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  <id>412</id>
  <title><![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]></title>
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  <description><![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]></description>
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    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
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    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
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  <read_at>Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 1992</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed May 16 14:08:45 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 19:33:59 -0800 2009</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[Advice for a first time reader of <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>:<br/><br/><em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> is a book you either love or hate, and if you hate it it's probably because you couldn't finish the damn thing. Though by no means impenetrable, the novel is daunting enough to merit a list of tips for those wishing to...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1255828">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
  <id>407623</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Conrad]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
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  <average_rating>4.08</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>3294</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[  Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em> is a postmodern epic, a work   as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>   was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of   technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>20</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Mar 24 09:13:20 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 17:02:09 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This might be my favorite novel. I read it over the course of around three months, on my fourth attempt, when I was living in Tallinn, Estonia. Something about residence in a very small European country heightens one's sense of the absurd. I would bring it to lunch at the bars where I dined and star...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/407623">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/407623]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/407623]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>62895525</id>
    <user>
    <id>1797553</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Bram]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Boston, MA]]></location>
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    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
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  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[  Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em> is a postmodern epic, a work   as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>   was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of   technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.]]>
  </description>
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  <read_at>Sun Aug 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Fri Jul 10 06:27:22 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Aug 03 11:51:30 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I think reading and reviewing this book requires taking on some extra baggage because it...well, I don't actually need to explain why or else <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em> wouldn't have this baggage in the first place.  It's <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, and that makes me feel like I need to read it, preferably without ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/62895525">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
  <id>4029824</id>
    <user>
    <id>156760</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Aloysius]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Philadelphia, PA]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
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  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>8</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[People with a lot of time on their hands]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Fri Aug 03 11:02:58 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 03:35:17 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[As I was finishing Gravity's Rainbow (took me 2 months), I started kicking around an question that hadn't necessarily occured to me when I started: Am I really intended to understand everything that's going on in this book? And if approached with the answer of &quot;no,&quot; Gravity's Rainbow is an...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4029824">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4029824]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4029824]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>14278881</id>
    <user>
    <id>260292</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Erik]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Yellow Springs, OH]]></location>
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    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
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  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow</link>
  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[  Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em> is a postmodern epic, a work   as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>   was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of   technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>9</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at>Mon Oct 09 00:00:00 -0700 1989</read_at>
  <date_added>Fri Feb 01 10:25:09 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Jun 22 08:49:31 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[GR fits into a sui generis genre of alternative history meets non-fiction meets musical comedy(???). The comical and unbelievable elements are all mixed up with very hard facts about 1945 and the beginning of the post-war world. I'm beginning to get a handle on it even if the many many characters an...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14278881">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14278881]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14278881]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
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    <name><![CDATA[Danica]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Brooklyn, NY]]></location>
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    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
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    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>6</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
  <shelves>
        <shelf name="read" />
          </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[anyone who can read]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[Brad Neely]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Mon Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Jun 14 09:03:43 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Apr 29 19:56:03 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[i will put the review i wrote of this after reading it, that has been lying unused in my journal since then, in here, when i'm not supposed to be working out. <br/><br/><br/>and here it is!!!!! i just got back from running, ha ha... perfect... this is dated summer 2004:<br/><br/>&quot;As a rebo...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1961968">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1961968]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1961968]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>7862938</id>
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    <id>555569</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Edward]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[The United States]]></location>
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  <id type="integer">412</id>
  <isbn>0140283382</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780140283389</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">224</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1995</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Oct 17 18:45:59 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Oct 17 20:49:58 -0700 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow is first and foremost funny. I cannot imagine speaking about any of Pynchon's fiction and not laughing. Somehow he is always talked about in such a serious tone. <br/>If you are not laughing at the bawdy humor, the slapstick, and the corny...<br/>If you are not laughing giddily a...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7862938">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7862938]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7862938]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>1295229</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Jordan]]></name>
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  <id type="integer">415</id>
  <isbn>0143039946</isbn>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow</link>
