Gravity's Rainbow

Oct 07, 2012 s.penkevich rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Paranoids, Preterits and Pornographers

Shelves: pocket_rockets, national_book_award, favorites, po-mo

‘What is the real nature of control?’

From the first sentence of Pynchon’s National Book Award winning novel, Gravity’s Rainbow, the Reader is transplanted into a threatening world where death strikes first, the cause second. It is a world of frightening realism and comic absurdity, all fueled through drug induced hallucinations, paranoid ramblings, and psychological investigations that is not all that unlike our own reality once you remove yourself to view it from afar as if it were some painti...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, favorites

It took three months, but I finally pinned this sucker down to the count of ten. Three months is kinda perfect if you think about it, though. That's my typical honeymoon period in most relationships, the enthusiastic "I can still more than tolerate you" part, so great timing, yeah? Sure, I cheated on him on about 15 separate occasions in that time-frame, but hell, nobody's perfect. The library card in my wallet is like a condom just begging to be used.

So yeah, I can now say I've "read" this book...more

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May 16, 2007 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: novels

Advice for a first time reader of Gravity's Rainbow:

Gravity's Rainbow 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 tackle it for the first time. Below is my advice on how new readers can get over the hump. Trust me, it's a small hump, and the masterpiece that lies on the other side is worth the effort.

1. Read V first ... Pyn...more Advice for a first time reader of Gravity's Rainbow:

Gravity's Rainbow 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 tackle it for the first time. Below is my advice on how new readers can get over the hump. Trust me, it's a small hump, and the masterpiece that lies on the other side is worth the effort.

1. Read V first ... Pynchon's V is shorter and more accessible than Gravity's Rainbow, but addresses the same themes in a similar style. If you enjoyed V, you will have built up a reserve of goodwill for Pynchon that will carry you through the initial rough patches of Gravity's Rainbow. This advice was given to me years ago, and I'm glad I took it.

2. Accept that you won't understand everything...Don't be concerned if you can't follow the many digressions or keep track of every minor character that pops up. As with other famously difficult novels, Gravity's Rainbow's real payoff comes in the rereading, so you shouldn't feel obliged to linger over each passage until it makes sense. Pynchon isn't trying to lord it over you by writing a book this dense; it's just his way of giving you your money's worth. Just follow what you can the first time through, which fortunately is a lot.

3. Accentuate the accessible...Gravity's Rainbow's unreadability is over-hyped. Yes, there are many jarring digressions, but threading through them is a fairly conventional detective story. Sure there are lyrical passages that take off for the stratosphere, but they are grace notes in a melody of otherwise breezy narrative prose. So on your first time through, it's enough to follow the main plot (will Slothrop find the mysterious Rocket 00000?) and enjoy Pynchon's jokes, which are laugh-out-loud funny.

4. Don't give up too early...I don't want to say that Gravity's Rainbow gets off to a slow start, but it has a lot of scene-setting to do, and the engine that really drives the book along only gets revved up in part 2. Part 1 is a well-executed minor key portrait of wartime London, but part 2 is where the drugs kick in, so stick with the novel at least that far.(less)

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Jun 15, 2012 Jenn(ifer) rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: degenerates

Recommended to Jenn(ifer) by: the literati

Shelves: 5-f-ing-stars, beach-reads, dark, game-changers, giggles, read-in-2012, the-tops, you-should-read-this, own, gr-group-coreads, my-reviews-that-dont-suck

First off, a song: this was supposedly influenced by Gravity's Raibow. HA!

This one's for you Slothrop & Bodine (I had no idea that there actually were zoot suit riots! Everything I've learned, I've learned from reading books. Crappy public school education...)

Where to begin?!

Regarding the creation of this novel, it has been said, “ Pynchon sequestered himself in a room, writing the novel out by hand, filling sheet after sheet of graph paper with the precise script of an Engineer. Perched at...more

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Jun 16, 2013 Aubrey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-06-12, 1000-guardian, bring-it-on, ever-on, essential-pm, megalodon, on-hand, pulitzer, 5-star, books-are-the-best-invention, reviewed

Gather ‘round, everyone, and hear the tale of why the reasoning (not the rejection itself, mind you) behind the rejection of this novel for the Pulitzer Prize of ’74 fucking pisses me off.

Their reason? Obscenity. I would hope that they at least wrote an essay justifying their decision that went beyond an insipid mix of morally outraged blatherings and oblique mentions of coprophilia (he ate what? Poop? Oh, we cannot stand for this we simply must not accept this and god forbid we even think for a...more

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Aubrey @Madeleine: Thank you, and that's high honors, considering all the other wonderful GR reviews out there.

I personally view the rejection as undeniable...more
updated 17 hours, 24 min ago

Dolors Aubrey wrote: "I look forward to your experiences with DFW! His IJ not only reaffirmed my view on life, it also set the stage for exponentially buildi...more
updated 18 hours, 24 min ago

Jun 01, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: exert-yourself, read-2012, reviews, reviews-5-stars, pynchon

Prologue

"A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now."

Genesis

In the beginning was the earth, and above the earth was the sky.

The earth consisted of land and water. The sky consisted of air, the moon, the sun and the stars in the heavens.

The land consisted of rock. Water was everywhere, but still precious.

The sky was light by day and dark by night. By day, the light came from the sun and sometimes the moon. At night, a lesser light came fro...more

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Aug 10, 2007 Conrad rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: masterpieces, owned, pomo, fiction

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 start crying into my club sandwich when the book was sad and laughing into my kebabs when it was funny (which is nearly always) and there are a lot of bartenders who probably thought I was crazy.

The first...more 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 start crying into my club sandwich when the book was sad and laughing into my kebabs when it was funny (which is nearly always) and there are a lot of bartenders who probably thought I was crazy.

The first rule of Gravity's Rainbow is you do not talk about Gravity's Rainbow. Just read it and don't worry about all the things you don't get. You could spend the rest of your life in graduate school of various sorts and not be as smart as Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, so don't sweat it.

