Book Description
Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.
Customer Reviews:
The Best Novel Since "Lolita" and "Ulysses".......2007-09-07
"Some joker put hashish in the hollandaise, causing a run on the brocolli." Just another event in the life of Lt. Tyron Slothrop, who was attending the wild party in question in the Herman Goering casino as part of his search for the Schwatzgerat--the V2 rocket (serial no. 00000) which carries the mysterious Imipolex G device--all over wartime Europe, while the British secret service, and assorted others, search for *him*.
Why? You'll have to read the book. Along the way, he meets--among many others--a British captain with black-market connections that allow him to have fresh bananas in London's wartime winter in return for homegrown "magic mushroom" drugs; an African tribe whose members serve in the SS as V2 crews; an insane American Major whose solidiers sing diry limmericks about the V2's various components; an Italian nobleman--and a British Brigadier--with odd sexual practices (even by Pynchon's standards); and that's just the start of it.
The adventures of Lt. Slothrop in this mad looking-glass world are funny, amusing, bizzare, and complex. What's more--and this is what makes the novel a masterpiece--Pynchon integrates so many actual facts into his fictional world that it makes it and its inhabitants have much more versimilitude than the people described in most *non*-fiction works about WWII. Slothrop is more "real" than the Hitler we read about in most biographies of the man; his friends and enemies more real than, say, the defendants in Nuremberg are in most books about the trial.
If Pynchon speaks, say, of a car used by a lieutenant in a specific sub-department of the German Army in 1944, you can be damn sure that particular car model was in fact used by just such lieutenants at the time in reality; that pynchon took into account the wartime shortages that made the car's quality to deteriorate from 1944 to 1941; and that the lieutenant's resentment of this would be relevant to the plot.
To be sure, the lieutenant might then want to kill Slothrop in order to fulfill an anient prophecy based on Mayan star charts (which you can bet are also accurately portrayed); or to have a homosexual affair with him; or to do any number of bizzare or absurd things that one would expect in the looking-glass world where the novel is set. But that is just what makes this novel so great: Pycnhon doesn't research to teach us facts about WWII--even if a lot of the facts he puts in the novel are probably unknown even to WWII history buffs (like myself). He *uses* his research to create his funny, bizzare, and incredibly engaging world.
Read it--perferably, with a glass of wine (or something stronger) at your side. You will laugh, chortle, be shocked, and be amazed. Rarely had a better novel been written.
The Rocket Arcs, the Fight Rages On, the Challenges Remain.......2007-08-06
Ever since I discovered Thomas Pynchon, in college in 1982, I have fought the battle between the two camps on this book ("greatest ever written" vs. "fraud") on the side of Pynchon, where I still stand today. Many of my friends, having heard me talk about this novel, have attempted it and given up. Not necessarily because of its difficulty, but more because of what they want in a book, or don't want, or because they were not interested in what Gravity's Rainbow does, offers, and succeeds at. I don't disparage anyone who does not like Pynchon, but you must conceed the notion that just because you don't like something doesn't mean it is bad. I can't stand rap music, but I would never tell anyone it has no validity for them, and I freely admit that I don't know what makes rap good. Therefore, we all need to be careful in judging Pynchon, and especially Gravity's Rainbow as bad when we just don't like it. For those it speaks to, it has no peer.
As a fiction writer myself, this book first served as an inspiration to me. Few writers since Shakespeare have Pynchon's vocabulary and word craftsmanship. He can write a sentence that you can read over and over and marvel at in its genius. Put a lot of those sentences together and you get a tome of genius. The most important moment for me when reading this novel for the first time was when I was reading along, and I stopped and actually said to myself "wow, I didn't know a novel could do that." This declaration was repeated many times before I reached the end, and it is that amazing realization that makes this novel so great, and so important to human letters. Even the naysayers, those who attempt to find flaw with this novel, those who hate it and find it unreadable, would be unable to point to another novel like it. No other novel takes you where Gravity's Rainbow does, no other novel challenges you in the way this one does. For me, a challenge is what makes a novel special. I don't mean a challenge to understand it, but a challenge to imagine the world it describes. A challenge to look into yourself and find the things that this novel thrives on, and the challenge of letting your mind float across language that the brilliance of which could not have been imagined before you read it. Gravity's Rainbow takes you to places and inspires thoughts that no other novels do.
