Invested in reading / invested by the difficulties

Fri Feb 5 15:29:54 UTC 2021

Same here! I'm impressed over here, too!

Jerky

On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 10:18 PM Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> Me, too.
>
> Becky
>
> > On Feb 4, 2021, at 8:29 PM, Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Mike,
> >
> > I’m still impressed.
> >
> >
> >
> > Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef>
> > ________________________________
> > From: Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> > Sent: Thursday, February 4, 2021 9:26:07 PM
> > To: Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>
> > Cc: pynchon-l <Pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Subject: Re: Invested in reading / invested by the difficulties
> >
> > The unfortunate fact is that, in translating from English to Chinese,
> much of the nuances and connotations in the original text will be lost. And
> this is doubly true for Pynchon. Therefore, some have argued that Pynchon
> is untranslatable, and they do have a point. I was told this when I was
> still working on translating GR. My response at the time was that my bar
> was considerably lower. Instead of trying to achieve the perfect
> translation that would please everybody, all I was trying to do is to do
> better than the published Chinese translation, which I consider to be an
> abomination due to its many obvious mistakes.
> >
> > Last year, after 12 years since the original publication of the Chinese
> translation of GR, they published a 2nd edition, revised by the author,
> aided by a dozen or so "experts". Unsurprisingly, many of those mistakes
> still remain.  For example:
> >
> > V179   You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood.
> >
> > is rendered as "You (plural) will have the tallest, darkest leader in
> Hollywood."
> >
> > V135.39   . . . tippin’ those Toledos at 7 pounds 8 ounces . . .
> >
> > ". . . gently brandishing the Toledo blade while weighing only 7 pounds
> 8 ounces . . ."
> >
> > V683.16 Ass usually is backwards, right?
> >
> > "Donkeys usually walk backwards, right?"
> >
> > So on and so forth. It's probably a good thing that most of the P-list
> will not read this version, or the one before it.
> >
> > The point is that both my ability and my goal are rather modest. And
> when I ask a question, it's because I genuinely do not understand the text
> on a very basic level, thus making translation literally impossible. All
> the extra reading is fine and dandy, but sadly it's probably mostly
> irrelevant to the translation in the end.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 2:15 AM Raphael Saltwood <
> PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com<mailto:PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>> wrote:
> > ...good writing contains many times more meanings than a narrow reading
> gleans, so you have the Scylla of missing nuances, connotations
> >
> > But there’s also the Charybdis of reading incompatible, extraneous, or
> simply wrong extensions into something
> >
> > (Charybdis especially was the whirlpool one, so that relates to getting
> sucked into troubled waters)
> >
> > Just translating into different English - paraphrasing for my own
> understanding & appreciation - involves ruling stuff out, visualizing,
> trying to apprehend a context & look for links, salient (also a military
> term) points -
> >
> > Coming to a provisional understanding of a passage that you know a lot
> of work went into: background work, the stocking and stoking of the word
> hoard and vision; and the word choice, sequence & revisions - so that of a
> plethora of meanings & connotations that you *know* the author is aware of,
> this particular author uses multiple ones, maybe even all of them.
> >
> > Stuff that anyone would notice, and maybe some things nobody else would
> notice (and the possibility that they aren’t intended) - like, does this
> passage’s reference to siegecraft
> >
> >
> >  *    which already has a nice two-edged nature, viz. the Candlebrow
> scholars are laying siege to the intellectual and engineering problems
> posed by Time, and
> >  *    Time is also laying siege to them, their heirs and assigns, their
> projects, etc
> >  *   And possibly a 3rd (using the more pedestrian meaning of “invested
> by” in the asset management sense): that Time is utilizing them for its own
> purposes
> >  *   Or that some Power beyond time and humanity is utilizing both of
> them for an even more complex project?
> >
> > bear any narratively significant relation to another point made to the
> Chums by Gaspereaux?
> >
> > He said,
> > “Among historians you’ll find a theory that crusades begin as holy
> pilgrimages....But introduce to your sacred project the element of weaponry
> and everything changes. Now you need not only a destination but an enemy as
> well.”
> >
> > For me, the extraneous considerations of the other seekers are those of
> crusaders, whereas Merle and his fellow tinkers are pilgrims to the extent
> that their purely technical interests don’t - at least at the outset -
> revolve around changing other people’s lives.
> >
> > The paraprosdokian - or, “paraprosdokian-plus” is that the surprise
> intensification effect of “invested in, invested by” isn’t limited to a
> reversal, but opens out into multiple possibilities
> >
> > And the ways in the book in which the spirit of pure inquiry exemplified
> in Merle is co-opted into projects  with horrific results like the Vormance
> Expedition, or Kit’s fascination with flight into dive bombing...
> >
> > And the “flattening out” of the idea of manipulating Time itself into
> the achievable simulacra of film, radio, tv, recordings, which (as
> rereaders) we know will draw  Merle into its ambit.
> >
> > & in fact the graphite connotations of the “anharmonic pencils” that
> come into the tale hereabouts allude to yet another form of representation,
> “time-binding” (imho)(besides probably having a more mathematical set of
> connotations as well)
> >
> > The attempts to revisit past times partially fulfilled; the desire to
> revise them still “under attack” (with perhaps a suggestion that a more
> peaceful, pilgrim-like approach is what’s needed)
> >
> > All of which and more is implied in the passage, imho, with laudable
> panache.
> >
> >
> > So great respect for trying in a different language.
> >
> > Thanks and kudos for sharing OED meaning #5!
> > --
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> > --
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>
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