There are swaths of this book that I definitely don't get. Pointsman, the psychologist? Didn't get it. Tchitcherine? Didn't get him, as a character, didn't understand why he did what he did, almost ever. But hidden inside all the dross is literature of unparalleled terror and beauty: the chapter in the very middle of the book about Pokler and his daughter, which left me literally bawling in public, the only time I can think of I've ever done that. Oddly, the description of U-boat latrines. The dejected Slothrop wandering Germany in a pig suit. Pirate Prentice's romance. The overgrown adenoid that invades London. The dogs grown intelligent. The sad allusions to Webern's death. The notorious scat sequence that people get all worked up over. The Proverbs for Paranoids interspersed throughout ("You will not touch the Master, but you may tickle his creatures..."). Blicero's carnival of torture, better than anything Gonzalez could devise, and more honest, too.

Gravity's Rainbow is a quick guide to all the ways you could have lived your life but did not; all the injustices you have not had to face; all the ridiculous theories of the afterlife you can't bear to accept. It teaches you how to read itself. It's been copied relentlessly, by Trainspotting and Kurt Cobain and reading it means there's a certain voice that will inhabit your brain forever. It's like going on Samhain vacation from reality with nothing but a crate of bananas and a load of S&M. Caveat emptor.(less)

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Aug 03, 2009 Bram rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

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 Gravity’s Rainbow wouldn't have this baggage in the first place. It's Gravity's Rainbow, and that makes me feel like I need to read it, preferably without thinking too much about why exactly I feel this way. But at the same time I feel like I should avoid it so I don't look like a damn hairdo, which I'm told is British slang for someone who “tries too hard...more

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Caryn Finished yesterday morning, (Sat.). Spent much of the day returning to look up different things, 'Did I remember that Pokler scene correctly?', '"seph...more Finished yesterday morning, (Sat.). Spent much of the day returning to look up different things, 'Did I remember that Pokler scene correctly?', '"sephiroth"? Is that somehow where the odd name 'Slothrop' comes from'?...'Is he somehow akin to one of the aspects/gates to God one has to conquer or navigate' in order to succeed to God, to the Center?, 'Did Slothrop really shag young Bianca or was that some wild fantasy?...etc.

Still feeling a bit hung-over from that wild voyage so I'll prolly have many more questions and comments after a few days when it digests properly.

It struck me in the middle of 'Byron the immortal and sentient light-bulb' that all of the S&M sex is somehow representative of the larger picture: The relationship of Elite and Preterite; then BAM! Thanatz explains it all for you.

"Why will the Structure allow every other kind of sexual behavior but that one? Because submission and dominance are resources it needs for it's very survival. They cannot be wasted in private sex. In ANY kind of sex. It needs our submission so that it may remain in power. It needs our lusts after dominance so that it can co-opt us into it's own power game. There is no joy in it, only power. I tell you, if S and M could be established universally, at the family level, the State would wither away."

In the end (after this, my first go-round with the book. Maybe it will change later); I really don't think Pynchon is trying to challenge us, nor really trying to entertain us, lead us up or down the garden path. I think he just writes. He just writes what he writes and can't stop himself. I don't feel like the story was 'crafted', organized in any specific way to lead a reader or confuse a reader. I don't know if he even thought of us at all. He just IS what he IS. Reading this felt like a rare glimpse into the mind of a real bonafide crazy genius. (Sounds so hokey using that word, but in this case, IMHO, truly applicable).

Have to return the book to the library tomorrow, but I know I'll have to just go buy a copy too. This is one I'll be questioning and looking things up in for years.(less)
May 04, 2013 07:11pm

Bram Congrats on finishing, Caryn! You should gather up all these great thoughts/comments and post them in a review.
May 05, 2013 07:33am

Feb 20, 2013 Nick Craske rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Ian Graye wrote this wonderful pastiche and fictional letter, from Nabokov to Pynchon. So authentic is the voice and style I pasted it here thinking it was genuine: Ian's spectacular review can be read in full here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
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[Letter from Vlad the Impaler of Butterflies - April, 1973]

Dear Tom,

Vera and I very much appreciated your gift of a signed first edition o...more

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Feb 22, 2011 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It took me a couple of tries to make it through Pynchon's Great Thing; the first time I began it eagerly enough, only to smash headfirst into an impenetrable wall of thick, viscous prose that so entangled and bewildered me that—after some seventy-odd pages—I said Enough! and moved on. However, the book nibbled away at my mind, and about three weeks later I gave it another try. Determined this time to see it through, I hit the ground running to match pace with A screaming comes across the sky...;...more It took me a couple of tries to make it through Pynchon's Great Thing; the first time I began it eagerly enough, only to smash headfirst into an impenetrable wall of thick, viscous prose that so entangled and bewildered me that—after some seventy-odd pages—I said Enough! and moved on. However, the book nibbled away at my mind, and about three weeks later I gave it another try. Determined this time to see it through, I hit the ground running to match pace with A screaming comes across the sky...; somewhat surprised, I found I myself fairly easily clearing hurdles that I had earlier stumbled over and, flush with confidence, made it past my previous checkpoint. It was with bracing speed and excitement that I showed up at Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering, confident that I would not only be able to finish this sucker, but that it would be an amazing, difficult, revelatory, hilarious journey to undertake.

Now, to finish GR, even when under its anticipatory spell and dazed by its glamors, still presents a challenge. The text can switch from Keystone Cop routines and breezy pie-fights to steel cable paragraphs and triple-size airbags, inflated by super-dense sentences, that bring your forward momentum to a crashing halt. There are also stretches where you become exasperated with Pynchon, or bored, and only determination keeps you slogging on; and one still has to imbibe Pynchon's rapid-fire dispensation of culture (both high and low), technology, conspiracies, and science, parse it, and try to make sense of where he is leading you to with his variegated passages of breathtaking and stomach-punching prose—and Dorothy-O, it sure ain't Kansas. One thing that seized me was entropy-to-heat-death: the human body shedding energy as it freezes in the ever-slowing nanoseconds before the absolute-zero, moss-encrusted-stillness of non-life; the encephalic frost ushered in by almighty science as it fills its guts with exuberant energy and spews out entropic dung, the great equalizer that achieves parity in scything a playing field of rictus-limned corpses in an eternal cast renewal for the grand cosmic joke which ends with but a geriatric, wheezing Time inching along astride a single Galactus-like figure channeling Isabella Band-Aid and Wondering what it's for? Is it a truism in GR that those who expend energy in the pursuit of any ambition higher than fraternity hijinks end up paralysed or corrupted by their desires, enter fully into one or the other of the master-slave paradigm that seems the rising cream of the mass human psyche? I pondered whether Pynchon's twentieth-century could best be described as the thousand-fold madnesses of man—in the thrall of brilliant technologies hatched from his own rational mind, many of them mass-murder machines—the paranoia and irrationality, the dissipation of his spirit and sanity born of being forced to stare that mighty, slow-moving tsunami Death full-on into his fathomless, inert, coal-mine eyes without any sense of surety or stable footing whatsoever; of the observer and abyss sharing an eternal kiss of gazes, now that the concealing curtain has been consumed in firing the ovens. Can this be the peak of the parabola traced by the V2 painting gravity's rainbow?