  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[  Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em> is a postmodern epic, a work   as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>   was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of   technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
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            <shelf name="literature" />
      </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Fri May 18 10:11:37 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Sep 08 12:09:38 -0700 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[It took me the better part of seven months, going 10 to 20 pages at a clip and excluding all other novel-reading, but I have finished.  And while I'm proud of my focus and tenacity, I'm not entirely sure it was worth it.<br/>I'm not going to bash something that obviously means a lot to so many peop...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1295229">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1295229]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1295229]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>804603</id>
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    <id>34047</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Ed]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Japan]]></location>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">67</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>4.04</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>268</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
  <shelves>
        <shelf name="read" />
            <shelf name="most-bestest" />
      </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[The Harder Corer Reader]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Apr 19 22:03:33 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 18:13:50 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I finished this book in an airport. I was just 2 pages away when we landed and I had to walk right out to the smoker's plaza, plop down and finish it finally. It took me a total of 4 months to read this book. I didn't pick it up every day, but I also didn't clutter myself by starting anything else. ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/804603">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/804603]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/804603]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>6054185</id>
    <user>
    <id>354461</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Dena]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[San Angelo, TX]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/354461-dena]]></link>
    <image_url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto-F-111x148.jpg]]></image_url>
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    <book>
  <id type="integer">412</id>
  <isbn>0140283382</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780140283389</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">224</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156917190m/412.jpg</image_url>
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  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
  <shelves>
        <shelf name="read" />
          </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Sep 11 12:46:16 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 10:05:56 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I had a professor who threw a copy of this book at me and said he only knew 4 other people that had ever read it.  Two weeks later (when I should have been studying for finals and writing papers)I threw it back at him and told him that he now knew 5.  Ticked me off, tho, that he seemed to have so mi...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6054185">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6054185]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6054185]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>15875442</id>
    <user>
    <id>563476</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Kyle]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Berkeley, CA]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/563476-kyle]]></link>
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  <isbn>0140188592</isbn>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">67</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/395283.Gravity_s_Rainbow</link>
  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>1</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
  <shelves>
            <shelf name="currently-reading" />
      </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Feb 20 02:12:18 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Sep 20 12:58:10 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I'm about 200 pages shy of the end of this dirge, but I'm compelled to give my review now.<br/><br/>I know history is rarely kind to harsh criticisms about super nebulous or &quot;difficult&quot; authors , but dig this --<br/><br/>This book is horrible. After reading 'The Crying of Lot 49', 'Slo...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/15875442">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/15875442]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/15875442]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>4695421</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Jasen]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>4</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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        <shelf name="read" />
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[paragons of perversity]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sun Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2000</read_at>
  <date_added>Fri Aug 17 09:33:57 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 05:40:26 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Rather than award Pynchon the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the board of that prestigious award opted to declare no winner. The three person jury for the fiction category favored Pynchon, but the fourteen member Pulitzer Prize board overruled their determination, deeming what critics would later ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4695421">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4695421]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4695421]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>2142181</id>
    <user>
    <id>140760</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Daniel]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Newport News, VA]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>4</votes>
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          </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[people who ain't afraid of no dang post-modernism]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2003</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Jun 19 19:21:38 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Jun 19 20:24:28 -0700 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[It's hard to sit down and write about the plot of a Pynchon novel, since each one is about everything that a human being ever thinks about.  The, uh, jumping-off point of this novel is that during WW2, Brittish Intelligence realizes that a map of German V-2 rocket strike sites in London exactly matc...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2142181">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2142181]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2142181]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>40837215</id>
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    <id>1829065</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Mike]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156917191s/415.jpg</small_image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow</link>
  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[  Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em> is a postmodern epic, a work   as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>   was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of   technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Dec 24 10:24:31 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Jan 14 18:05:28 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[When I was getting a PhD in English, I refused to read Pynchon because I thought the last thing the world needed was another book by a modernist author who trying to be more difficult than Joyce.<br/><br/>Then I picked up <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59721.Vineland" title="Vineland by Thomas Pynchon">Vineland</a> out of a bargain bin, and realized it was probably the funniest thi...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/40837215">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/40837215]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/40837215]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>24046966</id>
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    <id>133343</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Matthew]]></name>
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    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[  Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em> is a postmodern epic, a work   as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>   was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of   technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>3</votes>