Now, that being said, let's have a caveat. Gravity's Rainbow was written by a man with a wide range of knowledge, a large vocabulary, and a prodigious thought process. You'll need a dictionary close at hand and you should use it without shame. You might want to read one of Pynchon's shorter books to work your way up to this one, just to get the feel of how he operates. Lots of players spend time in the minors before they are ready for the major leagues. When I first read this novel I had read V and The Crying of Lot 49 before attempting it. I also had a literature class in which we discussed Pynchon and his themes (paranoia, conspiracy, what lies beneath the surface) Most of all, don't take anyone's word for anything about this book. Just read it and let the words do their work. Make of it whatever you want, and if you don't like what's happening to you as you read it, just stop. You're no less a person, no less a reader, no less an intellectual, it just wasn't for you, and this novel is not for everyone. That's one comforting thing about it, it makes no bones about the fact that it just isn't for everyone. Few things of quality are. For me this has always been the greatest novel I've ever read, but that may not be true for everyone. To those who tread the Pynchonian path and, like me, find a home there, I welcome you.
A very good 3 1/2 star book.......2007-06-29
Yes, there's a lot of gravity here - dense, intense, tyrannical and demanding gravity. It does demand. There's nothing wrong with a little work though. Some of the reviewers here had to attempt this thing a few times before actually making it - myself included.
It's a mountain and I the reader felt like a mountain climber, if you will, and when I got close to the top, even though I knew the view would not get any better I said to myself: I'll take the extra steps and finish this thing. Then I can say: I finished this thing. Was it worth it? For all the five star reasons, sure why not. There's gold in them hills.
But, too often I felt frustration knowing I have enjoyed journeys far more user-friendly that had just as good a pay off.
Sex and explosions, what more can you want?.......2007-06-11
What sets Gravity's Rainbow above other books, at least in my humble (but correct) opinion is that it changes your perception of how to tell a story. In this book we don't have a simple and straightforward storyline. We don't have just prose to tell it (there are many digressions in the form of songs and poems and details of the lives of inanimate objects). In the end, there is a story behind the madness, even if it's sometimes hard to see.
Also, a little tip. Tips don't work for everybody, but I think this is a good one. Re-read it. I don't think any human can read it once and get everything they can from it. Don't limit yourself to one reading and say "This is great!" or even the opposite. Do it again.
You can't polish a turd!.......2007-06-09
The one and only reason I bought this book was that Neil Gaiman mentioned it in the book American Gods. I was thinking wow, if Gaiman thought enough of this book to mention it, then it must be worth reading. Well, it wasn't!
You ever get the feeling that someone is just writing to read how eloquent he can be? This is that book. This is the emperor's new clothes. I am the kid that says, "Hey, what is that fat stinky man doing running around naked?" Why are all the other people saying he looks so great? Freakin Sheep!
I would have given it zero stars if that had been an option.
Book Description
Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), set in an alternative-universe version of World War II, has been called a modern Finnegan’s Wake for its challenging language, wild anachronisms, hallucinatory happenings, and fever-dream imagery. With Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow, artist Zak Smith at once eases and expands readers’ experience of the book. A leading exponent of punk-based, DIY art, Smith here presents his most ambitious project to date — an art book exactly as long as the work it’s interpreting: 760 drawings, paintings, photos, and less definable images in 760 pages. Extraordinary tableaux of the detritus of war — a burned-out Königstiger tank, a melted machine gun — coexist alongside such phantasmagoric Pynchon inventions as the “stumbling bird” and “Girgori the octopus.” Smith has stated his aim to be “as literal as possible” in interpreting Gravity’s Rainbow, but his images are as imaginative and powerfully unique as the prose they honor.
Customer Reviews:
like looking at the Grand Canyon for the first time.......2007-08-15
I just saw the Zak Smith exhibit at the Walker Art Center in Minn. where I had gone to see the "Picasso in America". But this Gravity's Rainbow page-by-page is, by far, the reason to go to the Walker right now. Mindboggling. Buy the book and picture each page lined up like a grid covering an entire wall. The Pynchon book is quite challenging to read so try to imagine Zak Smith capturing the concept of each and every page with a drawing or picture. Number 404 looks like an inch thick melted white plastic mess--does anyone know what happened in the book on this page? I noticed that one of the "tags" for this product is "genius." Believe it.
