GR translation: drowned-man blue, blue drawn so insatiably into the chalky walls

David Morris fqmorris at gmail.com
Fri Jul 1 02:03:57 UTC 2022


On Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 9:15 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> V102.21-26, P104.19-24   . . . the eyes a seldom-encountered blue that
> on certain days, in sync with the weather, is too much for these
> almond fringes and brims over, seeps, bleeds out to illuminate the boy’s
> entire face, virgin-blue, drowned-man blue, blue drawn so insatiably into
> the
> chalky walls of Mediterranean streets we quietly cycled through
> in noontimes of the old peace. . . .
>
> Here "drowned-man blue" refers to the change of color of a drowning victim,
> is that correct?


Yes.

>
And the blue drawn into the chalky walls would most likely be from the sky
> and the water, right?
>

Yes. White [chalky-colored] stucco/plaster walls are ubiquitous in
Mediterranean ocean-side villages.  In this sentence the word “drawn” used
next to the word “chalky” is (I think) intentionally confusing, because
chalk can be a drawing tool, but that’s not how it’s used here. “Drawn” is
used here as a term of *attraction*, as in:

To be *drawn to* something or someone is to feel that you’re being pulled
towards it/them, as if by magnetism.

So in this sentence the white chalky walls “draw to them, visually” the
intense blue Mediterranean sky.

These are probably glaringly obvious to many, but I just want to make sure
> I'm understanding things correctly.
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