it's an excerpt from Don Dellilo's novel Underground. The full paragraph is:
"He crouched under the great split sky, ears set low and his head sloped. The sky was divided, split diagonally, a flat blue, a soft slatey blue, like the head of a crested jay, and a yellow that wasn't even yellow, an enormous heartbreak yellow sweeping to the east, a smoky goldshot stain, and the kids with the knotted arms fell down in a row."
What does this phrase mean? "a smoky goldshot stain"?
- Posted:
- 3+ months ago by Balthazars
- Topics:
- underground, translation, novel, paragraph, american literature
Details:
Responses (1)
You are right about a definition of term 'phrase'. What I was trying to say is 'This is not really a common phrase', but a poetical description of yellow sky.
I also found a drink called gold shot, for example Fighting Irish Gold Shot.
I am not sure if there is a definite way to determine what the writer had in mind, beside asking him directly :).
Maybe you can take a little freedom here and give your own translation, based on the writer's origin and novel context.
You can google Don Delillo "goldshot" or Don Delillo "gold shot", you will find several usage of this term in his books
Thanks for you reply.
correct me if i'm wrong but i suppose a phrase (according to longman dict) is a a group of words without a finite verb, especially when they are used to form part of a sentence, such as ‘walking along the road’ and ‘a bar of soap’ .
I agree that the writer is poetically describing the sky yet I want to know what he exactly means by "a smoky goldshot stain"
does it mean, as yo said, a satin from a gold pellet and do we have such thing? i also googled it and saw there actually is a drink called golshot.
since I'm translating this paragraph for a paper, i need to know the exact imagery.