Discussion - Week Four - Gravity's Rainbow - Part Three, pp. 333 - 465 (279 - 391)

[Jim]

This discussion covers Part Three, pp. 333 – 465 (279 – 391)


In the Zone

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more…
- Dorothy, Arriving in Oz

Sniffing and Scuffling around in the Zone, Slothrop meets many interesting Strangers On a Train. Criss Cross? Slothrop has Geli under the stars, but Wernher and Tchitcherine make it hard to relax. Geli piques her Liebchen mit Schwarzgerät labern. Slothrop tours the tunnels of the Mittelwerke and drops in on Marvy’s Mothers. Enzian wonders at how he has wandered, as the Zero approaches the Zone. Slothrop and Schnorp throw pies in the skies. Tchitcherine roams the Seven Rivers of his shame. Rocketman rises from the roots and roams around the ruins of the Reichstag, realizing his real role is to rescue the reefer from Rooney at Pot-sdam. The U-boat gauchos get in bed with Springer for a two picture deal.




To avoid spoilers, please restrict your comments to Part Three, pp. 333 – 465 (279 – 391)
(and the earlier chapters).

[[deleted user]]

What happened? Did this book completely lose everyone? lol.

[Matthew]

"Hi Guy!"

-Alfred Hitchcock

It didn't lose you Chris?
What's wrong with being lost? I know I'm lost, I'm on page 518 of my edition but I'm enjoying being lost. I'm lost because Pynchon is so expansive. Ideas literally explode from the page. Personally I am still enjoying the read immnesely, just RL interferes in my ability to post in a more timely (lol, like time even exists) manner. This book is an acid dose and the hallucinations are the multiple meanings: meanings on top of meanings disguised as riddles wrapped in enigmas smothered in secret sauce that turns out to just be the hasish in the Hollandaise again. Usually though, in RL, the secret sauce is just thousand island, at least around here it is.

Connections seem to be coming up in the reading though. Strangers on a train indeed. (The Hitchcock allusion is nice, his films can be much denser then a casual viewer would suspect! Although the only image I have is Bruno with that huge white Washington Monument protruding behind him.) But the connections are confusing/unclear because people are still being controlled by others. And isn't that a type of connection as well?

However, human connections are being made.
"He's a soldier....... and far away from home."

Tchitcherine's story seems to be one of recovering his own connections and yet he's a DP as much as anyone and his connection with Qualan is actually quite nice to see when often it seems everybody is out for themselves or their controllers. And endearing considering Tchitcherine's own family is far away from him.

Loving the section of Tchitcherine and Igor Blobadjian and the controversial creation on a New Turkic Alphabet. It's a reminder from Pynchon that even the very appearance of words can have many contested meaningings, each one unique, and used to create conflict....

some questions on some capitalizations

I'm asking these questions just to bring them up because they have some expansive answers all their own that maybe I haven't even thought about:

What's the Word? (Thunderbird!)
What's the Zone? (Well, that's Demiliteraized Zone maybe, or just the postwar zone, and yet black marketeeers seem to thrive with their connections (there we go again), as well as all the other people supposedley brought down by the war...)
What's the Book? (GR? could it be just that?)
What's the Ellipse? (.......)
What's the Grid? (and I'm not talking cyberspace here, although that sure is one example of an application of it.)
What is Tyrone Slothrope? ( well cetainly he's a fool, a damned fool at that, an everyman stumbling and scuffing through the word/zone/book/grid/ellipse)

racketemensch!

[[deleted user]]

"This book is an acid dose and the hallucinations are the multiple meanings: meanings on top of meanings disguised as riddles wrapped in enigmas smothered in secret sauce that turns out to just be the hasish in the Hollandaise again" Haha, that may be the best description of GR I've ever seen. I applaud you sir!

Not to toot my own horn but I've already read it. I think Pynchon meant for his readers to be lost in the Zone as a reflection of Slothrop's state of mind. The reader, like Slothrop, is "paranoid" to all the random interjections, thinking they have something to do with the actual plot, so the feeling of being lost is mutual with the protagonist. There really is a plot though, it's just been carefully encoded inside the randomness.

I think you're on the right track about what the Zone is, but I don't think it's entirely demiliterized. The Allies may have demiliterized the Germans, but they are now using their facilities for even more sinister means. It's important to interpret Gravity's Rainbow as an alternate history/dystopia/sci-fi novel, not simply an historical fiction. I think the Zone is an exaggerated late 40's Germany infested with black marketers (corporations among them) and ballistics engineers, as if the war had brought absolute bedlam to the place, and it's implications have dire consequences for the entire world. There really could be a great conspiracy and Slothrop has every right to feel paranoid, just as the reader should. It's frightening, beautiful, surreal, and hilarious all in one. Keep reading; it's worth it! ~Chris