A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel

by Steven Weisenburger

Adding some 20 percent to the original content, this is a completely updated edition of Steven Weisenburger's indispensable guide to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Weisenburger takes the reader page by page, often line by line, through the welter of historical references, scientific data, cultural fragments, anthropological research, jokes, and puns around which Pynchon wove his story.

Weisenburger fully annotates Pynchon's use of languages ranging from Russian and Hebrew to such subdialects of English as 1940s street talk, drug lingo, and military slang as well as the more obscure terminology of black magic, Rosicrucianism, and Pavlovian psychology.

The Companion also reveals the underlying organization of Gravity's Rainbow - how the book's myriad references form patterns of meaning and structure that have eluded both admirers and critics of the novel.

The Companion is keyed to the pages of the principal American editions of Gravity's Rainbow: Viking/Penguin (1973), Bantam (1974), and the special, repaginated Penguin paperback (2000) honoring the novel as one of twenty "Great Books of the Twentieth Century."

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Literary Criticism, Literature, Criticism, Writing, 20th Century

424 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 1988

About the author

Steven Weisenburger works in American literary and cultural history, especially the cultural history of race, from 1800 forward. His research and teaching interests include United States history and fictions, narrative theory, African American literature, and the cultural history of racism and white supremacy in the United States, but he has also published and taught extensively on contemporary fiction and satire.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Companion was extremely beneficial in reading Pynchon's novel, especially giving reference to the social context and pop culture allusions that appear on nearly every page. However, I had to often set it aside, only referring back to it every so often since there was so much information that it impeded my forward progress in the actual book. I would recommend it to all readers, but it will come in handy the most on a second read. It should be noted that a first time reader may want to skip any commentary of the chapters as quite a bit of plot that won't occur until much later appears before each chapter. Well worth the money, a lot that I learned from reading this would have been equally interesting without Pynchon's novel as a reason to seek it out.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superlative scholarship. You could just keep it handy for those particularly enigmatic bits you simply must have explained, or you could read it--like a book!--front to back, which has the demerit of being a bit of a drag, but it's the only way to invite those unexpected moments of joy and understanding to sneak up on you. It truly excels in the area of onomastics. Next time I'll know about the updated (Internet era!) edition, in which doubtlessly everything IS connected.

[Nick Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

a really wonderful sourcebook, on par with Ulysses Annotated and a good bit better than Elegant Complexity. loses a star due to muddled mathematical exposition (to be expected, sigh). i was irritated by the absence of cites in a great many annotations; it is explained at the end that uncited notes reference the Times of 1944--1945, but this remains unsatisfying. whence, for instance, explanation of "crystal ship" as iv drug use? i never gathered that from the first Doors album. anyway, a joy to read, a great jumping-off point for budding postmodernists, and a fine guide to GR.

bonus funny story: i was reading penrose's epic The Road to Reality, put it down admidst some footnotes regarding QFT renormalization, did some bullshit and picked up the *Companion*. "this is an odd and frankly unfocused digression regarding *Bladerunner* by ol' Sir Roger; i wonder where he's going with this...oh, argh augh, nicholas you are stupid indeed." and just went ahead and finished the Companion.

[Sarah ~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

يستحيل قراءة رواية بينشون بدون هذا الكتاب.

[Geoff Sebesta · Rating 4 out of 5]

So goddamn useful. Your first trip through GR is supposed to be a hellacious slog so maybe it's cheating to give readers a road map, but I tell you, I never would have figured out the beginning of the book or the Kirghiz light or the hellacious "For DeMille, Fur Henchmen can't be rowing!" joke if not for this guide.

True story: I called Professor Weisenburger once on the phone because I said I wanted to interview him about a book he wrote. When he found out that I wanted to interview him about Gravity's Rainbow -- a book he did NOT write, and a guide that he had written twenty years before at the time I called him -- he became notably cold.

I can't say I blame him. I hadn't meant to get his hopes up.

