to a sweet sound. There is in Greek mythology one interpretion of the 3 graces where one is sound and one is light-   "was blind but now I see"
>> 
>>> On Jan 19, 2018, at 5:46 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Here's my self-unexpected aphorism out of this discussion:  a quotidian
>>> 'epiphany' --out of Joyce and within the
>>> Western world where even the secularized meaning comes from the Christian
>>> tradition so focusses on the moment that
>>> the Zen-like simple living of that moment is still its opposite. ......
>>> 
>>> The Dao is not an epiphany, not even close.
>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 11:06 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I mostly agree....except I also see it as sometimes 'just' the (Western
>>>> world, I guess) epiphany....
>>>> 
>>>>> On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 10:46 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Could the word Tao/Dao or some variation on it be useful? That seems
>>>>> close to the religious connotations.  Pynchon seems to me to use the word
>>>>> grace as a correlate of nibbana/nirvana, enlightenment.
>>>>> 
>>>>> When westerners discuss Zen they often use the word flow which also is
>>>>> close.
>>>>>>> On Jan 15, 2018, at 9:45 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Indeed, the word "grace" is going to cause a lot of problems for the
>>>>> translation. Even the religious meaning is quite foreign to the Chinese
>>>>> language. It would be even harder to translate if it's transformed into
>>>>> something secular. I'll have to think it over carefully.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But the part of the book that's most difficult to translate is probably
>>>>> the title, and I consider the currently adopted Chinese title to be
>>>>> seriously wrong. I'm hoping I can come up with something decent when I go
>>>>> through more of the book, but I'll definitely have to start a thread on
>>>>> that at some point.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 5:59 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> Can't be said better...I say lamely.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> and, with the move into relationships with some others--"unrecognized
>>>>> halves"--is a vision of an organic human American community that can--did--
>>>>> "make that American [then]", as Monte says, that is secular 'grace', or
>>>>> religiously-infused 'grace' within the the natural world, TRP avers. I
>>>>> suggest.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Read this great passage along with others on grace in his works and
>>>>> see TRP's transformed meanings to the concept.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> (If only our last President knew THIS passage instead of Marilyn
>>>>> Robinson's Olde Religious History meanings of 'grace' when he borrowed her
>>>>> words for one of
>>>>>> his great "healing" speeches.)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>> 
>>>>> -
>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>> 
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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