And If You Think The Book Is Great...........2007-06-05
If you live anywhere near Minneapolis get yourself over to the Walker Art Center, where every single one of Zak Smith's drawings/paintings/sculptures (yes, some are three dimensional) for this project are displayed on one wall. (All are in the permanent collection of the Walker.) How do I know it's all 750+ artworks? Because I counted. 45 columns by 17 rows. You could spend hours staring at them and not exhaust this monumental project. I'm not sure how long they'll remain on display so don't put it off.
Buy it..........2007-03-28
Zak Smith a genious, and this book the best.
if you like concept ilustration, you'll love it...
and the prize it's great!
Overwhelming .......2007-01-18
I am at a loss for words.
It's one of the most beautiful things i've seen in years.
Amazon.com
Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), "a screaming comes across the sky," heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, Gravity's Rainbow, refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.
Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany.
That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel, which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.
Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. Gravity's Rainbow uses beautiful prose to induce an altered state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. --Tim Appelo
Book Description
"The most profound and accomplished American novel since the end of World War II."-- Edward Mendelson, The New Republic
Packaged with French flaps, acid-free paper, and rough front.
Customer Reviews:
worth one star, at least........2007-08-25
wow, all the hard work that this man put in just to bore me! the effort alone is worth a star. gallant attempt mr pynchon.
Very difficult but top notch in some ways........2007-07-27
My theory is that Pynchon is gifted and playful (misanthropic?) enough to have written this book to visit the greatest possible suffering on the reader, in much the same way certain modern artists infamously compete to foist the worst piece of junk on some rich fool with a poodle and no taste. He tantalizes his victim with a tidbit of brilliance or irresistible mystery at each point the reader would otherwise quit, then continues the torture until the same point has been reached again. And again.
And again.
Crazy? Maybe, but looking at the book through this lens explains both its problems and strengths, not otherwise easy to reconcile. The main problems are that the book is insanely long, far more so than its number of pages would suggest, it rambles crazily, and it's disgusting. Even if you're so tough nothing else in it makes you squirm, the regular pedophilia will be uncomfortable for anyone outside the Catholic priesthood. The strengths are two; some of the writing is among the most beautiful ever done, and some of the writing demonstrates a width of knowledge and gift of perception no other author has ever shown. Pynchon apparently expects these strengths to excuse an awful lot, but let's face it - they excuse an awful lot.
Should you read it? Get the Crying of Lot 49 instead. If at the end you can honestly say `I'd take eight hundred fifty times as much of what's bad about this book for 20 percent more brilliance' then you have your answer.
Previous reviewer said it all!.......2007-07-27
So, I have nothing much to add other than a reminiscence. I first read Gravity's Rainbow while working the graveyard shift at an Army postoffice during the 70's - could there be a better background for appreciating this novel? Everyone there was totally paranoid, on drugs, and into conspiracy theories!
The books and its style both seem to defy categorization. It's sort of a historical novel set in Europe during WWII, and the style ranges from bawdy parody of serious war novels to elegy for lost worlds to...everything else? At first it was baffling because it was impossible to pick out a theme, (unless you count the many strange uses for calculus). After several readings, I concluded that I didn't really understand much of it, but it just didn't matter. The book kept me intrigued and awake, which was all I really wanted. It was also fun to go to the library, in those days before the internet came along, and look up the details of WW II technology and history to see which were fiction and which were fact. Surprisingly, the seemingly most bizarre ones were often real.
Bottom line: I'm glad I read it, but it is definitely not for everyone.
Not everyone enjoys mountain climbing.......2007-06-28
Yes, there's a lot of gravity here - dense, intense, tyrannical and demanding gravity. It does demand. There's nothing wrong with a little work though. Some of the reviewers here had to attempt this thing a few times before actually making it - myself included.
It's a mountain and I the reader felt like a mountain climber, if you will, and when I got close to the top, even though I knew the view would not get any better I said to myself: I'll take the extra steps and finish this thing. Then I can say: I finished this thing. Was it worth it? For all the five star reasons, sure why not. There's gold in them hills.
But, too often I felt frustration knowing I have enjoyed journeys far more user-friendly that had just as good a pay off.
A promising plot and some entertaining digressions undone by a sense of trying too hard.......2007-05-30
Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is often looked upon as the author's magnum opus, a 900-page monster that, in constructing its fairly straightforward story, plunders all the riches of history and many of the sciences that its author found fascinating.
