Thomas Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow

[DB Cooper]

I started this yesterday, and got about 30 pages into it. So far so good, though the language is very dense and it's really impossible to breeze through this quickly. Maybe once I get the rhythm of the prose that will change. I havent decided if Im just going to go through it and ascertain as much as I can, or do a more detailed and slow reading using the online guides. Im leaning toward the former, and if Im really wowed then on the reread Ill dig a little deeper. Has anyone here read this book, and if so what was your experience with it? I usually like to knock out two long books (700 pages or more) every summer, I just seem to have more time or motivation as a reader to dig in and focus on longer and more challenging books for whatever reason. Im pretty impressed with what Ive read so far, but with the reputation of this book Im not to surprised.

[Refus de Sejour]

I think "about 30 pages" is as far as I've ever got into Gravity's Rainbow, on multiple attempts.

The problem is, while the prose can be amazingly good, it never got me hooked in a narrative sense. There was no momentum carrying me forward.

Good luck :D

[Bottle Rocket]

I think "about 30 pages" is as far as I've ever got into Gravity's Rainbow, on multiple attempts.

The problem is, while the prose can be amazingly good, it never got me hooked in a narrative sense. There was no momentum carrying me forward.

Good luck :DMy experience -- the first time -- was that I needed a lot of hand-holding for about 250 pages; fortunately, I worked with the guy who recommended it to me in the first place, so when I was about to lose heart he was always around to egg me on for another few pages.

Eventually I got the momentum Refus has never managed, which carried me with increasing assurance and enjoyment though the rest. In part, my enthusiasm for the book is based upon the fact that in the last hundred pages or so I found myself reading more slowly because I didn't want it to end; this doesn't happen to me very often.

There's a lot of GR material/commentary available on the net: here (http://www.themodernword.com/Pynchon/pynchon_gr.html) is a good site for anyone who finds the book overwhelming. It links to various critical essays and papers, provides bibliographic references, summaries, etc.

To make sense of the book, especially at the outset, it's worthwhile at a bare minimum to take a gander at Wikipedia (or something similar) on the subjects of Bletchley Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park) (the top-secret real-life model for The White Visitation in the beginning of GR) and the V2/A4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2) missile. The first relates to Pynchon's theme of codes, hidden patterns and meanings, secrecy and ESP, and full-blown paranoia; the second has to do with technology, engineering intricacy, mathematics (as in trajectories, ie Gravity's Rainbow) and two paradoxes: that the world's most advanced weapon was being built in salt mines by slave labor; and that when fired, the V2 was the first large weapon to travel faster than the speed of sound, so it exploded first and only then did you hear it coming.

My dad was in London during the Blitz, and he first told me about the eeriness of the V2 when I was a wee bairn, twenty years before the book was published, so I "got" the basic metaphor of GR from the very first sentence. I'm not sure I'd ever have finished the book if I had to assimilate all the implicit information at once, so I urge you to avail yourself of at least a few of these resources: A Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow, by Douglas Fowler is out of print but if you can find a copy at the library or at second hand, it's an invaluable aid.


:) BRocket :)

[Daniel del Real]

I always try to be a tenacious reader. It's hard for me to quit a book and I do everything possible to get in touch with the author's soul and understand his motivations to write a book and what is he trying to say with his works. This book was too much for me. As Refus said, I never got engaged with the story, had barely idea what it was all about. It didn't care and I continued since I thought sooner or later it had to improve and give sense to all that talking, but it didn't. I read a few papers trying to get familiarized with the book and its meaning and still was no good.
Finally I abandoned it after finishing the first part Beyond the Zero. It can be said I read 25% of the book and still found no plot, no interest at all.

[DB Cooper]

Im about 100 pages in, and a little overwhelmed. Im a pretty seasoned reader, and have handled other so called "difficult" texts with no problem, but Gravity's Rainbow is an entirely different beast. Just when I think I have a decent handle of whats going on, Pynchon sends my head spinning again. Ive been using some online resources, and those help, but the prose itself is staggeringly dense. Im going to keep plugging away, and we will see what happens. I'll give it another hundred pages or so to see if things fall in to place a little more, and also if it becomes more interesting, because to be honest Im not really hooked yet. The challenge is quite fun though.

[waxwing]

I read Gravity's Rainbow when it first came out, probably 1970 or so. I had already read The Crying of Lot 49 and V. (twice) and was besotted with Pynchon's prose. GR is denser than the earlier novels, there is a lot in Pynchon I don't understand (like Shakespeare), but I always went with the flow, never consulted a guide. Pynchon was something new and different when he first became noticed. Most of the acclaimed authors of the time, like Bellow, Malamud, I found stodgy, brooding and too inward looking. Pynchon encompasses just about everything you can think of, he created a whole unique world, a re-telling of the crazy 20th century, very 60s-ish in feeling, and as I am also a child of the 60s I may be more inclined to cozy up to his paranoia, romantic fantasies, loony humor and his incredible poignancy. I re-read GR many years later and appreciated it even more.

[Bottle Rocket]

I read Gravity's Rainbow when it first came out, probably 1970 or so. I had already read The Crying of Lot 49 and V. (twice) and was besotted with Pynchon's prose. GR is denser than the earlier novels, there is a lot in Pynchon I don't understand (like Shakespeare), but I always went with the flow, never consulted a guide. Pynchon was something new and different when he first became noticed. Most of the acclaimed authors of the time, like Bellow, Malamud, I found stodgy, brooding and too inward looking. Pynchon encompasses just about everything you can think of, he created a whole unique world, a re-telling of the crazy 20th century, very 60s-ish in feeling, and as I am also a child of the 60s I may be more inclined to cozy up to his paranoia, romantic fantasies, loony humor and his incredible poignancy. I re-read GR many years later and appreciated it even more.Yes, this pretty well sums up my view as well ... glad to see I'm not the only one.

