AtD translation: and many began to edge away, anticipating trouble up the tracks

[Mark Kohut]

 ......"like reading an open book, you can read what the person is thinking
or feeling."

www.dictionary.com/browse/open--book

Something or someone that can be readily examined or understood, as in
His entire lifeis an open book. This metaphoric expression is often
expanded to read someone like an open book, meaning “to discern someone's
thoughts or feelings”; variations of this metaphor were used by
Shakespeare: “Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,” ( Romeo and
Juliet, 1:3) and “O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er” ( Troilus
and Cressida, 4:5).

On Thu, Oct 22, 2020 at 4:20 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks for the reply, Arthur. It just seems to me totally out of place in
> the given context, and I'm still puzzled why it's even there. Are people
> expecting Yup Toy to cause trouble, or is it something else entirely?
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 8:05 AM Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > "Up the tracks" refers to railway tracks, most often, but could in an
> > urban situation mean subway tracks. As to "trouble", that's purposely
> > ambiguous. In a Hollywood Western, it might mean Commanches about to
> attack
> > the train, or a gang of train-robbers a la Jesse James. In more modern
> > times, it could mean that the tracks have been blocked with logs by a
> First
> > Nations tribe demonstrating against some corporate  takeover of their
> > lands. And again in an urban context, it could ne  a body left on the
> > tracks to be severed by the wheels.
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 11:27 PM Mike Jing <
> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> P367.33-38   Yup Toy herself, waiting by a huge ice machine among a row
> of
> >> Oriental ice-girls in abbreviated sequined getups, her painted face a
> >> porcelain mask in the naphtha-light streaming from somewhere beneath,
> >> gazed, sucking at a scarlet fingernail, failing to look inscrutable to
> any
> >> but the habitually dismissive, such as Ruperta. To others more
> >> appreciative
> >> of her virtues, her mind was an open book, and many began to edge away,
> >> anticipating trouble up the tracks.
> >>
> >> What is this last part of the sentence about? What kind of trouble is
> >> being
> >> expected? And what is "up the tracks" exactly?
> >> --
> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Arthur
> >
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>