The plot is simple: in the last days of World War II British intelligence notices that a map American lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop has made of his sexual conquests in London corresponds exactly to where German rockets subsequently hit. An obscure branch of the British military specializing in all manner of ESP, voodoo, and Pavlovian crackpottery--Pynchon is playfully referring to how much money was thrown at all kinds of war-winning proposals--tries to discover how exactly Slothrop can predict the rocket, but Slothrop breaks away from his handlers and heads off to discover his destiny. Pynchon digresses from the main plot extremely frequently. From a 5-page tour of the awful English candies of yesterday to the creation of a new alphabet for Turkic speakers in the Soviet Union, from the tropes of Westerns to Herero religion, references abound to all manner of obscure subjects.
The novel has a reputation for being "difficult" and full of obscure references, but this is largely exaggeration. The reading public shouldn't have trouble following a long main plot of wartime intrigue and shifting between a wide cast of characters--after all, Neal Stephenson's similar and similarly huge novel Cryptonomicon was a best-seller. Most of the digressions are understandable for anyone with a solid university education.
In the end I found the novel disappointing. I did, indeed, read the thing, Pynchon fans, so don't accuse me of not having what it takes to make it through there. My reasons for not liking GRAVITY'S RAINBOW are somewhat similar to those of Pulitzer board members that overturned the 1973 award, calling the novel "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene". Unreadable it's not, I got through it as have many. However, the problematic parts of the novel are turgid, overwritten, and obscene at once. Most digressions are entertaining, but often Pynchon throws in long passages of foecal humour or unusual sexual fetishes in a transparent attempt to be shocking and boundary-pushing. Unlike a William S. Burroughs, who wrote could sincerely write out-there stuff, Pynchon's risque writing is calculated and lame.
Much of the novel is impressive--and I especially like the surprise ending and the Finnegans Wake-like circle the book makes--but its failings were pretty big for me. I wouldn't warn all readers away from GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, as evidentally many do like it as a whole, but one can risk disappointment with Pynchon's work.
Book Description
Adding some 20 percent to the original content, this is a completely updated edition of the indispensable guide to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Steven 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."
Customer Reviews:
Full of Spoilers........2006-12-08
Why does Weisenburger decide to randomly drop spoiler after spoiler into his annotations? The companion was extremely helpful but the first time I read GR I realized I had to hide this companion about halfway through the novel. I cannot figure out why when describing a simple German phrase (adequately and with illuminating context to the specific situation, mind you) Weisenburger surrenders plot points that don't surface until the last part of the novel. It ended up happening almost every other episode. It was infuriating. So beware. Probably wait until your second time through to use this useful but endlessly frustrating companion.
Look for the 2nd edtion.......2006-11-22
There are two editions of this book. The first was published in 1988. The second was published November of this year (2006). It contains twenty percent additional material and some corrections. Double-check. Both editions have identical titles but the covers differ.
The worst companion except for all the others.......2006-02-21
So you've decided to try and tackle GR. The novel is certainly worth the time and frustration that can sometimes accompany reading it. As far as this companion goes, I usually had it with me while reading GR but certainly did not feel lost without it. The problem is that while Weissenburger does a lot to explain the myriad historical allusions contained within GR, there is very little in the way of literary analysis or deep engagement with any of the interesting ideas and themes. (By contrast, J. Kerry Grant's companion to Lot 49 does a much better job in this respect.) I imagine one could always read the abundance of essays on GR to get such information, and Weissenburger is only a mere mortal. But still, I would have appreciated a companion that was slightly more provocative than one that simply points out references to a type of pudding traditionally eaten by soliders in the Crimean War (not an actual reference in the book, so purists lay off). In other words, the companion sometimes helps make sense of things or provides a few interesting points, but does little to truly enrich your appreciation of the novel as a whole.
If you're on the fence, I would still recommend buying the companion, especially if you can find a used copy. But don't feel that this is indispensable or anything. It's flawed but, unfortunately, for the time being it seems to be the best there is.
Yer gonna need this.......2005-09-13
Yep. Very well put together collection of stuff you'll need -- even if you think you don't -- to get through Gravity's Rainbow proper. Sure you can fly solo, naked, hungry ... but this gives you a bit of support as you swim through. Just a few pivots and landings to catch your breath. Although not essential, it can help. Fer sher.