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          </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Mon Aug 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Jun 09 05:37:23 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Aug 25 10:44:34 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[When I was at the Mets game last week, the crowd started doing the wave during the seventh inning, and everyone watched anxiously as it went from one end of Shea Stadium to the other and then cheered when it finally got to the end. This went on for most of the inning, growing in strength and crowd e...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24046966">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24046966]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24046966]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>7962477</id>
    <user>
    <id>56457</id>
    <name><![CDATA[will]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Poultney, VT]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/56457-will]]></link>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>3</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
  <shelves>
        <shelf name="read" />
          </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[The neurotic, the homesless, the underpaid and out-of-work]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Fri Oct 19 20:36:24 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Dec 08 14:09:26 -0800 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I still get tremors of terror and nausea when I look at this book; I can't bring myself to open it. But I know it was good.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7962477]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7962477]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>27832211</id>
    <user>
    <id>299646</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Phillip]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Oakland, CA]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/299646-phillip]]></link>
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  <isbn13>9780140283389</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">224</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156917190s/412.jpg</small_image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/412.Gravity_s_Rainbow</link>
  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem.  Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then  (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of  death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em>, refers to  the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to  symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big  trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.  <p>  Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the  mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on  the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in  rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its  presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming  V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. <p>  That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is  Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must  have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow  up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns  only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno  far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel,  which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple  reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its  tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel  as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.<p>  Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. <em>Gravity's Rainbow</em> uses beautiful prose to induce an altered  state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. <em>--Tim  Appelo</em></p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>3</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Jul 21 03:24:00 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Dec 27 12:34:46 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[i read this in my 20's and after finishing against the day earlier this year (which i LOVED), i thought it was time to go back and give it another shot. i was overwhelmed by the book the first time i read it. <br/><br/>before i go any furthere, i just want to say that pynchon makes me glad to be a...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/27832211">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/27832211]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/27832211]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
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    <name><![CDATA[Drew]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156917191s/415.jpg</small_image_url>
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  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[  Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em> is a postmodern epic, a work   as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>   was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of   technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>3</votes>
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          </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed May 28 15:03:39 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Aug 19 15:15:21 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[&quot;...as once again the floor is a giant lift propelling you with no warning toward your ceiling— replaying now as the walls are blown outward, bricks and mortar showering down, your sudden paralysis as death comes to wrap and stun <em>I don't know guv I must've blacked out when I come to she was g...</em><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23158066">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23158066]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>14499551</id>
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    <id>686879</id>
    <name><![CDATA[sahiga]]></name>
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  <isbn>0140106618</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780140106619</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">16</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27195.Gravity_s_Rainbow</link>
  <average_rating>4.48</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>60</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), &quot;a screaming comes across the sky,&quot; heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, &quot;Gravity's Rainbow&quot;, refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. Soon Tyrone is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. &quot;Gravity's Rainbow&quot;, however, doesn't follow such a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. &quot;Gravity's Rainbow&quot; is a blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>2</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sat Aug 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Feb 03 22:30:31 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Feb 08 22:45:27 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[<u>before:</u><br/>I REALLY WANT TO READ THIS BOOK! I've been dying to read it for YEARS actually...but alas, I keep procrastinating.<br/><br/><u>after:</u><br/>Terrible yet amazing. I can tell that he was &quot;so fucked up&quot; when he wrote this. (Longer review to come.)<br/><br/><u>the longer review (I co...</u><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14499551">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14499551]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14499551]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>10457823</id>
    <user>
    <id>652509</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Danny]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Denver, CO]]></location>
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  <id type="integer">415</id>
  <isbn>0143039946</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780143039945</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">408</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Gravity's Rainbow]]>
  </title>
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  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156917191s/415.jpg</small_image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow</link>
  <average_rating>4.09</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>4348</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[  Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em> is a postmodern epic, a work   as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>   was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of   technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1973</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>2</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[people with time and will power]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Fri Nov 21 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Dec 15 02:56:04 -0800 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Fri Nov 21 02:17:24 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I absolutely love this book, and hate it at the same time. Paragraph by paragraph, it's some of the best prose I think I've ever read in my life. As a whole, story-wise, it's... well, it's difficult. I think <em>digressive</em> or <em>parenthetical</em> would be good descriptive words. It's on the Joycean side to say...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10457823">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10457823]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10457823]]></link>
</review>
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