I have no idea, because I've only read the book once, and more than almost any other cosa asombrosa I've ingested, GR screams to be consumed several times—if only to figure out what those square symbols fucking mean: vaginal or anal pursing chronologically branded by a god with more of an angular, less perfect bent? Geometrical hints regarding how to mathematically calculate the commonplace soul's daily suffering? This book stimulated and provoked and entertained me so much that I went on a Pynchon tear, one that—by the time I turned the final page of Mason & Dixon—had worn me to a frazzle. I still have Against the Day in my pile of to-reads; once the latter has been put to bed, I do believe I'll go back to Tyrone Slothrop and Benny the Bulb, to Pynchon's best of a handful of great books and the core of his canon, take a seat in the front-facing car, and experience the highs and lows of this inimitable and wild roller coaster ride once again.(less)

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Jun 22, 2008 Erik rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: pynchonhead, great-american-novel

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 and their interrelationships are still confusing to me. I still have my battered copy, bought in high school and having accompanied me all these years:

Some basic themes are:

1. a conspiracy theory/ alternati...more 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 and their interrelationships are still confusing to me. I still have my battered copy, bought in high school and having accompanied me all these years:

Some basic themes are:

1. a conspiracy theory/ alternative history about the cartels like IG Farben and American corporations reaching ultimate synergy at the end of WWII, and bringing us the modern world and a certain Richard M. Schlubb a.k.a. Nixon.

2. Slothrop, l'homme moyen, as the ultimate test consumer, in fact an actual guinea pig, the Weberian Protestant and his God-driven ethos of chosen versus preterite, re-routinized by the rising bureaucracies/conspiracies. The worshipper becomes our ideal docile consumer-worker. My pet theory is that despite all of the correlating factors mentioned by Pynchon, sexual, chemical, mystical, ancestral, these are all red herrings and the rocket strikes and his erections are both random, but matching by chance, and Slothrop is thus revealed as our ideal future test subject, the totally average oversexed, paranoid American consumer, ready for exploitation like a sacrificial Jesus figure, which in some ways he becomes.

3. A European culture of sex-death and the inorganic deeply rooted in German romanticism, and coming to full flower in the mass extermination of WWII, but in 1945 becoming less and less mystical and more embodied, routinized in the spirit of technology and commerce, as a Weberian might put it,

4. OR maybe it's all a joke! "Beschissen, Freundchen!" April Fools Day fell on Easter Sunday in 1945. No conspiracy, no nothing, just a blind instinctual careening toward death, like the mindless Rocket after Brennschluss. It was 1973 after all and the world had gone to total shit. Not that things got any better in 1980 and 2000! The joke of Gravity's Rainbow has now become the reality we live inside, with protest and conspiracy-paranoia merely factored in as another controlled and conditioned response to total domination, body and soul. On the other hand Paranoia functions in Pynchon as a kind of sinister comfort against the possibility of true chaos, a la the tychism of Henry Adams. None of his conspiracies or the would-be conspirators themselves ever really comes off as that genuine center of control. It’s a myth.

By the way, when I first read this I thought that Pynchon was a smart chap and mock-historian. But I now sense the use of language, even the poetry of some well crafted phrases, and the clever circular hopscotch patterning he uses in lieu of plot. There is also some halcyon writing here, as in the story of Franz Poekler. There are certain elements of 60's era "white guilt" and almost an ancestral sin Pynchon is trying to expiate (his family is quite prominent in New England history), elements which date the book and which I find jejeune, like some of the humor. But it's a classic, no doubt about it.

Next stop: Levine and Leverenz Mindful Pleasures, a superb collection of essays on V and GR.(less)

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Sep 14, 2012 Madeleine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: head-in-the-clouds-nose-in-a-book, mmxi, mmxii, our-libeary, maybe-it-s-time-to-live, richard-python, tooting-my-own-muted-horn

Edit, 14 Sep. 2012: So. I've been thinking and talking about this book literally all year now while my Pynchonian love has been growing exponentially. Four stars it is for this maddening, wonderful, frustrating and surprising masterpiece of American literature because it has done nothing but endear itself to me the more I dwell on it. I'm leaving my review as I wrote it in January because ~~I'm fucking lazy, okay?~~ the vast majority of it is still true.

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Holy crap, y'all. This book. This boo...more Edit, 14 Sep. 2012: So. I've been thinking and talking about this book literally all year now while my Pynchonian love has been growing exponentially. Four stars it is for this maddening, wonderful, frustrating and surprising masterpiece of American literature because it has done nothing but endear itself to me the more I dwell on it. I'm leaving my review as I wrote it in January because ~~I'm fucking lazy, okay?~~ the vast majority of it is still true.

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Holy crap, y'all. This book. This book! Thomas Pynchon's brain is a national treasure (albeit a kooky one), as it takes some mad skill to combine a smorgasbord of seemingly unrelated components -- among them: a giant adenoid, a metric butt-ton of intersecting conspiracies, applied physics (complete with equations that made me feel like a dimwit!), cannibalism, World War II, entropy, Plasticman, the occult, Pavlovian experiments, Mickey Rooney, light-bulb legacies, obscure '40s cultural references, disgusting English candies (is that redundant?), characters breaking into goofy songs with a frequency befitting musical theatre -- and throw them all together with a staggeringly cohesive and coherent result that's also a language-lover's dream.