Useful and well-done, but at a price..........2005-07-18
An extremely useful and interesting companion to GR. Perhaps not essential, but certainly helpful in getting much more out of this fantastic novel. There are different ways to use the Companion - I ended up reading an episode in GR and then reading the accompanying pages in the Companion, which worked pretty well though it obviously breaks the natural flow of the novel. I like the fact that Weisenburger generally does not attempt to provide detailed interpretations - the sheer length of the novel fortunately prevents the flood of over-interpretation and academic nonsense that, for example, sometimes fills companion books for shorter novels (e.g., The Crying of Lot 49). Weisenburger's thoughts on timelines and the overall structure are enlightening.
I do have one major complaint: for reasons I'm sure Weisenburger would try to defend but that I don't understand at all, he "gives away" rather early in the Companion the events described in the very last episodes in GR. We're talking major spoiler here! Although there are numerous hints throughout GR leading up to this, the picture doesn't become clear until the very end. Unfortunately, Weisenburger blows the surprise very early on and personally I really resented this.
A minor complaint: As mentioned in other reviews, Weisenburger commits a number of errors when explaining some of the science and math. Often, these explanations just weren't necessary and in some cases work only to deflate the book's magic. As one of a number of possible examples, consider the extraordinary balloon ride episode, in which Slothrop witnesses the earth's shadow moving across the land. Weisenburger chimes in with a discussion as to whether or not the cited speed of the shadow is realistic, and also informs us that of course shadows can't break the speed of sound! Useless over-analysis of the type that explains why generation after generation of students are turned off to literature when forced by professors with too much brain and not enough heart to dissect great books in the classroom.
Average customer rating:
- A promising plot and some entertaining digressions undone by a sense of trying too hard
|
Gravity's Rainbow
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0553102710 |
Customer Reviews:
A promising plot and some entertaining digressions undone by a sense of trying too hard.......2007-05-30
Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is often looked upon as the author's magnum opus, a 900-page monster that, in constructing its fairly straightforward story, plunders all the riches of history and many of the sciences that its author found fascinating.
The plot is simple: in the last days of World War II British intelligence notices that a map American lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop has made of his sexual conquests in London corresponds exactly to where German rockets subsequently hit. An obscure branch of the British military specializing in all manner of ESP, voodoo, and Pavlovian crackpottery--Pynchon is playfully referring to how much money was thrown at all kinds of war-winning proposals--tries to discover how exactly Slothrop can predict the rocket, but Slothrop breaks away from his handlers and heads off to discover his destiny. Pynchon digresses from the main plot extremely frequently. From a 5-page tour of the awful English candies of yesterday to the creation of a new alphabet for Turkic speakers in the Soviet Union, from the tropes of Westerns to Herero religion, references abound to all manner of obscure subjects.
The novel has a reputation for being "difficult" and full of obscure references, but this is largely exaggeration. The reading public shouldn't have trouble following a long main plot of wartime intrigue and shifting between a wide cast of characters--after all, Neal Stephenson's similar and similarly huge novel Cryptonomicon was a best-seller. Most of the digressions are understandable for anyone with a solid university education.
In the end I found the novel disappointing. I did, indeed, read the thing, Pynchon fans, so don't accuse me of not having what it takes to make it through there. My reasons for not liking GRAVITY'S RAINBOW are somewhat similar to those of Pulitzer board members that overturned the 1973 award, calling the novel "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene". Unreadable it's not, I got through it as have many. However, the problematic parts of the novel are turgid, overwritten, and obscene at once. Most digressions are entertaining, but often Pynchon throws in long passages of foecal humour or unusual sexual fetishes in a transparent attempt to be shocking and boundary-pushing. Unlike a William S. Burroughs, who wrote could sincerely write out-there stuff, Pynchon's risque writing is calculated and lame.
Much of the novel is impressive--and I especially like the surprise ending and the Finnegans Wake-like circle the book makes--but its failings were pretty big for me. I wouldn't warn all readers away from GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, as evidentally many do like it as a whole, but one can risk disappointment with Pynchon's work.
Product Description
This is a hardcover/dustjacket first edition.
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
A dense book, with the writer throwing a lot of stuff in. Presumably meant to be a literary fancy pants type of thing, but to me, that just made it incredibly dull and a slog to get anywhere near through much of it.
Definitely not entertaining in the way Robert Anton Wilson is, for example.
A promising plot and some entertaining digressions undone by a sense of trying too hard.......2007-05-30
Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is often looked upon as the author's magnum opus, a 900-page monster that, in constructing its fairly straightforward story, plunders all the riches of history and many of the sciences that its author found fascinating.
