Thomas Pynchon

'The greatest, wildest author of his generation' Guardian We could tell you the year is 1944, that the main character is called Tyrone Slothrop and that he has a problem because bombs are falling across Europe and crashing to earth at the exact locations of his sexual conquests. But that doesn't really begin to cover it. Reading this book is like falling down a rabbit hole into an outlandish, sinister, mysterious, absurd, compulsive netherworld. As the Financial Times said, 'you must forget earlier notions about life and letters and even the Novel.' Forty years since publication, Gravity's Rainbow has lost none of its power to enthral.

Gravity's Rainbow

Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, is under suspicion by his superiors and soon on the run from enemies through Germany.

If you believe that your fetishes stem from unresolved past traumas 

 are an engineer... Have I got a rec for you!

Nick Whalen

If you believe that your fetishes stem from unresolved past traumas and think about WW2 and are an engineer... Have I got a rec for you!

Tobias V. Langhoff

This book was famously selected by the Pulitzer Prize jury, but rejected because of a coprophilia (scat sex) scene. I’ve read other Pynchon books and loved them, and consider myself a liberal guy who dislikes censorship of offensive art and fiction … but I have to admit that the decision feels a little understandable, although obviously it’s disappointing that they couldn’t see past the offensive parts. Apart from the scat, there is BDSM, possible incest (albeit in a kind of reverse Oldboy scenario), an orgy scene and – the part that made me cringe the most, as a father to a daughter – graphic hebephilia.

The main character is Tyrone Slothrop, an American intelligence officer stationed in London during the last days of World War II. A very virile guy who has apparently been conditioned as a child to have Pavlovian sexual responses to specific stimuli, most of the book follows him as he has several misadventures around in Europe, usually involving getting erections all the time and sometimes having sex with an array of women he encounters (and one 11 year old girl, hence the hebephilia I mentioned).

For the most part, the story is about Slothrop as he tries to uncover conspiracies involving his upbringing, family history and Pavlovian experimentation, as well as a secret German war project involving a mysterious V-2 rocket with the serial number 00000 and a polymer called Imipolex G which seems to be involved in both his own past and the rocket.

How much of what he experiences actually takes place is debatable. Much of the novel reads like a kind of fever dream or drug-induced hallucinations. In one scene, which surely inspired Trainspotting, he dives into a toilet to escape from Malcolm X and a band of “Negroes” who plan to sodomize him (the scenario of African-Americans raping “the white man” being a common scare tactic in segregation times); in another, it’s not his penis but his nose that erects, and a woman enters his nasal cavities in a sexual penetration.

Speaking of dreams and the general nose area: Another character is a soldier who goes by the nickname Pirate, who can read other people’s dreams. One of those dreams is a nightmare about a giant sentient adenoid which swells and swallows London. And speaking of “Negroes”: Another band of characters is a clandestine Herero task force (the Herero wars, and colonialism in general, is also a subject matter in Pynchon’s debut novel V.).

So yes, this is an offensive book in many respects. Graphic sex scenes and different portrayals of racism are common occurrences.

Another thing that pops up all the time is song. People break out into ridiculous lyrics all the time in this book, and a gang of American soldiers chant fantastic limericks while chasing Slothrop through underground tunnels and in airplanes and hot air balloons. Some of the songs have been covered by a band calling themselves The Thomas Pynchon Fake Book. I also always like the way Pynchon writes in the present tense; together with the singing, it often makes his storytelling feel like a revue stage act.

Many absurd subplots, like when Slothrop is dressed up in a superhero costume and is called “Rocketman” by a bunch of hippies who enlist him to recover their lost stash of marijuana, or when he dons a pig suit and plays a demi-god giant pig in an historical reenactment of a German village myth, or when he visits a town run exclusively by children, could stand alone as their own novels or short stories. The book is full of these gems, weaving in and out of stories as it pleases.

There are a lot of other characters and side stories too. Characters keep on being introduced throughout the entire story. Some are introduced and never appear again, others reappear after hundreds of pages. Seaman Pig Bodine, who plays a prominent role in Pynchon’s first novel V., also makes a showing. One strange passage is near the end, and tells of a sentient and immortal light bulb named Byron, who catches the interest of a cartel of electrical companies (who are involved in several other conspiracies in the story) that secretly enforces planned obsolescence in light bulbs all over the world. I wonder what has become of Byron now that incandescent light bulbs are being phased out.