My previous encounters with Pynchon are limited to one of his shortest works ("The Crying of Lot 49"), his newest offering ("Inherent Vice"), and a handful of short stories from a long-ago college lit class. I'll admit, while I've always enjoyed hanging out with the brainchildren of literature's most enigmatic figure, I was motivated to conquer "Gravity's Rainbow" for purely egotistical reasons: Many tackle the daunting tome but few reach the finish line, and I wanted to rank among the few who can count this post-modern insanity among their bookish conquests. I owe the Pynchon Wiki a great many thanks for deciphering some of the more arcane allusions tossed into the mix, otherwise I wouldn't've known what the hell was going on in more than a few instances and would have most likely abandoned the effort.

The two months I spent wading through "Gravity's Rainbow" were, indeed, punctuated by bouts of confusion and frustration. I can't remember the last time I did this much research on a book that wasn't required reading for a class. Nor can I recall a time when a work of fiction had me rereading passages and pages two or three times to make sure I knew which way was up. If not for perusing reviews by veteran Pynchon enthusiasts who offered assurances that one is not supposed to understand every nuance of this book the first time around, I probably would have thrown the novel across many rooms at various points. I came into this adventure thinking that it couldn't be that difficult and was thoroughly humbled within 20 pages.

But damn if this didn't return every drop of my hard work with a truly rewarding reading experience. Sure, I was consulting a dictionary or some kind of wikipedia every couple pages, and the breakneck discursiveness of the narrative did have me running in circles every so often. But! The inherent difficulty of this reading experience forced me to pay attention to every single word in the almost-800-page book. Demanding that kind of effort and focus absolutely made it easier for me to appreciate the kind of unusual talent that birthed this terrible and unconventional beauty. And you know what? I felt brilliant every time I understood an off-the-cuff historical reference (why, yes, I DO know why Prince Edward abdicated!) or genuinely laughed hysterically over one of the countless clever turns of phrase that made every "Just what the hell is going on here!?" moment worth the headdesking.

Pynchon's wordsmithing prowess is on full-force here (and is why I feel a little dirty giving this a paltry three stars), which is what kept me hurdling headfirst through the more-than-sometimes murky depths of his magnum opus. His penchant for veering completely off the topic did mean that I've forgotten more details than I've retained, but Pynchon's ability to polish a sentence to the point of making it seem effortlessly constructed more than compensated for that. Besides, I don't feel too badly about my inability to retain every excruciatingly minute detail because, from what I understand, half the joy of this book comes from the reread, which is partly why I couldn't justify slapping four stars on it after our first tango, especially when so much escaped my notice. Anyway. Any book that can be chock-full of made-up songs, hidden poetry and some of the most laboriously set up puns ever written appeases my inner language nerd enough to forgive any (fleetingly, in this case) less-than-enthusiastic feelings that cropped up during our long-term acquaintance. The exhaustive scope of the vocabulary Pynchon has at his command is on par with that of both his general knowledge and this book's terrain. Hell, even the nature of my readerly reactions -- outright laughter, near tears, gagging fits -- ran the gamut of physical responses.

While the stream-of-consciousness approach definitely got a little burdensome at points, it really did add so much to the story. Watching where some of these characters' minds wandered to made them seem so human and believable, which kept me caring about what was going on even when I didn't know what was going on. Pynchon does tell the story from lots of vantage points, often allowing one character to draw conclusions about another, but he also lets the reader in on what's really happening with the hundreds of people populating the story. The way that the choir of voices weaves dozens of individual plot threads into a rich tapestry of intersecting madness justifies every instance of wandering narrative.

Finally (because I'm getting tired of writing and want to go back to reading), the humor with which Pynchon writes is an absolute treat. I've never seen a writer get so much comical mileage from a well-placed "Really?" There are some flat-out ridiculous directions that the plot takes but it's really the writing itself that tickled my deranged sense of humor the hardest. I did get a serious kick out of Pynchon's preoccupation with kazoos, harmonicas and bananas, too. It made me want to start a marching kazoo band of my own, mostly because I've got a soft spot for making my own magically obscure allusions. (I'll settle for an adequate photo of the MST3K cereal novel, though.)(less)

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Sep 20, 2012 Lee rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A hose of prose -- relentless, uncompromising, uber-detailed, purposefully disorienting, godlike, puerile, silly, song-filled, wonky, wise, sexy, stupefying, audacious, ambitious to the point of OCD ADHD ickiness -- hooked to a thick rectangular pulp-based nozzle interface intended to excoriate at full-blast the reader's face off forever. "Central" thematic conflict is fate v. free will -- Pavlovian-type behaviorism v. something more than reaction to stimuli, in this case, arousal in advance of...more A hose of prose -- relentless, uncompromising, uber-detailed, purposefully disorienting, godlike, puerile, silly, song-filled, wonky, wise, sexy, stupefying, audacious, ambitious to the point of OCD ADHD ickiness -- hooked to a thick rectangular pulp-based nozzle interface intended to excoriate at full-blast the reader's face off forever. "Central" thematic conflict is fate v. free will -- Pavlovian-type behaviorism v. something more than reaction to stimuli, in this case, arousal in advance of the rocket -- but there's also the conflict between the featureless blastulablob, ie, the semi-formless multi-tentacled octopus emitting streams of inky language, versus the perfect form of the arcing parabola of a rocket, of ejaculate, of one's life span, of life bursting out and transcending for a bit in a gorgeous arc while death's all around. At best, the thematic parabola pokes its gleaming porpoise curve out as it rides swift currents in a very unsettled Shark of Confusion–infested sea of A+ language. At worst, A+ language never freakin' stops screaming across the page, rarely slows, never settles, shifts in content but rarely in wholesale form -- leaving a reader to grasp for the life-raft of association among all the many apparently disconnected bits. So much sexiness sometimes comes off like it's studded throughout to string the reader along. Dozens of dog-earred pages (quotes to come) but no real LOLs. In general, I read 450+ pages carefully and then had to read more quickly after that since my time wasn't being rewarded as it had been especially after page 50 or so. That is, I wasn't into it / engaged / immersed / making many connections / appreciating the prose anymore. Once the rocket/orgasm conceit kicks in around pg 50, the book leaves its blast-off cloud of dust behind and ascends, then hangs in the Zone, then descends . . . I failed the descent section, essentially. Skimmed until I hit the end reading more or less as fast as I could. Sorry, T. Ruggles. I liked this one more than V. (which I quit on 200 pages in), less than Lot 49 (which I've read twice) . . . Worth it maybe to study it one day, but I don't have the patience or inclination these days. Some of the highest prosey peaks ever (philosophical expository jags and top-notch "keenly observed" descriptions of the natural world worth seven stars at least are maybe what make this the unfakeable canonical biggie that it is instead of just an artifact of late-'60s artistic self-indulgence/excess?), but its default flow seemed a bit too slow throughout, despite (because of?) top flight fanciful prose on every page. Goes to show that the towering literary artistry rainbow can't quite manage transcendence sustained over several hundreds of pages without a little more of the old fashioned flying buttress-like requirements of basic readerly orientation and sustained narrative interest (ie, sustained characters, something more of a sustained plot). For those wondering if it's worth the time it takes to read, I'd say, yes, sure, definitely, at least to be familiar with the first 200+ pages. It's more of an infinite book than Infinite Jest in that there's apparently so much more going on, so many asides, offshoots, wormholes, whatnot, plus I can always go back and more closely read the final 300 pages. Wholly unique. Reminded me of "Ulysses," "The Recognitions," and "Don Quixote" (might finish the second half of it this summer), especially when parodying film genres. Now to read a string of much shorter novels and story collections! Sakes alive! Bring on a Tobias Wolff father-son hunting story!(less)

