What was most striking to me when I first read Pynchon was how correct his techincal discussions and jargons were. I had, at the time, recently been a psychology major in college; and the Pavlovian and behaviorist discussions were clearly informed and correct. I had engineering friends who said that his trajectory and rocket discussions were equally well informed. Pynchon's historical backgrounds, I have later discovered, are also accurate.

Having now finished this book, two things are obvious to me.

One, as you have pointed out, Trevor, is that Pynchon wants to expose us to "the scope and structure of our ingnorance". The more that we do not know about what is going on, the more exposed we are to that rocket that is homing in onto our collusive asses as the book closes.

Two, Pynchon is laying out a pretty frightening case before us--using fiction to indicate a terrifying truth. As readers, we are naturally inclined to brush aside his world view, to percieve it as the insane musings of a talented but demented genius. However, Pynchon's skillful display of technical and academic skills, and his adept weaving of these specialized systems of information, makes our attempts at brushing aside his work's conclusions much more difficult.

One strange thing I've noticed in Gravity's Rainbow is that Pynchon will occasionally use obscure technical language casually, assuming the reader's familiarity with a certain subject, while other times he will give a workable explanation or definition, often of the very same terms or subject. There are several instances of this in the book, but one example that is oddly fresh in my mind is the use of the term "paradoxical phase" several times in Beyond the Zero before it is succinctly defined for the reader near the end of the chapter ("...when weak stimuli gets strong responses...").

For this example, Pynchon has to know that the majority of the readers picking up Gravity's Rainbow for the first time will have little to no familiarity with the technical aspects of Pavlovian psychology. Leading you through this wilderness, what would be the purpose of allowing you to grope blindly for so long before showing you the way?

Seems to me that Pynchon is helping us understand "the scope and structure of our ingnorance," as he says in the introduction to Slow Learner. He's either deliberately keeping us in the dark for effect (disorientation?), or forcing us to think a little harder. I'm really surprised how much of this daunting novel my burned-out brain was able to decode just via context and conjecture if I just read slowly and closely (not at the English undergrad "oh-shit-I have-to-read-all-this-by-tomorrow-morning" clip to which I've grown accustomed). Of course, this is not to suggest that I think I understand all or even most of the stuff going on here, and I'm sure a second reading will be illuminating.

What do others make of this technique? Seems like all the technical talk might be one of the biggest speedbumps for first time readers, but in my experience, Pynchon never lets you flounder for too long...

Megha wrote: "Has anyone seen or read 'Trainspotting'?"

Megha, I haven't read Trainspotting nor anything else by Irvine Welsh. But I've recently been reading Goodreads and others' reviews of GR and Thomas Pynchon.

I seem to remember some reviewer who mentioned Irvine Welsh as a current writer who has been effected by Pynchon's work.

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I've just finished reading, today, the other scene that I remember with "scat pornography". Fortunately, this was only one page. I don't particularly enjoy some of these scenes.

Since I'm now somewhere near as far as I've ever gotten in the book; I've no idea whether there are many more.

If I like a writer's work; I give a good deal of patience to such stuff. This is because I want to see what the whole journey is that the book intends to take me on. Some writers have rewarded my patience.

Thomas Pynchon and "Gravity's Rainbow" have always been enigmatic to me. The really beautiful writing, and the astonishing plots stand right besides such difficult (for me at least) scenes. Part of why I'm trying to finally finish this, is to help me resolve some of these, and other, enigmas.

Mosca wrote: "It's easy to forget how intense the descriptions are.

Right now I'm slogging through the surreal dream-swim down the toilet in pursuit of the lost harmonica--YUCK!

If I read this correctly, t..."

Ya, it sure was disgusting.
Has anyone seen or read 'Trainspotting'? If I remember correctly, this movie too had a toilet diving scene, in pursuit of drugs in this case.

It's easy to forget how intense the descriptions are.

Right now I'm slogging through the surreal dream-swim down the toilet in pursuit of the lost harmonica--YUCK!

If I read this correctly, this is a drug-induced experience involuntarily imposed on Slothrop by the folks at PISCES.

These 4 pages, or so, are disgusting. But I plow through because I remember that the overall plot requires it.

I also remember how wonderful these same descriptive skills can be when put to other uses.

So, I can hardley wait for the British Candy torture that one of Slothrop's girlfriend's Mum(?) puts him thru.

Spoil away. Say whatever you want and have no fear about spoiling things.