[Leo Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay I get the point with this one, I wannit off my shelf!
A handy reference guide but nothing more. Doesn't offer much literary analysis or decent chapter summaries in the same way that Elegant Complexity did.
All it really does is serve to show the extensive research that Pynchon did, and it is meticulous at that, but it does not make terribly interesting reading by itself.
All such books begin by saying "Why don't you read a chapter and come back, or read this page then the chapter then this page again" like eugh do people do that??
That I hear, there are interactive versions of Ulysses with pop-up references and the like; books like this are limited in their current form, but if it were available as a collection of hyperlinks that appeared in an interactive GR it would be very useful and illuminating indeed.
I dunno, am I being too lazy, not flicking back between two enormous books clogging up perfectly decent catspace on my lap? (I don't have a cat, but when I do, this kinda thing will be triply impractical!) Yeah, maybe I am, but if it's to my credit, I still use yellow pages, filofaxes and seal all my letters with wax from a melting red obelisk, in which I impress the Robertson family seal and bless with a dab of my finest whale oil.

[GloriaGloom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Per combattere la naturale tendenza al parossistico onanismo di ritorno che assale inevitabilmente anche il più adulto e sessualmente equilibrato dei lettori nella fase post-coito con L'arcobaleno della gravità - non solo i lettori ma anche paludati critici e brillanti menti accademiche a sfogliare la sterminata bibliografia critica, si va ad esempio da "Male Pro-Feminism and the Masculinist Gigantism of Gravity's Rainbow", a The Vietnamization of World War II in Gravity’s Rainbow" passando per "Orphic Contra Gnostic Religious Conflict in Gravity's Rainbow" senza dimenticarci di "Queer Sexual And Textual Pratice: The Postmodernist Poetics Of Pynchon's Gravity's Raimbow" solo per citare qualche goccia dell'oceano - la classica guida di Weisenburger si presenta come un ottimo antidoto con il suo lasciar da parte ogni tentativo di interpretazione del testo, ma fornendo una dettagliata ricognizione, capitolo per capitolo - il riferimento è la prima edizione Viking Press - dei riferimenti e le fonti utilizzate da Pynchon. Migliorabile l'indice finale che sembra un retaggio dei tempi in cui "tutto si faceva a mano". Ma in fondo bisogna esser un po' luddisti per apprezzare il Nostro, al diavolo il word processor!

[Paul Dembina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this really useful in unlocking many of the more arcane references in Pynchon's classic novel.
It would have been helpful to include a quick reference to the many characters who appear at some stage or other in the novel. That's about my only criticism

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably wouldn't have finished it (and definitely wouldn't have appreciated it as much) without Weisenburger's help. You were a fanastic Sherpa for Mt. Pynchon Weisenburger.

[Jay Sandover · Rating 5 out of 5]

The essential untying of the greatest knot.

[Theo Austin-Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Little else to add that others haven’t, suffice to say that you would be ill advised to tackle the tome that is Gravity’s Rainbow without it.

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

27. A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel, 2nd Edition by Steven Weisenburger
published: originally 1988, 2nd edition is from 2006
format: 400 page paperback
acquired: March 20 to help with GR
read: Apr 1 - May 22
rating: **** stars

There are other sources for help with GR, but I liked this one because it was crazy detailed, translated almost every foreign language bit and tried to decipher the meaning under every name and it just made me feel more comfortable. It also has little mini-summaries of each episode. I would read these before reading the episode (!)—even as I know they didn't really always capture what really happens in those episodes. This just helped reduce my stress of trying to figure out what was going on as I read.

The book suffers a bit on the big picture. I had to go to wikipedia to understand some critical plot elements. GR is abstruse, but Weisenburger doesn't capture everything and occasionally doesn't make any comment on major things. But, still, this is an impressive compilation. I was very happy to have it.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, but difficult to use as a "companion." You can't read it alongside GR, not only because they're about eight pounds each but because the companion is so comprehensive that you'd almost literally be confined to reading one sentence (in GR) at a time and then consulting the companion for meanings/references/etc. But it's also difficult to read one entire section of GR followed by the corresponding section of the companion, because with Pynchon's dense, wordy, long and circular style, it's hard to recall what any passage was about if you didn't just read it.

So, the companion was difficult logistically, but otherwise good. I'll definitely use it when I re-read the novel; I think it would lend itself much better to that sort of use.