Back then, of course, no one had gotten around to the various exegeses that are now available. And yes, he certainly was a completely different beast from the alpha bulls of American lit of the time.


:) BRocket :)

[waalkwriter]

I read Gravity's Rainbow when it first came out, probably 1970 or so. I had already read The Crying of Lot 49 and V. (twice) and was besotted with Pynchon's prose. GR is denser than the earlier novels, there is a lot in Pynchon I don't understand (like Shakespeare), but I always went with the flow, never consulted a guide. Pynchon was something new and different when he first became noticed. Most of the acclaimed authors of the time, like Bellow, Malamud, I found stodgy, brooding and too inward looking. Pynchon encompasses just about everything you can think of, he created a whole unique world, a re-telling of the crazy 20th century, very 60s-ish in feeling, and as I am also a child of the 60s I may be more inclined to cozy up to his paranoia, romantic fantasies, loony humor and his incredible poignancy. I re-read GR many years later and appreciated it even more.

Not being a child of the sixties he comes as shallow and cliched for me. I'd much rather read Bellow than Pynchon. Then again I'd much rather read Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince than just about anything the modern literary canon hails as great. :(

[saliotthomas]

I'd much rather read Bellow than Pynchon. Then again I'd much rather read Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince than just about anything the modern literary canon hails as great. :(

"Draw me a sheep" never did anything to me, even when very lonely abomination was not a temptation.
This might explain why i hate so much This little prince (and the fact that i had to read extracts for a friend weding, yarggg...typcal).
Never got why some many love this piece of pseudo lyrical lit, past the age of twelve i mean or to show a girl friend how sensitve you are.

[Bottle Rocket]

... or to show a girl friend how sensitive you are.
The Little Prince (trade paperback): $15.99
1 red rose, 2 Americano: $18.00 + pourboire
showing a girl friend how sensitive you are ... PRICELESS!!


Old hat, yes, but an all-but-foolproof romantic gambit


;) BRocket ;)

for so innocent an extraterrestrial, he's proved rather a successful little pimp, n'est-ce pas?

[Amoxcalli]

The Little Prince (trade paperback): $15.99
1 red rose, 2 Americano: $18.00 + pourboire
showing a girl friend how sensitive you are ... PRICELESS!!


Noted! I love this forum. :D

I have yet to read anything by Pynchon, but it's (quite) high on my list.

[Manuel76]

I loved this book, its tight prose, its seemingly chaotic but extremely organized plot, its ability to transform every little fact in part of a huge metaphore. *****+

It's excessive in every way: the learning, the information, the plot, the characters...

Much of what is told is, you feel, based on true facts, and you feel that there's an incredible job in compiling information. But, as in Maxon and Dixon, the more true the facts are, the more unbeliavable they get. And the opposite, what seems incredible finally has some real fact behind.

Pynchon's prose is a miracle of poetry and humour, his imagination is obscene in every way, the narrative is fast, the mood is both hilarious and desperate in a way which reminded me of Nabokov's Ada.

And of course there's a plot. In fact there're dozens of subplots, all freely interconnected. Sometimes a very interesting character disappears and you know nothing about him in 200 pages (or think you don't know about him).

But it's not that difficult to follow the plot, just remember the characters (I'm very bad with names), and well it's true that there'are thousands of episodes and many of them don't seem to be essential at all. And when you feel Pynchon is going to put all the pieces together, there comes an obscure and fascinating epiphany and Slothrop disappears. And suddenly everything is smashed, and you enter into something you really don't know what is anymore, a nightmarish travel you feel will lead you nowhere while you follow the life of an eternal light bulb!.

But even if the last 100 pages seem to be indecipherables (with some short episodes a little more "real"), you go on absorbed by the fast pace, the incredible images, the eccentric and unpredictable roller coaster. And well, because you've gone so far thet you can accept almost anything.

[Galatea92]

The Little Prince (trade paperback): $15.99
1 red rose, 2 Americano: $18.00 + pourboire
showing a girl friend how sensitive you are ... PRICELESS!!


Old hat, yes, but an all-but-foolproof romantic gambit


;) BRocket ;)

for so innocent an extraterrestrial, he's proved rather a successful little pimp, n'est-ce pas?

Excellent :).

[DB Cooper]

Started my second attempt with this book, about 40 pages in and this time the reading is much smoother. I think finishing Against The Day has really helped in this regard, the dense language has opened up a bit more for me this time. Also reading 100 pages the first time Im already familiar with what Im reading so that helps me soak it in instead of fighting against it. The writing is beautiful though, its enough to carry me through at this time.

[Remora]

Started my second attempt with this book, about 40 pages in and this time the reading is much smoother. I think finishing Against The Day has really helped in this regard, the dense language has opened up a bit more for me this time. Also reading 100 pages the first time Im already familiar with what Im reading so that helps me soak it in instead of fighting against it. The writing is beautiful though, its enough to carry me through at this time.

If you get bogged down, Keat's "Negative Capability" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability) may help you to get through; it did me.

[DB Cooper]

Thanks. Im open to any resources that will add meaning or clarity to GR. Im not averse to working for my dinner.