GR translation: But the meanness, the cynicism

[Michael Bailey]

Which one might see as a stylistic omission of the normal exclamation
point.

Implication being it’s not a surprise; the narrator has been numbed into
flat affect with many onslaughts of sheer bastardry emanating from the
military industrial complex.



On Thu, Feb 27, 2025 at 7:02 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Or a simple statement of fact as your interpretative words imply.
>
> On Thu, Feb 27, 2025 at 6:41 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > V412.16-21, P419.3-8   Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own
> tail
> > in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the
> > meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent
> > that announces, “The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant,
> > eternally-returning,” is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is
> to
> > violate the Cycle.
> >
> > The second sentence here, "But the meanness, the cynicism with which this
> > dream is to be used", is an exclamation, a lament, is that correct?
> >
> > The second edition of the published translation treated it as a
> > continuation of the first, i.e. "the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the
> > World *but* the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be
> > used", which doesn't seem right to me.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>