A very curious text fragment

English translation: it´s "fantastic" prose

14:22 Dec 9, 2003

English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Art/Literary

English term or phrase: A very curious text fragment

"You're not the one who fits pulling Quetzalcoatl’s tendons", she said, getting brutalized good-naturedly. "Why do you mow hay about the hail and wedding demons, you bloody defendant, growing fat among various packs from the bread-baking plant direction?"
"I’m hysterical, by the puny demons of my throng!" said Diogen, farting himself into fits. "I may not be a steel-ribbed snowman, but there is no other as sinewy as I am, when it comes to stools! Last Thursday two great-grandsons grew moustaches on my balls. Only eight managed to drag themselves to immortality in the pampas, where old Rueden’s bimbos had turned around Natalie’s ascaris organization. Kill it, you fag, did you peel off twinkling bricks in the hail, or some tractor drivers poking their fingers into sockets during the wedding?"
"What I did peel off was a fridge poisoning itself on the Moon." She revived. "What I ignited spontaneously was the gurgling acid rain over the love hail". She grunted and struck her tail vigorously. "Gibson would've vacuumed himself to us before the brawl started. I grow stupid thinking he and his rockers could have squeezed out the base-snare eyes. Old Rueden and his tractor drivers are aggressive… I could do my hair there were no nomad camps around, for the mass violation has kicked our asses and sent us flying over the hummock. But you couldn’t have synthesized yourself back over the hummock overgrown with hair as you are, now could you? So do spring me aside to your pack, if you are from Zimbabwe, for I'm too flabby for my shot-holes".

Could anyone explain what this nonsense might be? It's but a small part of a novel or something written in the same incomprehensible way. I can only understand that it's English, but it doesn't seem to make any sense. Or does it? And I ask any native English speakers to help me please with this thing. Could there be any implicit meaning here, based on some kind of linguistic associations? Or what could it be, anyway?

Andrew Vdovin KudoZ activity Questions: 3923 (2 open) (2 closed without grading) Answers: 3924
Local time: 21:33

Selected answer:it´s "fantastic" prose

Explanation:
"Fantastic" in the sense of "of fantasy". Who may think it is wonderful is a separate question.

I don´t think it´s either slang or a machine translation, it´s (supposed to be) creative writing. For eaxmple "revived" for "said" is a distortion of "replied". The whole think is a mélange of concepts thrown together as modern English.

It makes me think of writing by Brian Alldiss, for example in "Barefoot in the Head", where his writing was strongly influenced by the psychedelic movement of the late 60´s. It was quite similar to this.

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Note added at 2003-12-09 15:39:37 (GMT)
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My typos (e.g. \"the whole think\") are of course a creative echo of the text quoted, and completely deliberate.

Not

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Note added at 2003-12-09 17:18:14 (GMT)
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To give a plain and simple answer to your question, no it doesn´t make any sense. It´s probably supposed to be some kind of artistic questioning of the meaning of meaning, but as you can see, no-one so far thinks it´s anything much other than a bunch of nonsense.

I don´t really see any linguistic associations, although I love to find them wherever I can.

In case the author should happen to come across this, I would say to him \"suum cuique\"

Selected response from:

Chris Rowson (X)
Local time: 16:33

Grading comment

Thanks a lot! I think you're right. Âut what on earth is "suum cuique", I wonder?
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED

3 +11

it´s "fantastic" prose

Chris Rowson (X)

5 +1

Le Carré in the beginning, perhaps

Clauwolf

3 +2

some kind of exercise?

Charlie Bavington

2 +1

A translation?

Jan Liebelt

Are there any more clues in this novel? characters, plot, foreword, author...

chica nueva

Discussion entries: 2

Answers

23 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

Le Carré in the beginning, perhaps

Explanation:
:) The text is full slang, but it is correct

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Note added at 2003-12-09 14:48:47 (GMT)
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I suggest to use a good slang dictionnary and \"get into\" the text, good luck!

Clauwolf
Local time: 11:33
Native speaker of:

Portuguese
PRO pts in pair: 412

1 hr confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

A translation?

Explanation:
At a guess, I'd say this is a (machine?) translation from another language because the references are completely obscure (I, for one, don't know any of them, though I consider myself quite well-versed in English).

I mean, who would ever use "revive" to mean "say"?

Quetzalcoatl is Mexican, so the text might possibly originally have been Spanish. Any Hispanophiles out there who recognise the allusions?

Jan Liebelt
France
Local time: 16:33
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in pair: 12

1 hr confidence:

peer agreement (net): +11

it´s "fantastic" prose

Chris Rowson (X)
Local time: 16:33
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in pair: 243

Grading comment

Thanks a lot! I think you're right. Âut what on earth is "suum cuique", I wonder?

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

agree

Heidi Stone-Schaller: I feel for poor Andrew, though, if he has to translate this

4 mins

-> I know what you mean, but maybe the translation could be equally "fanciful" ... :-)

agree

Lisa Frideborg Eddy (X): yes, probably

34 mins

agree

Laurel Porter (X): ...possibly even some bizarre attempt to reinvent language (or at least syntax) in much the same way James Joyce did (and I love the typo as creative echo bit!)

49 mins

-> Yes, I thought of Joyce too, though I also agree with CC,, this is not in his league

agree

Christopher Crockett: Best explanation yet, but James Joyce this guy ain't. He's not even Charles Dodgson.

1 hr

agree

Pippin Michelli: It looks like one of those postmodern prose generators to me - feed it words and it will string them into grammatically correct nonsense

2 hrs

-> I don´t know about these, but I can imagine that is a possibility. Though "base-snare" suggests to me a human hand

agree

Amilcar: NO machine can write with this much feeling. Each sentence makes (almost) perfectly good sense. Trouble arises when people go hunting for hidden senses and formal tricks. So don't.

3 hrs

agree

Ioanna Karamanou

14 hrs

agree

Matthew Fagan

18 hrs

agree

Nancy Arrowsmith: This is supposed to be "clever" writin, obscuing anything the author may actually have to say.

22 hrs

agree

Henrik Brameus

2 days 1 hr

agree

Rajan Chopra

4 days

1 hr confidence:

peer agreement (net): +2

a very curious text fragment some kind of exercise?

Explanation:
When reading this, I was reminded of the kind of prose from that book that doesn't have the letter 'e' anywhere (by some French guy, I forget who).
Which made me think that maybe the object is to somehow achieve some peculiar, and unclear (to me) linguistic/literary objective.

The only thing I've spotted so far is that a good deal of the parts that use unusual words/names (Quetzalcoatl, ascaris, Zimbabwe) or just make almost no logical sense (i.e. most of it !!) seem to feature words with one letter occuring twice (sometimes as a double letter, sometimes not), and the fact that the word has this characteristic often seems to be the only possible reason for it being included.

However, it's not consistent enough (for me) for this to be the *only* explanation, but maybe it can help set off a train of thought from someone else.

Charlie Bavington
Local time: 15:33
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in pair: 213

13 hrs confidence:

a very curious text fragment Are there any more clues in this novel? characters, plot, foreword, author...

Explanation:
Are there any more clues in this novel? characters, plot, foreword, author...

chica nueva
Local time: 02:33
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in pair: 83

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