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Mar 27, 2012 J. Ergo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, adventure, apocalyptic, consciousness, conspiracy, culture, esoterica, humor, fiction, metaphysics, occult, politics, science-math, supernatural, transgressive, erotic, historical, to-re-read, religion, novel, mystery, metastruction, horror, fantasy, crime, reviewed

***THIS IS SO A WORK IN PROGRESS: ENJOY/GIGGLE/HUFF IF YOU MUST***

***THE WHOLE REVIEW IS ONLY AVAILABLE UNDER MY WRITINGS BECAUSE (SEE DIRECTLY BELOW)

***ALSO, THIS IS WHAT THE KIDS CALL TLTR (I think), WHICH MEANS IT'S REALLY, REALLY LONG***

***AND . . . IT PROBABLY HAS SPOILERS, BUT I CAN NO LONGER SEE STRAIGHT SO YER JUST GONNA HAVE TO TAKE YER CHANCES***

***. . . OR NOT***

Tom
Don’t think too hard, Eddie, you might sprain something.

Dane
You are so goddamn smart. ‘Cept you ain’t. I get you, smart...more

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Jul 10, 2012 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: time-all-time-100, 2010, surreal, alternate-history, project, important, 100-howell-favorites

It is difficult to say for certain if the five-star review will withstand a second reading--but we won't know that until I subject myself to it that second time. Fortunately for me, it has gone back to its "last in line" position for at least a little while.

First, the obvious stuff: this is the kind of novel that makes "Top N" lists of all kinds (formal and less so) and is widely regarded as a masterpiece among postmodern masterpieces. It's transgressive in a number of different ways--fucking wi...more

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Oct 23, 2007 Aloysius rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People with a lot of time on their hands

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 "no," Gravity's Rainbow is an enjoyable experience. I started off slowly in the attempt to take in every word and comprehend everything that was going on, but as I read an reread, I realized that some of this stuff was either above my head...more 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 "no," Gravity's Rainbow is an enjoyable experience. I started off slowly in the attempt to take in every word and comprehend everything that was going on, but as I read an reread, I realized that some of this stuff was either above my head or completely incomprehensible without a study guide or a graduate course and I should simply try to extract from the experience what I could rather than try to understand it in its entirety.

Unlike other high-brow writers such as Joyce or Nabokov, Pynchon uses a low-brow, toilet humor that lends him an immediacy and accessibility not found in Ulysses or Lolita/Ada (okay, it's arguable, but when Nabokov and Joyce make jokes...um, face it people, they're not really that funny) and the periods of lucidity and of tangible plot within Pynchon's work are intriguing. He writes with a genuine love of language and can weave a spell-binding web with poetic, descriptive lines that draws a reader in, although at times, the text is incredibly difficult (sometimes painful) to wade through.

In particular, I found the story of Pokler (one of hundreds of characters) caught my attention, for the questions it raised. Although it may only occupy 30 pages of the book, I felt an emotional attachment to this German scientist that I wasn't able to form with any of the others in the book. Basically, Pokler is an important figure in the development of the V2 rocket for the Germans, but he's not necessarily the most willing or happy of workers. His wife and daughter are in a concentration camp somewhere and his superiors hold this against him like a carrot at the end of a stick. Each year for a few days, his daughter is sent to visit him, and then taken away unexpected without the benefit of a goodbye. Of course, each year, he's not certain as to whether it is the same girl or even his daughter at all, but he pretends that she is simply because he needs that connection to survive, to keep himself sane. The story is an unsettling examination of familial relationships and the idea of identity, and its worth reading the book if only for this small section.

Of course, the rest of the novel had its moments, but none so poignant for me as that of Pokler's work on the rocket and his relationship with his daughter. There are times when a reader has to wade through examinations of corporate conspiracy ("They" being a main, unidentified force throughout) and descriptions of the science behind rocket feul, and at these times Gravity's Rainbow is completely overwhelming. But then again, perhaps Pynchon's point is to make you feel as lost in the novel as people do in modern life. Certain things don't make much sense; but hey, when you look out at the complexities of the world, is the society we live in any different?(less)

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Dec 05, 2011 Jeremy added it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-fiction

Gravity's Rainbow is a full-bore freakout. It's a book you have to bring your "A" game to as a reader. The stew of themes, ideas and valences it percolates in is dense and strange, and at times the book seems to literally emit radioactive vapors of its own. Like with V. the book feels more like it's about the resonances between ideas, (History! Paranoia! Free Will! Scatology! Drugs! Pavlov! Plastics!) and that the characters, (along with the reader) are just sort of sucked along for the ride in...more

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Apr 19, 2013 Con McVeety rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: great-and-dense

I should get around to writing a review for this book but maybe a rereading is in order first, I mean I don't even know where I could start, the fact that it's complex as all hell, and that at times while reading it I wanted to give up but couldn't because Thomas Pynchon's writing at once is so visceral, and beautifil even when Pynchon describes an out of control orgy, that it's a book that not only did I get lost in what was going on, trying to keep in range of the bigger elements, I found mys...more

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Jul 07, 2011 A.J. Howard rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1001-books, bookshelf-fiction, finished-in-2011, nixanigans, time-100

Selections From My Mental Commentary Upon Reading Gravity's Rainbow

Difficult my ass, I know who Werner Van Braun is.......... What a fantastic name........ Errrrr...............Maybe I need to reed that again......... Third time's a charm!.......... Shit........... Okay, who/what/when/where/why/how the fuck is going on?............... Okay, I think I get what's going on here........... Never mind.............. This whole thing is absolute rubbish............... Did Dane Cook's boner write that p...more

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Apr 03, 2010 Kyle rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I know history is rarely kind to harsh criticisms about super nebulous or "difficult" authors , but dig this --

This book is horrible. After reading The Crying of Lot 49, Slow Learner and now this, I'm convinced that Thomas Pynchon is a hack, and the reason we don't hear from him is because he has nothing to say and knows that if we gave him a microphone and fifteen minutes he'd be found out.

