AtD translation: invested in, invested by

[Mike Jing]

Thanks for recommending Teaching Stevens in China. Fascinating article. I
wish I had the chance of taking one of the courses described in it when I
was in University. It would certainly help with what I desperately need.

And thanks for the suggestion of reading before and after. I will give it a
try. In any case, I will certainly have to come back to this again later,
and probably find myself mistaken.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2021 at 9:25 AM ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> What is going on in this episode? What are the ideas? The tropes? The
> Joaks? The Pynchon slights of hands, the hystericals (James Wood)?  We
> get the fanatic priests/scientists/professors, a Pynchon standard, and
> here we get a deliberate satirical erudition. We get minds and maps
> and the hated straight line and the gyre and the monster . . .and so
> much that Pynchon does over and over, so knowing what he does, has
> done, is up to, may be more helpful than an OED lens into a word or
> two.
>
> In any event, what will readers in Chinese make of it, why that will
> be another opening of interpretation and an education for those who
> can engage them.
>
> Ever read about teaching Wallace Stevens in China? Might be useful.
> Or just reading The Snowman or the one about the Blackbirds.
>
> My primitive method of reading the odd use of a word or phrase in a
> text like this one is to read before it an after it, say from where
> the episode begins on page 451 with "One day under a sky. . . "
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 5, 2021 at 5:44 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I probably didn't make myself quite clear. My primitive reading is that:
> >
> > 1. The conferees are laying siege, or at least trying to, lay siege to
> > "Time and its mysteries", with the aim of learning these mysteries, for
> > whatever purpose they may have in mind.
> > 2. Thus the conferees, and by extension their spirits, are invested in
> the
> > art of this siege, or "the
> > siegecraft of Time and its mysteries", meaning they care about it deeply
> > and are willing to devote time, energy, etc. in order to pursue it.
> > 3. They are so obsessed with this pastime of theirs that it is as if they
> > are surrounded by it and cannot escape, thus they, or their spirits, are
> > invested by "the siegecraft of Time and its mysteries."
> >
> > Since the two military terms are directed at different parties, I do not
> > consider them redundant, or "laying it on thick" as you call it. And
> there
> > is a paradox in there as well, since the party laying siege is in turn
> > besieged by their own obsession.
> >
> > And I'm not sure what "words are invested by the passing of time" means,
> > but I'll take your word for it.
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 5, 2021 at 2:55 AM Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > That depends on how you read that phrase – if words are invested by the
> > > passing of time they very well could be invested, endowed, by the
> > > siegecraft of time. (One military term would normally suffice, I'd
> say; you
> > > don't have to lay it on thick.)
> > >
> > > Am Fr., 5. Feb. 2021 um 01:18 Uhr schrieb Mike Jing <
> > > gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:
> > >
> > >> You probably could be invested by time in other ways. The original
> text,
> > >> however, is that their spirits are invested by the "siegecraft of
> time",
> > >> not by time itself, and that seems an important enough distinction to
> me.
> > >>
> > >>
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>