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Gravity’s Rainbow

Thomas Pynchon

Start date: October 1, 2020

Finish date: December 31, 2020

Discussion: Gravity's Rainbow - Oct-Dec 2020

Why we're reading this: October to December 2020 Completist Big Read
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Gravity's Rainbow - Oct-Dec 2020

General Discussion - Gravity's Rainbow
By Matthew , Assistant List Master · 20 posts · 43 views

last updated Dec 06, 2020 05:32AM

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What Members Thought

Jul 16, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, american-20th-c, national-book-award, post-modern, favorites, novels

[August 2020] Rereading this now in my Pulitzer quest. Wow, as amazingly confusing as the first time around!
This is of course the Pynchon pinnacle, the summit of his fame, the cornerstone of his work. So much so that he fell silent for about 14 years after writing it (leading me to wonder if DeLillo was spoofing him in Mao II). It is an amazing book and the first Pynchon I ever read. It is a rude introduction to his style though as it is thoroughly post-modern in narration, in the manipulation o ...more

289 likes · Like · see review

Nov 23, 2020 Matthew rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, alternate-history, sci-fi, 2020, completist-book-club, historical-fiction, library, classic

What just happened to me . . .

I feel like reviewing this could be dangerous. There are many who have strong feelings about this book. Also, as my status updates for this were hitting Twitter, I was getting several likes from random Pynchon fans, so I feel like this could be under more of a microscope than usual.

So . . . here is how I am going to do this review. The first paragraph will be my experience with the book and my star review. This is strictly my experience and does not reflect on how I What just happened to me . . .

I feel like reviewing this could be dangerous. There are many who have strong feelings about this book. Also, as my status updates for this were hitting Twitter, I was getting several likes from random Pynchon fans, so I feel like this could be under more of a microscope than usual.

So . . . here is how I am going to do this review. The first paragraph will be my experience with the book and my star review. This is strictly my experience and does not reflect on how I feel others should feel about this book. If it triggers anyone, that is not my intention . . . but nothing surprises me anymore. After that I will have just a few bullet point observations that are not necessarily pros or cons, but just things that went through my mind while reading.

Here goes!

Overall . . . I am giving this book 3 stars. At times I felt like I was at 1 star and ready to give up. At other times I was at 5 stars and what I was reading was creative genius. So, it only seems fair to average things out around 3. It was not an easy book to read, follow, or stay interested in. I often found my mind wandering and had to go back several times to recap. But, when a section stuck with me, it really stuck with me and, overall, it is a book I will not forget.

Now . . . random Gravity’s Rainbow thoughts . . .

- If David Foster Wallace was not partially inspired by this book to write Infinite Jest, I would be very surprised. There is such a similar feel between the two.
- Throughout the book I also kept thinking this felt at times like Catch-22 (released 12 years before this book), so I feel like Pynchon must have had some inspiration from that classic.
- I heard that this book won the Pulitzer, but they retracted the award because of the extreme nature of the content. After reading the book, I am not saying it is right that they did it, but I can say that I am not surprised.
- If you are sensitive or easily offended (and blush easily), this may not be the book for you. It has been a long time since I have been this shocked about things that were put down on the page. Also, proceed with caution when reading my next bullet point.
- If there was a book about The History of the Penis, it would refer to penises less than this book does. To be blunt, I think penises (and ejaculation) came up so much in this book as a symbolism of rockets, their trajectory, and the force of a launch.
- This is a book I feel you might need online resources to help you get through/understand it. It has so much bizarre stream of conscious imagery and so many outlandish plot points that a little extra help won’t hurt.

I am going to stop there for now, but this book was so long and led to so many thoughts while I was on my journey that I may come back later to add additional bullet points as I think of/remember them.

Do I recommend this book? Did you like Catch-22 and Infinite Jest? Do you like very epic, very bizarre stories that will likely make your head hurt but also might blow your mind? Are you trying to complete a list of recommended books? Then yes! But otherwise . . . no or proceed with extreme caution.
...more

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Feb 27, 2023 Balloonhands rated it it was amazing

Shelves: faves

I feel like I’m in a haze. I felt a lot more than I understood but what I did understand blew my mind to smithereens, this book is hilarious bro like yeah it can be high concept and boundary breaking but it also has the most perfectly placed puns and jokes that can only exist in literature. Truly a masterpiece it’s definitely not for everyone but it’s definitely for me

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Dec 09, 2017 Ed Dunkle rated it it was amazing

This is the wildest book I've ever read. And one of the hardest. And I feel like I should read all the various guides and read it again. And calling it a book seems inadequate. It's more of a supernova of ideas delivered by gorgeous prose. Now I'm going around asking my friends if they've read it (they haven't) because I want to talk about it.

Reading tip: I started with the audio version, but after a while realized that the prose was far too dense for me to understand on the fly, so at about pa ...more

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