[Judson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I do is read each Episode synopsis before reading each episode in GR, then refer to Weisenberger's notes as I go. Helps a ton to just get questions of who/what/where out of the way so I can enjoy what Pynchon's actually writing in a more immediate, less lost way. Even now, on my 3rd read of GR, this is not a book I'd want to be without, despite its own litany of mistakes and overstrainings....Heck, there's a Pynchon wiki for getting at those.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really only a useful companion to Gravity's Rainbow on one level - if you are going to want every mythological, pop culture, and Kabbalistic reference explained as you read the novel. I was hoping for a broader, more connected commentary on the characters, plot, and themes; deeper understanding, not minutia. Ah well. I learned a lot more about German mythology.

[Tim Monahan]

You want to read this before you read Gravity’s Rainbow, in order to understand what you getting into. You will also refer back to it when you need a little guidance re: characters, organizations, or even vocabulary in Pynchon’s world. This book enhanced and aided (where needed), the reading of the postmodern classic.

[Олександр Заїка]

Помічна книга. Дає зрозуміти напрямок руху подій в кожному епізоді веселки. 345 сторінок приміток в якості додаткового навантаження до 848. Шкодую що придбав старе видання, а не оновлене, де Вайзенбургер накопав ще 80 сторінок енциклопедичної аналітики.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's not mince words: Weisenburger's Companion is utterly essential for any trip through Pynchon's megaton novel. Large swathes of the book which I would have woozily drifted past with 0% comprehension were opened up brilliantly -- it really does help the scope of the entire book to know about business collusions during WWII, as well as the basics of the Kabbalah, Teutonic mythology, the Tarot, Herero folklore, and elementary ballistic physics. These aren't just look-how-clever-I-am cul de sacs, but wide ranging attempts to order a very complex world, to harness the knowledge of the centuries to a violent urge that has plagued humankind since we first climbed out of the sea.

Previous Pynchon books could be read and enjoyed with less fleecy outerwear -- V. can be easily traversed with the help of Pynchonwiki (as well as a Wiki-level knowledge of the Fashoda Conflict, the Herero uprising, and what a Baedekker travel guide looks like). In fact, J. Kerry Grant's guides to V. and The Crying of Lot 49 are almost detrimental in that they attempt to pad their pages with endless recounting of current theories about Pynchon's work (fine to read after you've finished, but annoying when you're in the middle of your first read and attempting to draw your own conclusions). By comparison, Weisenburger does draw some of his own lines, but they're really only attempt to calculate why Pynchon made references to Hansel & Gretel here, not what that means to the modern reader, if you get that hair-thin distinction.

I still think it helps to read V. before this, but at the very least, have this book nearby. I don't think you need to have both open at the same time, but if you read a section of the book, then glance through Weisenburger's info right after, you should be able to transpose the knowledge back into what you just read. Occasionally, the reference opened up the passage enough that I found it beneficial to re-read the book section, but that was rare.

By comparison with the first two, Weisenburger's guide is so thorough, the Pynchonwiki entries have been reduced to little more than hair-splitting with Weisenburger's Companion. I found it amusing to read their entries in the voice of The Simpson's Comic Book Guy.

I'm not going to give it five stars because, as Christgau said about Flavor Flav's role in Public Enemy, "why should I like the Great Man's Fan better than I like the Great Man?" Still, as Robert Stack used to say, "don't leave home without it." (don't leave The Zone without it?)

[Jodi Lu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was probably the only reason I finished Gravity's Rainbow (with my general feeble resolve) when so many others have failed. Reading the corresponding section in this after each chapter in GR helped formulate everything and reveal the deeper, more cryptic (and certainly historical) merits of the text that one might miss while they romp through interesting characters and complex (this is a kind, vague word choice as it's very easy to lose yourself throughout, which is sometimes fine but other times quite frustrating) plot weaving. I'd say the average person is doing herself a great disfavor not reading the book with a good "companion". That said, the historical footnotes offered here (most of what's offered at all) are really interesting, but more in-depth paragraphs explaining the general movement of the story would've been appreciated as well.