90% of the people who pick up this novel won't finish it, and 90% of those who do won't like it. But 100%...more

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Apr 29, 2008 Danica rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who can read

Recommended to Danica by: Brad Neely

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.

and here it is!!!!! i just got back from running, ha ha... perfect... this is dated summer 2004:

"As a reborn lover of books, there has been an ongoing rediscovery of "literature" and it's implications in my life recently. A precocious student early-on, I was hungry for knowledge and read everything I could get my hands on. I have read the...more 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.

and here it is!!!!! i just got back from running, ha ha... perfect... this is dated summer 2004:

"As a reborn lover of books, there has been an ongoing rediscovery of "literature" and it's implications in my life recently. A precocious student early-on, I was hungry for knowledge and read everything I could get my hands on. I have read the high-school caonon of novels and stories--sought out Fitzgerald at Kafka at the age of 12 and wowed English teachers with my deconstructions of the Bronte's and Joyce. However, although subculture was present in other aspects of my life-most notably music-for some reason I found it difficult find the intersection where the past met the future of writing.
Enter Infinite Jest. I began noticing it, massive and orange, on the shelves of friends who I looked up to most. Upon research, I discovered D.F. Wallace to be the reigning "kid genius" of popular fiction and also that none of my acquaintances had finished the book. So, I decided to finish it. It was a dizzying novel-spectacular in its breadth-highly entertaining at times and sometimes just as intensely boring. But I got through it. And I was hungry for more. A co-worker of mine told me if I wanted another big, challenging book, I should read Gravity's Rainbow. I was somewhat familiar with Pynchon at this point because of The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland, and some short stories. I understood him to be a man who enjoyed confusing readers who might not be engaged enough. He enjoyed complex plots and mystifying explanations. He enjoyed the underworld and silliness. He created the unending probability of the certain impossible actually happening and absurdly named characters who actually expected it.
In The Crying of Lot 49 as well as, say, Infinite Jest, I had encountered in various passages a cockiness I was wary of. It consisted of a self-awareness with a kinship to the purposeful zaniness of things but left something lacking. I was struck by this decorative zaniness because it bore not real significance on the plot or inherent mood of the story. So far, none of Pynchon's nonsense songs had worked their magic on me. In David Foster Wallace, I forgave it by the end of the book because all of the pieces ended up fitting together, and anyone who even slightly enjoys post-modernism likes to be fucked with. That's what entertainment is all about. Still, a few months later, I wonder how much of Infinite Jest I have forgotten and whether it really matters. Do I really need to know about the extensive catalogue of tattoos of the halfway-house inmates?
For the first time, with Gravity's Rainbow, I was thoroughly delighted by these little games. More importantly, I feel that they served as a foundation for the gorgeously dark, terrifying, and whimsical world that Pynchon's characters inhabit.
The book revolves around the misadventures of Tyrone Slothrop, a United States soldier in England at the end of WWII. Inexplicably, and presumably because of a connection between his amorous conquests and the pattern of bombs falling on London, he is kidnapped and his identity is erased. He spends the remainder of the novel trying to solve the mystery of the rocket that he is connected to and searching for his freedom. He encounters spies, merchants, warriors, and magicians as he wanders the wastes of post-war Europe through the spring of 1945.
This book, to me, was all about identity. Slothrop's identity is stolen and becomes a commodity and a legend. He is inextricably connected to the tests that programmed him to interact in the way that he does with the opposite sex and, therefore, the war. The book, though whimsical, is a tragedy. Slothrop disappears in the end-unable to assert himself over the machine that has made him who he is. Of course this is a novel only-a fake conspiracy theory for the enjoyment of the authro and readers. But to me it rang true because I often question how big of a role the individual does have in society, war-torn or not. It is easy to feel a certain joyful emptiness when I am surrounded by strangers on a subway train hurling through the dark. There is another less joyful loss of identity I feel upon financial problems, or dealing with red tape of any kind for that matter. This is more of a feeling of dread of the future being nothing but owing something to someone else, of being a number, of not having a voice or face because I am less powerful than most people. I would like to hope that power is something that doesn't overlook the intelligent or self-motivated, and that each person has the right to self-determination. Slothrop, though, didn't. Or rather, his rights changed so much that the only option for him to remain in control of himself was to disappear completely.
Is a man really a man without an audience? Once he falls off the face of the earth, goes into the wild, does nothing of "importance", does he exist or is he just another animal? This is assuming that man and animal are separate to begin with, an assumption I choose to make. Men left on desert islands have told their stories, but what if Robinson Crusoe hadn't refound civilization?
It is a simple thing to think about. Really, the story of Slothrop is the story of anyone. We humans tend to bumble through our lives, sometimes blandly and innocently unaware that anything is wrong, other times struggling to piece things together. However, I feel that this book affected me so much because the lush cacophany that Pynchon surrounds Slothrop with is none of the tried-on wackiness of other post-modern fiction but rather a symbolic representation of the world as it is. I do not expect to be fighting Pavlovian octopi or sneaking around parties disguised as a pig any time in the near future, but the fact that Slothrop did shows that each human is up against the same odds. In one way this tale is all about the excesses and frivolities of a world where people have enough money or corruption to manipulate the lives of other mortals. In another sense it is about the indiviual as the person inside the body: the unexplained journey and then the disappearance at the end. For the purposes of the story slothrop may have died when he vanished, but it doesn't really matter. In giving up navigation of the powers that be, we will also die. The story will end. It may seem natural, but it is really a choice to fight, to disguise oneself, to not stop.
Pynchon succeeded in telling the story of the individual without sacrificing the absurdity that marks the vagueness of what being a human actually is. Fitzgerald may have told me, when I was 12, that we don't get what we want (and I believed for a long time after that, that tragedy was the most I could hope for in my own narrative... at least it would be interesting). I had been trying to suppress any goofiness for so long and had been looking for the remote picturesquenss of melancholy in such a way that, when I encountered the wildness of Gravity's Rainbow, I rejoiced. I saw that in art and life the unexplainable, the low, the poor and destitute and directionless,the empty ones with looming dark futures are most likely to win, or stay on the map at least, if they succumb to the amazing and question-filled moments, as Slothrop would, to a party of strangers where someone might have the answer. (less)

