Atd translation: balloonheaded clarity

[Mike Jing]

That makes sense to me. Thanks, Joseph.

On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 5:44 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> My idea of this passage is that Lew is describing a way of seeing
> particular to the area, the geography and the people who come there, more
> than something uniquely his own.  I just think that the use of
> balloonheaded is not the typical use of the term but inflected with the the
> reference to the chums. For a non-English reader the phrase seen from a
> ballon might get the reader much closer to the intentions of the author
> than a word implying dumb or stupid.  The emphasis is on the noun clarity
> rather than the adjective balloonheaded, which in the context of the novel
> is intended to have a double meaning. The adjective seems to me to be
> coloring the noun rather than arguing with it.
> > On Apr 19, 2018, at 1:33 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > OK, so I was reading it wrong. The vision is actually the mine owners'
> and workers' vision, not Lew's. Is that correct? Then what is directed at
> at mine owners and workers exactly?
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 10:47 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> > I’m not so sure "seen from a ballon" can be rejected considering so much
> in the novel is filtered through the Chums balloon’s eye view. The Chums
> are like fiction looking at real history. Their view is both weirdly clear
> and also intoxicated by their peculiar “boy’s adventure" POV.
> >
> > Pynchon does not seem to me to be saying in this pasage that the point
> of view is  stupidly wrong but correct in a somewhat intoxicated and mildly
> distorted way, that distortion is equaled in the mine owners thinking of
> workers as expendable dwarves, seen a  small from the height of their power.
> > > On Apr 18, 2018, at 2:28 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Oh yes, definitely.  I even considered the possibility of it meaning
> "seen
> > > from a balloon", but that seems to be too far away from the common
> meaning.
> > >
> > > Another possibility is being feverish, so your head feels like a
> balloon.
> > > But I'm not quite sure how that works here.
> > >
> > > And the dictionary definition of "stupid" , I can't make sense of that
> here
> > > either.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 4:49 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> i think the balloon--headed is a nice Chums internal allusion, so to
> > >> speak.
> > >>
> >
>
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