(I guess I accidentally wrote my update status in the review space below last time but I don't really want to delete my initial remarks so ignore the following.)
Okay, this also came as a "gift" (it's the 2nd edition, not the one shown) and let me tell you, Mister (Johnson, Sr.), I'm known to be lazy, needy and distracted in most ways, but my milk-fatty soul verily curdles to envision reading in private or public a paperback novel alongside not one companion - which in its own right, given that I've experienced no impediment to momentum or interest in Gravity's Rainbow to my current dog ear at the modest leaf of 50, smacks of unsightly pathos - but alongside TWO companions - for one book! - a novel! - written horizontally and in natural English! - crafted in the yet-cradling memory foam of the 20th century! ...w(hhhh)ell, that's like...I feel as though...someone is putting the training wheels before even my tricycle! And I'm just the biggest baby who can sound out P-Y-N-C-H M-E.
I tell you what I do need: a companion to tell me how to read three books at once. (This companion does already recommend ritualized stacking). And also I'd like a stylish and gaudily branded ostrich messenger bag with a lightweight, fold-out desk of woven straw to lug all this crap on the train and bus every day in any sort of useful, civilized way.
Does Pynchon deserve this much of my time or credit - I need a native text, a page-by-page picture book and now a 400-plus pager for context and curiosities to get me through? Clearly no one's breaking down my door to do much of anything. And I need a hobby besides bathing.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t use this the first time you read Gravity’s Rainbow, be a beast and read it without help the first time.

[Torsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein sehr hilfreiches Buch als Begleitlektüre zu Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow / Die Enden der Parabel.

Wer, wie zu großen Teilen auch ich, keine oder kaum Ahnung hat(te) von z.B. Grimms "Deutsche Mythologie", V-Waffenprogramm oder Militärsprech der US-Army, der findet in diesem Buch eine Unmenge diesbezüglicher Informationen, alles kapitelweise und schön mit Referenzen zu Seiten und Zeilen der verbreitesten englischen Printausgaben. Außerdem ist eine reichhaltige Bibliographie zu Unmengen im Buch verwendeten Quellen und ein vollständiger Index vorhanden. Damit ist auch die Möglichkeit zur weitergehenden Beschäftigung mit Pynchon's Werk gegeben. Ein Traum für Pynchon-Aficionados 🙂

Ich habe Pynchon's Werk auf deutsch gelesen, deshalb musste ich die Referenzen natürlich umrechnen. Wenn man die Bücher Kapitel für Kapitel im Wechsel liest, ist das aber kein Problem, ein Umrechnen oft gar nicht nötig.

[Randy Rhody]

You don’t really read this book as much as have it next to you as a reference while reading GR.

I picked up the 1988 version of this at a book sale. Both hilarious and aggravating, I discovered that duplicated pages 21-52 are in place of missing pages 53-84! Presumably the new edition corrected that.

Still, this is a most helpful resource even for his summaries of each section, which I often needed in order to follow what was going on in the text.

Weisenburger is fond of “analepsis” as much as Pynchon loves the word “preterite.”

[Julie Kuvakos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful in some aspects… but didn’t feel it was much of a guide and sometimes felt more like a GR encyclopedia 😂

[Duarte Cabral]

Perfect companion if you need one. I struggled a bit too much using it, but I blame that on my self-diagnosed adhd lol. Unlocks the emotional core of the book, and that is worth the effort alone.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, I have mixed thoughts about using guides. I've read books filled with end notes and/or footnotes, which tend to both enhance the reader's understanding and appreciation of a given work, but at the same time slow down the pace of the reading and distract the reader from the flow of the narrative. This was the first time that I've purchased a separate reader's guide for a work. I read the first 200 pages or so of Pynchon's novel without Weisenburger's 300+ page guide, but when one participant in my book group described the guide as "essential" to developing an understanding of Pynchon's multi-layered magnum opus -- packed full of puns, allusions, jokes, abstruse knowledge, and what not -- I decided to pick it up.

Prior to buying the guide I did not feel like I was picking up every reference, nor did I feel that everything in this book was making sense, but I felt like I had a sufficient enough understanding so that I didn't feel "lost." Yet, after beginning the guide I realized that there was a great deal that I was missing -- the significance of certain dates, the astrological references and their significance to the narrative, the ridiculously detailed and superfluous plot detours made simply in order to make one little pun.

But as with many guides, much of what the author focuses on -- and especially so with a book such as this -- is mere conjecture and is presented in a way to support his specific reading of the text. I didn't spend much time comparing and contrasting different guides, but apparently Weisenburger's reading does differ in some significant ways from other GR guides out there.