The plot is simple: in the last days of World War II British intelligence notices that a map American lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop has made of his sexual conquests in London corresponds exactly to where German rockets subsequently hit. An obscure branch of the British military specializing in all manner of ESP, voodoo, and Pavlovian crackpottery--Pynchon is playfully referring to how much money was thrown at all kinds of war-winning proposals--tries to discover how exactly Slothrop can predict the rocket, but Slothrop breaks away from his handlers and heads off to discover his destiny. Pynchon digresses from the main plot extremely frequently. From a 5-page tour of the awful English candies of yesterday to the creation of a new alphabet for Turkic speakers in the Soviet Union, from the tropes of Westerns to Herero religion, references abound to all manner of obscure subjects.
The novel has a reputation for being "difficult" and full of obscure references, but this is largely exaggeration. The reading public shouldn't have trouble following a long main plot of wartime intrigue and shifting between a wide cast of characters--after all, Neal Stephenson's similar and similarly huge novel Cryptonomicon was a best-seller. Most of the digressions are understandable for anyone with a solid university education.
In the end I found the novel disappointing. I did, indeed, read the thing, Pynchon fans, so don't accuse me of not having what it takes to make it through there. My reasons for not liking GRAVITY'S RAINBOW are somewhat similar to those of Pulitzer board members that overturned the 1973 award, calling the novel "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene". Unreadable it's not, I got through it as have many. However, the problematic parts of the novel are turgid, overwritten, and obscene at once. Most digressions are entertaining, but often Pynchon throws in long passages of foecal humour or unusual sexual fetishes in a transparent attempt to be shocking and boundary-pushing. Unlike a William S. Burroughs, who wrote could sincerely write out-there stuff, Pynchon's risque writing is calculated and lame.
Much of the novel is impressive--and I especially like the surprise ending and the Finnegans Wake-like circle the book makes--but its failings were pretty big for me. I wouldn't warn all readers away from GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, as evidentally many do like it as a whole, but one can risk disappointment with Pynchon's work.
Don't overanalyze. Don't underestimate........2001-12-01
There are those that consider "Gravity's Rainbow" the greatest American novel of this, or perhaps any, century. I can't make a case for or against this; I haven't read 'em all. However, I will say that "Gravity's Rainbow" is good enough to at least deserve some of the lavish praise its earned. I get the feeling though that some people praise the book just to appear intelligent, just like some people criticize the book just to appear intelligent and unpretentious. However, let me just say that if a book is no more to you than a means of wearing a mask (on the internet for that matter), then you probably did not appreciate it for what it is. So what is "Gravity's Rainbow?" Well, it IS difficult. But unreadable? No. It is encylopedic. But dull and boring? Not in the least! "Gravity's Rainbow" is, if anything, an enormous collection of brainstorms, daydreams, and nightmares of one of the most incredible imaginations of our time. Most of it seems to me to be Pynchon writing to entertain Pynchon. Episodes like the ones with the giant adenoid, the Kenosha Kid, and, of course, Byron the Bulb, are as funny and fun to read as anything written this century. Yes, "Gravity's Rainbow" is extremely deep. But it sure is fun too.
Let me just recommend, however, that you read something else of Pynchon's before tackling this work. I recommend reading 'em in order.
A screaming comes across the psyche.......1997-07-22
Because we have launched the first V-1, we have launched the final bomb that will be our undoing.
This book is the Ocham's Razor of literature, infinitely bisecting the line or the arc, trying to single out the desired by eliminating the unwanted. In this case, it appears to be working on a most disturbing result--as if it were a warning to us.
We cannot, in reality, bisect the line forever.
*****
On a lighter note (and the book is filled with hilarity), yes I love this encyclopedic book. When I feel I cannot write, I get it out and read the first few pages (through the great "banana breakfast" episode), or the story of 'Byron the Lightbulb' (one of the stories-within-the-story), or Slothrop's adventures in the giant pig suit....
If you can't get past the first 50 pages, and many people have encountered this (as did I), start again. The rewards are on every page, on every line. And keeping a copy of the OED handy won't hurt, either.
In my house Gravitys Rainbow is "The Good Book"........1997-07-12
A work to be savoured while listening to Pink Floyd turned all the way up to "11" and injecting opium into your eyeballs. If you only read one book in your LIFETIME, this should be it. For me, the summer of '74 was Gravitys Rainbow. It was a very good summer. This isn't so much a book as an experience. I envy those of you who have the opportunity to read it for the first time. The investment of your precious time will be amply rewarded. The word "masterpiece" was invented to describe this monumental achievement. Yes, I liked it quite a bit
Customer Reviews:
A promising plot and some entertaining digressions undone by a sense of trying too hard.......2007-05-30
Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is often looked upon as the author's magnum opus, a 900-page monster that, in constructing its fairly straightforward story, plunders all the riches of history and many of the sciences that its author found fascinating.