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Jul 06, 2012 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Steve by: A brainy but sadistic Goodreads group

An Approach for Simulating Text Consistent With Gravity’s Rainbow

Technical Report issued 6 July 2012 by the Simulation Lab Originating Text-based Handiwork (SLOTH)

While the exact algorithm used by Pynchon (1973) to produce Gravity’s Rainbow (henceforth GR) was never documented, we contend that the method proposed in this paper is, on average, in a repeated sampling context, observationally equivalent. As is true of any simulation, there is a deterministic component and a random component. Simu...more

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Oct 17, 2007 Edward Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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.
If you are not laughing at the bawdy humor, the slapstick, and the corny...
If you are not laughing giddily at the way the stories connect inside the novel as well as to the historical context outside the novel...
If you do not like send ups...
If you cringe at gallows humor and sexual perversity...
If your mind doesn't cr...more 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.
If you are not laughing at the bawdy humor, the slapstick, and the corny...
If you are not laughing giddily at the way the stories connect inside the novel as well as to the historical context outside the novel...
If you do not like send ups...
If you cringe at gallows humor and sexual perversity...
If your mind doesn't crave the complexity of an encyclopedic novel...
If absurdity does not bring you closer to a primordial truth that incites laughter at man's history...
Yes there is a plot. You may not find it but it is there. I would not read this book if you are struggling mightily with it. Do not believe people who say how hard, difficult, and painful it was, that they really didn't get most of it but "it was worth it". There are a ton of references and the book is more fun if you actually are able to tie in a bunch of the metaphors, references, historical contexts and character appearences and disapperences. I cannot imagine the point of reading the book if you couldn't, what a bore it must be. I think it is insulting that so many people believe that it is taboo to even talk about the book as a story,-a wildl, f-ing funny story at that. Yes some of us read Pynchon for enjoyment, not because it makes us stronger or better or fuller. (Pudding anyone?) I read Pynchon for the plot. I remember the small passages on pg.29 that are tied back in on pg500 without having to consult a third text. I delight in the connections and how often they break open the plot or a bigger meaning. I certainly miss some but I get a ton.(Can you plot out GR according to the Londen Times in 1944-45 and the Christian Advent season? Yes. But do you have to know this to figure out what Pynchon is up to? No.I wouldn't even bother, it will not get you closer to understanding. He sprinkles the novel with references that can bring you there if you are capable.) If I didn't I would give this book away. Pynchon pretty much debunks the Super Pynchon Theory in the introduction to Slow Learner. He talks about people's perception of him as being a brilliant mind who knows a ton about the subjects he riffs on. He admits that his knowledge of entropy(a major metaphorical theme for him)amounts to a typical dictionary definition entry.( not ot say that he is not extrordinarily well-read but don't be surprised if he doesn't know that much about Middle Dutch poetry but instead knows it in a more referential manner just as you do) Of course, his brilliance is his ability to take an idea and run it through his own mind, to say something about man, history and the nature of maening. And this is the kind of reader he is after. If when you read passages you find that his reference has sent you off thinking on your own and you realize you keep reading the same paragraph over and over transfixed by its briliance while each time it sparks a new tangent of thought until finally you wake up and feel that you have just flown around the globe...
If you read GR and feel that you need to talk about Pynchon in a half-apologetic, fully-reverential tone instead of laughing at the Hansel and Gretel in the oven of an SS officer then you really did not get it and should try again with a a little more levity. Perhaps you can borrow Gottfried's wedding dress to wear while you read it.
If you read GR and feel that it was devoid of a plot and was not chock full of brilliant observation on the plight of man/history, our encounters with meaning and many other metaphysical questions then the overall complexity of the structure went over your head and you should not try again.
If you read it and hated the pace and style of the prose then well, you are probably right.(less)

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Sep 08, 2007 Jordan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature

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.
I'm not going to bash something that obviously means a lot to so many people. It just didn't mean much to me.
I have long contended that genius isn't just having a brilliant thought, but communicating that thought to others. If this work conveyed some amazingly deep meaning to you,...more

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Sep 11, 2007 Dena rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 missed the point of the book! It is a wonder anti-war statement and also a comment on how war is a masculine undertaking. Be warned! It's stream-of-consciousness writing. Just read it and don't try to ana...more

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Jun 08, 2012 Phillip rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, sci-fi

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.

before i go any further, i just want to say that pynchon makes me glad to be a reader. i was in a lull with books when i read AGAINST THE DAY, and it really kind of reclaimed my faith in fiction. that's the highest compliment i could give a book, i think.

now that i've read a few of his book...more 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.

before i go any further, i just want to say that pynchon makes me glad to be a reader. i was in a lull with books when i read AGAINST THE DAY, and it really kind of reclaimed my faith in fiction. that's the highest compliment i could give a book, i think.

now that i've read a few of his books, i'm much more familiar with his style and ways of establishing exposition. i felt more comfortable with the text this time around, but make no mistake: this is a rocky journey. the humor and classic pychonesque situations and scenarios are popping up in spades. it's the kind of novel where you can perceive clearly what is going on from moment to moment, but it's difficult putting it all together to experience the whole. also, i'm not quite half way through the book and i know he usually waits until you're at least that far into one of his books before the narrative strands weave together into a clearer picture.

********************************

more than half way through now. so glad i chose to re-read this one. it's amazing to me how deep pynchon's literary imagination goes. he's like a volcano, erputing constantly and just shelling us with images and interlocking pieces of an enormous puzzle.

