Discussion - Week Two - Gravity's Rainbow - Part One, pp. 109 - 211 (92 - 180)

[Jim]

This discussion covers Part One, pages 109 – 211 (92 – 180)


Osbie Feel bakes mushroom mash while Katje recalls the Oven-game. Captain Blicero muses over bottom-boy Gottfried and reminisces about his African predecessor. Katje’s ancestor Frans helps wipe-out the Mauritian dodoes to further God’s plan. Pirate spirits Katje out of enemy hands. Slothrop shares confections with Mrs. Quoad and affections with Nurse Darlene. Jessica has a standing “O”, Roger has a heartgasm, and a lorry’o’midgets has a look at Jessica’s twins. Roger wants a transfer, Jessica wants Jeremy, and Advent wants what War has not yet taken. Pointsman mourns Spectro and the burden of The Book. Carroll Eventyr and his controls speak across The Wall. At the other end of The Rainbow, Leni and Franz debate delta-t. Pointsman shares a sip of his Xmas cheer with Maudie Chilkes. Welsh Gwenhidwy wonders why the City Paranoiac persists over time. Penelope and her sisters share the yuletide night with Aunt Jessica and Uncle Roger.


To avoid spoilers, please restrict your comments to Part One, pages 109 – 211 (92 – 180) (and the earlier chapters).

[Ellen]

I found the the Oven-game appropriately but intensely dark-Pynchon's humor seemed particularly bitter here.

[Matthew]

Some thoughts on the continued reading of GR here. I love how the first section of the reading here is circular and begin and end with the image of the Dutch woman.This circularity, to me anyways, seems to reinforce the feeling of the war and machinations of the war being like a game or stage someone set up for someone else to perform and bear the burden of. Although I suppose war is essentially about shoving burden at other people, at least for the living and conscious.

I read a lot of Philip K. Dick in the past and anyone here who is familiar with him here seem to feel that same paranoid sense of reality dropping from underneath your feet after you turn the page? To me it almost seems to happen every other paragraph.....

Also, and this overlaps with the first section reading I suppose, I get a strong sense of Pynchon trying to show the duality of good and evil or American and German and turns it on its head. Everybody seems to be swayed or controlled by others that even they don't know. Slothrop especially.

At times I wonder if one of Pynchon's message is about how Ww2, regardless of being a past war, is very much fresh in the amercian psyche. Heck, as I was reading the first 20 pages of the book all I could think about was how the mood and zeitgeist that Mr. Pynchon was putting me in felt nearly exactly how it felt immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Everything felt dangerous, wrong, and violated. And yet also strange and filled with bizarre coincidences. Yet conspiracies that sprialed out weirder and weirder.....

Oh Ellie: I agree with your thoughts on the oven-game. I thought the Hänsel and Gretel scene creepy. Mr. Pynchon seems very good at bringing older forms of literature to the table.

-Matt

[Ellen]

I am still reading GR & following the discussion but a few days at the beach, ending the school year & now beginning summer school (as a teacher) has left at only p. 120 something & anyway, I can't seem to think of anything intelligent to say. But I didn't want you to think I had abandoned you or GR!

[Barbara]

Ellie wrote: "I am still reading GR & following the discussion but a few days at the beach, ending the school year & now beginning summer school (as a teacher) has left at only p. 120 something & anyway, I can't..."

I'm in the same boat at Ellie. I am still reading GR and I'm REALLY enjoying it. I'm in love with the way Pynchon writes. But it's taking me a very long time to read it, due to my work schedule and various other situations.

However, I definitely have NO INTENTION of abandoning this book. No matter how long it takes me to read Gravity's Rainbow, I am going to finish it. (I just have to finish it before we begin reading Infinite Jest, because I can't imagine trying to juggle Infinite Jest along with Gravity's Rainbow!!!)

I'm sorry that I haven't added any comments on GR yet, but to borrow from Ellie's post, I also can't think of anything intelligent to say... yet. (I'm hoping to have plenty of comments and questions as I get further along in the novel.)

[Ellen]

Just good to know you're there Barbara

[Barbara]

Ellie wrote: "Just good to know you're there Barbara"

Thanks Ellie!!! It's always great to see you here as well!!

[Ellen]

:)

[Rachel]

Jim -- these summaries are awesome sauce.

Suzanne wrote: "I didn't participate in this group's discussion of The Waves, but I couldn't help but be reminded of that novel by the way Pynchon weaves together music and death here."

Oh, nice connection!

Suzanne wrote: "As for Pynchon's message about WWII or war in general, he was writing during the Vietnam War (and the Civil Rights movement), and I do believe the zeitgeist of that time is stamped deeply on this narrative."

I agree. I don't know that this book would have been written in 1945. It seems to be able the world and the wars of its time -- and, like Matthew, I think it works quite well with ours.

So I've been thinking a bit about the perspectives from which this book was written. In this group, we've read more than a little stream-of-consciousness so far in The Waves, Ulysses, The Sound and the Fury, but the consciousness has been attached to a specific character. This book, though it does that too, also seems to have stream-of-consciousness passages that do not seem to emanate from a clearly defined locus: author? Ether? Text? It's very disconcerting, but so perfectly Pynchonly disconcerting.