AtD translation: allowing herself to imagine

[Mike Jing]

Thanks, Joseph.


On Wed, Jul 14, 2021 at 8:36 AM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I think that what you suggest  is the only logical way to read it if there
> were a clear end to the sentence. To my thinking the ellipsis at the end
> makes that assumption rather vague because those last three comma-separated
> lines could be a further commentary on the whatever she does imagine.
>   If so it becomes obvious that P intends to leave that object of the verb
> unstated and perhaps impossible to get at, like so many of our longings and
> thoughts.
>
> Secondary thought of no relevance to Mike Jing’s  practical question but
> perhaps worth a bit of consideration) Soon after this passage Dally's
> imagination and observation turn from the light of Venice which Hunter was
> intrigued by, to the Venetian dark, the shadows; and it seems to this
> reader her thoughts have more focus and clarity, seeing acts of violence
> and abduction, as though these shadows are more real and consequential than
> the inscrutable light, the paintable world that casts them.
>
> > On Jul 14, 2021, at 12:20 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > P580.36-581.10   She wondered sometimes what he would have made of
> American
> > light. She had sat adrift in insomnia for hours watching fields of
> windows
> > lit and lampless, vulnerable flames and filaments by the thousands borne
> > billowing as by waves of the sea, the broken rolling surfaces of the
> great
> > cities, allowing herself to imagine, almost surrendering to the
> > impossibility of ever belonging, since childhood when she’d ridden with
> > Merle past all those small, perfect towns, longed after the lights at
> > creeksides and the lights defining the shapes of bridges over great
> rivers,
> > through church windows or trees in summer, casting shining parabolas down
> > pale brick walls or haloed in bugs, lanterns on farm rigs, candles at
> > windowpanes, each attached to a life running before and continuing on,
> long
> > after she and Merle and the wagon would have passed, and the mute land
> > risen up once again to cancel the brief revelation, the offer never
> clearly
> > stated, the hand never fully dealt. . . .
> >
> > Here the object of "imagine" Is "the offer never clearly stated, the hand
> > never fully dealt", is that correct?
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
>
>
>