********************************

just finished this wonderful and dazzling book. it almost feels like you need to turn around and read it again, quickly, before too much time has passed. pynchon gives you so much information - his literary brilliance moves through the pages like a flood...it's hard to keep all the pieces of the puzzle in order.

but from start to finish, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is one of the most unusual books ever to deal with the second world war, and it does so in wholly irreverent and original ways. many of the central characters come and go, as they do in most of pynchon's work, but they stay with you throughout the long journey. you worry for them, applaud them, are amazed by their humility and humanity. an excellent book, but not an easy read in any sense of the word.

i originally gave this book four stars, but after reading it a second time, i give it five. it's an unforgettable novel that i'm sure will stay with me for some time.(less)

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Aug 17, 2007 Jasen Johns rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: paragons of perversity

Shelves: fiction

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 recognize as Pynchon's magnum opus to be "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene."

Gravity's Rainbow endures as a challenging work of literature, and one I've re-read in its entirety twice...more 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 recognize as Pynchon's magnum opus to be "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene."

Gravity's Rainbow endures as a challenging work of literature, and one I've re-read in its entirety twice, but revisited in parts like a Southern Baptist grabbing for verse. And like the Bible, this book is a mess, a chaotic codex of characters, fractured timeline, and scenes held together only by readers' faith that there's a central narrative. Unlike the Bible, Gravity's Rainbow lacks the excuse of multiple authors, mistranslation, deliberately distorted transmission, and accidental or intentional omission. In this doorstop of a novel the mess is by design, but a Christian might contend the same about the good Book-with-a-capital-B.

Why keep returning to this work? Well, Pynchon can really crank out lyrical prose and vivid imagery, so I'll weakly answer that beauty for beauty's sake is enough. A stronger argument might be Pynchon captures a very messy world where his numerous protagonists play their best despite lacking a script or director, and, in this, they are very sympathetic characters to readers in the latter 20th Century and beyond. These are characters living through the horrific failed utopia of warmongering, irrational despots. They live in a vacuum without order. Fear drives them to eke out what life they can find. And the V-2 rockets, describing parabolic arcs of work against and with gravity, could land on their heads at any second.

As a final and personal note, I read Gravity's Rainbow at a very low point in my life after exiting university. A dotcom job in Portland, Oregon had evaporated, and I'd decided to return home to the south. There was no manifest destiny for me, just my mom's house in Dacula, an isolated and far-flung suburb of Atlanta. I lived there for three months before finding another dotcom job and moving out to the even more hellish suburb of Alpharetta. I picked up Pynchon because I wanted to read a few Pulitzer Prize winning fiction titles, but then discovered in the lateral way the World Wide Web works that there was a ghost winner of the prize for 1974. Intrigued, or maybe feeling empathy as one holding the mistaken, disaffected belief I was denied a prize of sorts as well at that point in life, I picked Pynchon up. What I believe he was trying to do in the novel resonated with me and still does.

Shortly after Gravity's Rainbow, I finally and belatedly read a requirement for Michael O'Rourke's University of Idaho Epistemology class. Mr. O'Rourke is a wise, bright and gentle soul for guiding his students to "The View from Nowhere" by Thomas Nagel. I'll say it's a happy accident I read Nagel's book after Gravity's Rainbow, and prescribe you do the same.

(less)

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Jun 19, 2007 Daniel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who ain't afraid of no dang post-modernism

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 matches a map of American G.I. Tyrone Slothrop's sexual conquests. But that's only an issue for maybe 25 or 50 pages of a 760-page book. "Gravity's Rainbow" deals with war, with how much control you have o...more 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 matches a map of American G.I. Tyrone Slothrop's sexual conquests. But that's only an issue for maybe 25 or 50 pages of a 760-page book. "Gravity's Rainbow" deals with war, with how much control you have over your own life, with what it means to be the citizen of a country, and with colonialism. I don't think Pynchon is a big fan of colonialism.

Any monkey at a typewriter can write a novel that uses the atomic bomb as a metaphor for human hubris, or the inexorable and terrible march of progress, or ... well, it's a metaphor for lots of things. Pynchon uses instead the V-2 rocket as a metaphor for everything all at once. He likes it ... well, he likes it because it's way more obscure, but also because at the time it was uniquely supersonic, so you hear it *after* it kills you. That raises a lot of interesting questions about how much people take for granted, and how little control we can actually exert on our lives. Pynchon also plays with what that phenomenon does to our notion of linear time. Here's a good excerpt:

---------------
"'Temporal bandwidth' is the width of your present, your *now*. It is the familiar 'delta-t' considered as a dependent variable. The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are. It may get to where you're having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes ago, or even - as Slothrop now - what you're doing *here*, at the base of this colossal curved embankment...
"Uh," he turns slackmouth to Narrish, "what are we..."
"What are we what?"
"What?"
"You said, 'What are we...,' then you stopped."
"Oh. Gee, that was a funny thing to say."
---------------

This is a hard book to read, but well worth the effort. One of my favorites.(less)

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Dec 08, 2007 will rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: The neurotic, the homesless, the underpaid and out-of-work

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.

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Jan 14, 2009 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars

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.

Then I picked up Vineland out of a bargain bin, and realized it was probably the funniest thing I had ever read. I followed it with Gravity's Rainbow, which is even funnier. Pynchon is an incredible comic writer.

In grad school, lots of people were scared of Gravity's Rainbow because of all the physics....more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
A Note to Those With The Penguin Deluxe Edition	2	17	Jun 14, 2013 04:44pm
The Non-Conformis...: Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon	33	46	Jun 09, 2013 03:41pm
Literature and Marriage	8	76	Dec 22, 2012 01:53pm
Brain Pain: * Questions, Resources, and General Banter - Gravity's Rainbow	53	119	Oct 08, 2012 12:37am
Brain Pain: Discussion - Week Eight - Gravity's Rainbow - Part Four, pp. 816 - 902 (688 - 776)	8	32	Sep 06, 2012 10:59am
Brain Pain: Discussion - Week Nine - Gravity's Rainbow - Conclusions/Book as a whole	6	39	Aug 19, 2012 03:05pm

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327868134l/415.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon[/url]

Gravity's Rainbow

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