There were also certain references that I would have expected to have found notes on, but to my surprise I found no elucidation from Weisenburger. And then there were other points that I felt needed no clarification that Weisenburger felt a need to explain further -- for example explanations of who Bugs Bunny is or who Laurel and Hardy were (though perhaps this "rascally rabbit" and famous comedy duo are more familiar in American culture than is the case abroad).

The guide definitely slowed me down and certainly distracted my reading of Pynchon, but it also was very helpful, especially insomuch as mythology, scientific matters and Kabbalism/occultism were concerned and regarding the significance of certain dates and the overall structure of the novel. If I ever read Gravity's Rainbow again -- not anytime soon -- I think that I would read it without a guide, just to appreciate the novel for the great big messy patchwork that it is.

Although Weisenberger gives readers at the onset instructions on how the guide can be used, and though I only read the guide notes after reading a given episode, it still is a bit of a disruption. And as much as I felt the guide helped me better understand Pynchon's work, it felt sometimes like a chore to read it. Like medicine, I realize that reading the guide was "good for me" and very helpful overall (it was extremely informative and gave me a greater appreciation of Pynchon's style), but there was more pleasure in reading the actual novel than in reading about all of the different sources and contexts contained therein.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent companion to GR, clarifying both historical contexts and frequently obtuse puns. (I wish I could pull out Pynchon's Hobbesian pun of "Saltieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus, and Short" in normal conversation, and would have never understood it without Weisenburger. That alone is worth the price of purchase.)

My one scruple, which comes down solely to personal preference, is its self-imposed constraints; in a masochistic endeavor to digest two towering 20th century tomes in quick succession, I had read Ulysses a few months prior and consulted Blamires' Bloomsday Book for similar guidance.

I loved the Bloomsday Book's structure: akin to Cicero, it briefly introduced each episode's parallel to The Odyssey and its broad aesthetic motifs, sensibly paraphrased Joyce's prose into "wideawake language, cutanddry grammar and goahead plot", and continued to elucidate themes, allusions, and interpretations while unraveling its synopsis. Weisenburger's useful guide, conversely, introduced each episode with a vague summary (understandably, so as not to ruin the shock of Pynchon's scatological humor) and then individual line references and corrections, replete with sources and contexts.

Weisenburger accomplished his book's goal with distinction: it was extremely thorough and I could not have imagined reading through GR without his aid; however, I wish he had followed a structure similar to Blamires. All in all, a wonderful aid in your journeys through the Zone! Happy reading, preterite souls.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

GR companion is a valuable resource for those who have already read GR once or twice. I wouldn't use it the first time through. There are good points about the timescheme of GR and details like April Fool's Day falling on Easter Sunday in 1945, which implies the whole book may be a joke, like Melville's Confidence Man--the work that GR most resembles. The detail work on Pynchon;s sources is of course excellent, but I am not learning as much as I expected about the characters. What would have helped is a kind of Dramatis Personae and a threading of the different plotlines they follow. Perhaps an internet resource has this covered, but it is the central challenge of the novel, which introduces and then drops certain people, sometimes for hundreds of pages. Why are we hearing the story of X or Y or Z, when will we be asked to draw on this knowledge again? Anybody who can make that clear has really cracked this recalcitrant puzzle for good. It's nice to have GR remain mysterious in some ways of course, but if you're thinking of using it with students and discussing it like Ulysses and Moby Dick, then you will need resources like this and possibly a few others.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

For readers who do not get Pynchon’s references to the The I Ching, to Tarot, to mythology, films, comic books, operas, novels, scientific concepts and historic events at the end of World War Two, Weisenburger has put together this book that supplies information about IG Farben, King Kong, Hop Harrigan, Malcolm X and the V-2 rocket. In addition, Weisenburger discusses the structure of the novel in his introduction, and supplies a short plot summary of each of the sections in the book.

[Chris Packham · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I spent the summer of 1992 in bars in Boston, with Gravity's Rainbow and this book. It put little training wheels on Gravity's Rainbow so that I could ride it into a social life in Iowa City, where knowing about Thomas Pynchon actually has some social utility.

[Rachael Colwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thorough, if you want to get all the details of GR this is very helpful though honestly near the end of GR I was so tired of the book I didn't really care what mandala or esoteric quote Pynchon was alluding to...