The plot is simple: in the last days of World War II British intelligence notices that a map American lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop has made of his sexual conquests in London corresponds exactly to where German rockets subsequently hit. An obscure branch of the British military specializing in all manner of ESP, voodoo, and Pavlovian crackpottery--Pynchon is playfully referring to how much money was thrown at all kinds of war-winning proposals--tries to discover how exactly Slothrop can predict the rocket, but Slothrop breaks away from his handlers and heads off to discover his destiny. Pynchon digresses from the main plot extremely frequently. From a 5-page tour of the awful English candies of yesterday to the creation of a new alphabet for Turkic speakers in the Soviet Union, from the tropes of Westerns to Herero religion, references abound to all manner of obscure subjects.
The novel has a reputation for being "difficult" and full of obscure references, but this is largely exaggeration. The reading public shouldn't have trouble following a long main plot of wartime intrigue and shifting between a wide cast of characters--after all, Neal Stephenson's similar and similarly huge novel Cryptonomicon was a best-seller. Most of the digressions are understandable for anyone with a solid university education.
In the end I found the novel disappointing. I did, indeed, read the thing, Pynchon fans, so don't accuse me of not having what it takes to make it through there. My reasons for not liking GRAVITY'S RAINBOW are somewhat similar to those of Pulitzer board members that overturned the 1973 award, calling the novel "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene". Unreadable it's not, I got through it as have many. However, the problematic parts of the novel are turgid, overwritten, and obscene at once. Most digressions are entertaining, but often Pynchon throws in long passages of foecal humour or unusual sexual fetishes in a transparent attempt to be shocking and boundary-pushing. Unlike a William S. Burroughs, who wrote could sincerely write out-there stuff, Pynchon's risque writing is calculated and lame.
Much of the novel is impressive--and I especially like the surprise ending and the Finnegans Wake-like circle the book makes--but its failings were pretty big for me. I wouldn't warn all readers away from GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, as evidentally many do like it as a whole, but one can risk disappointment with Pynchon's work.
Customer Reviews:
A promising plot and some entertaining digressions undone by a sense of trying too hard.......2007-05-30
Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is often looked upon as the author's magnum opus, a 900-page monster that, in constructing its fairly straightforward story, plunders all the riches of history and many of the sciences that its author found fascinating.
The plot is simple: in the last days of World War II British intelligence notices that a map American lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop has made of his sexual conquests in London corresponds exactly to where German rockets subsequently hit. An obscure branch of the British military specializing in all manner of ESP, voodoo, and Pavlovian crackpottery--Pynchon is playfully referring to how much money was thrown at all kinds of war-winning proposals--tries to discover how exactly Slothrop can predict the rocket, but Slothrop breaks away from his handlers and heads off to discover his destiny. Pynchon digresses from the main plot extremely frequently. From a 5-page tour of the awful English candies of yesterday to the creation of a new alphabet for Turkic speakers in the Soviet Union, from the tropes of Westerns to Herero religion, references abound to all manner of obscure subjects.
The novel has a reputation for being "difficult" and full of obscure references, but this is largely exaggeration. The reading public shouldn't have trouble following a long main plot of wartime intrigue and shifting between a wide cast of characters--after all, Neal Stephenson's similar and similarly huge novel Cryptonomicon was a best-seller. Most of the digressions are understandable for anyone with a solid university education.
In the end I found the novel disappointing. I did, indeed, read the thing, Pynchon fans, so don't accuse me of not having what it takes to make it through there. My reasons for not liking GRAVITY'S RAINBOW are somewhat similar to those of Pulitzer board members that overturned the 1973 award, calling the novel "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene". Unreadable it's not, I got through it as have many. However, the problematic parts of the novel are turgid, overwritten, and obscene at once. Most digressions are entertaining, but often Pynchon throws in long passages of foecal humour or unusual sexual fetishes in a transparent attempt to be shocking and boundary-pushing. Unlike a William S. Burroughs, who wrote could sincerely write out-there stuff, Pynchon's risque writing is calculated and lame.
Much of the novel is impressive--and I especially like the surprise ending and the Finnegans Wake-like circle the book makes--but its failings were pretty big for me. I wouldn't warn all readers away from GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, as evidentally many do like it as a whole, but one can risk disappointment with Pynchon's work.
Average customer rating:
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Fiction in the Quantum Universe
Susan Strehle
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0807843652 |
Book Description
In this outstanding book Susan Strehle argues that a new fiction has developed from the influence of modern physics. She calls this new fiction actualism, and within that framework she offers a critical analysis of major novels by Thomas Pynchon, Robert Coover, William Gaddis, John Barth, Margaret Atwood, and Donald Barthelme.
According to Strehle, the actualists balance attention to questions of art with an engaged meditation on the external, actual world. While these actualist novels diverge markedly from realistic practice, Strehle claims that they do so in order to reflect more acutely what we now understand as real. Reality is no longer "realistic"; in the new physical or quantum universe, reality is discontinuous, energetic, relative, statistical, subjectively seen, and uncertainly known—all terms taken from new physics.
Actualist fiction is characterized by incompletions, indeterminacy, and "open" endings unsatisfying to the readerly wish for fulfilled promises and completed patterns. Gravity's Rainbow, for example, ends not with a period but with a dash. Strehle argues that such innovations in narrative reflect on twentieth-century history, politics, science, and discourse.
Average customer rating:
- A promising plot and some entertaining digressions undone by a sense of trying too hard
|
Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon
Manufacturer: Bantam Books
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 0553147617 |
Customer Reviews:
A promising plot and some entertaining digressions undone by a sense of trying too hard.......2007-05-30
Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is often looked upon as the author's magnum opus, a 900-page monster that, in constructing its fairly straightforward story, plunders all the riches of history and many of the sciences that its author found fascinating.
The plot is simple: in the last days of World War II British intelligence notices that a map American lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop has made of his sexual conquests in London corresponds exactly to where German rockets subsequently hit. An obscure branch of the British military specializing in all manner of ESP, voodoo, and Pavlovian crackpottery--Pynchon is playfully referring to how much money was thrown at all kinds of war-winning proposals--tries to discover how exactly Slothrop can predict the rocket, but Slothrop breaks away from his handlers and heads off to discover his destiny. Pynchon digresses from the main plot extremely frequently. From a 5-page tour of the awful English candies of yesterday to the creation of a new alphabet for Turkic speakers in the Soviet Union, from the tropes of Westerns to Herero religion, references abound to all manner of obscure subjects.
The novel has a reputation for being "difficult" and full of obscure references, but this is largely exaggeration. The reading public shouldn't have trouble following a long main plot of wartime intrigue and shifting between a wide cast of characters--after all, Neal Stephenson's similar and similarly huge novel Cryptonomicon was a best-seller. Most of the digressions are understandable for anyone with a solid university education.
In the end I found the novel disappointing. I did, indeed, read the thing, Pynchon fans, so don't accuse me of not having what it takes to make it through there. My reasons for not liking GRAVITY'S RAINBOW are somewhat similar to those of Pulitzer board members that overturned the 1973 award, calling the novel "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene". Unreadable it's not, I got through it as have many. However, the problematic parts of the novel are turgid, overwritten, and obscene at once. Most digressions are entertaining, but often Pynchon throws in long passages of foecal humour or unusual sexual fetishes in a transparent attempt to be shocking and boundary-pushing. Unlike a William S. Burroughs, who wrote could sincerely write out-there stuff, Pynchon's risque writing is calculated and lame.
Much of the novel is impressive--and I especially like the surprise ending and the Finnegans Wake-like circle the book makes--but its failings were pretty big for me. I wouldn't warn all readers away from GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, as evidentally many do like it as a whole, but one can risk disappointment with Pynchon's work.
Books:
- Here is New York
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye
- In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
- Israel at Vanity Fair: Jews and Judaism in the Writings of W.M. Thackeray (Brill's Series in Jewish Studies, Vol 2)
- Jack London : Novels and Stories : Call of the Wild / White Fang / The Sea-Wolf / Klondike and Other Stories (Library of America)
- Jack London : Novels and Stories : Call of the Wild / White Fang / The Sea-Wolf / Klondike and Other Stories (Library of America)
Books Index
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Against the Day
V. (Perennial Classics)
Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow
Mason & Dixon: A Novel
A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources And Contexts for Pynchon's Novel