One thing I found weird as I read this book after planning to for so long was that the war actually ends about a third into the book. Paranoia is a recurring theme (not uncommon for Pynchon), and most of the main characters feel the war pressing around them, but that feeling deflated somehow when the war ended and confusion in the immediate post-war situation arose instead.

All in all: Yes, this is a good book, and it deserves both all the praise it gets and perhaps some of the criticism it got from the Pulitzer Prize board. It’s a great postmodern novel. However, I don’t think it’s Pynchon’s best book (although everything Pynchon writes is pretty great). It lacks a certain cohesiveness, or tightness, that some (all?) of his other novels have. It’s sprawling, but perhaps a bit too sprawling at times. A million great, good or just weird storylines are spun up, but most peter out.

A word of warning: I read the Penguin Classics version of this book (with beautiful Jackson Pollock-esque cover art by Frank Miller, who holds some right-wing opinions I doubt Pynchon shares), but this edition seems to have some errors. One I noticed was that the sentence that spans pages 139 and 140 is cut off somehow, omitting words and making a heavy novel even harder to decipher.

I also listened to parts of this book as an audiobook narrated by George Guidall (who also did the last four books of the The Dark Tower series by Stephen King), which was a pretty nice reading. However, there are also two strange errors in the Audible version. Chapter 32 is repeated, albeit split up, in Chapter 33 and 34 (making the audiobook 2:39:44 too long). The same for Chapter 37, which is repeated in Chapter 38 and 39. When listening to this audiobook, therefore, I'd just skip Chapter 32 and Chapter 37, that's easier. (But verify first that the error is present in your version too, by just listening to the first sentence of Chapter 32 vs 33, the last sentence of Chapter 32 vs 34, first sentence of 37 vs 38, and last sentence of 37 vs 39.)

The opening scene of the book was one of the best passages I’ve read in any book, although its mood is not really indicative of the rest of the novel. A dream sequence of an evacuation of London, it opens with the iconic line “A screaming comes across the sky”. Perhaps this “screaming” inspired the band name of Klaxons, who have a single called “Gravity’s Rainbow”?

I changed the Publication year from 1973 to 1980. This digital edition is a scan copy of the 9th printing edition of this book (1980) not the first printing(1973)

Gravity's rainbow.

Trever

I only understood about 30-40% of whatever the fuck Pynchon is saying at any given time and it felt laborious at points, but I like the cut of his jib. (view spoiler)[And that was a...strange ending, although not quite as much for this book specifically. (hide spoiler)] Related: I think I need a break from postmodern epic novels.

Lily

I assume, and will probably have this assumption tested some time in the future, that Gravity’s Rainbow is a book to be fully appreciated in re-reads. Nevertheless, I will try to put in words the impression —or rather, the array of impressions— it had on me upon my first time reading it. I will not be attempting to summarize the plot (although I’m a big fan of the absurdity and hilarity of it when broken to its most basic premise); Firstly, because I don’t think I’m capable of doing that in a short review, and secondly, because I believe this is not a book to be reviewed and appreciated in its separate elements. The plot, the prose, the characters, the philosophy, the tone, the themes, the symbolism, the humor, all of these need to be viewed as intermeshed and entwined as they are presented in the book.     
GR is a hellishly difficult read. It is long, relentless, paranoid, elusive, hyperdramatic, weird and confusing. More than anything else, it is disturbing. Having in mind the length alone, I felt I was trapped in an abandoned funhouse, in which most of the “fun” was either replaced or overshadowed by the most horrific and weird imagery, while I have no way to leave but to move forward, hoping the horror will end soon. It doesn’t. Often times when dealing with any work of literature or art that disturbs me to this degree, I set it aside in fear of scarring my mind. But GR is one of those rare instances when the work of literature is so captivating, we find ourselves propelling forward; peeking through our trembling hands held in front of our eyes in hopes that we can shield our mind from the disgusting scenery.       And “disgusting” is the right word here, in my opinion. Nausea is the primary sensation I felt when reading this book, paralleled only by curiosity. But I want to draw a sharp line between this book, and such works of art and literature that primarily seek disturb and shock the reader into a sense of admiration. There is plenty to admire here, besides the disturbance. The prose is at times breathtakingly beautiful and there are endless opportunities for laughter as well. Pynchon’s sense of humor and sarcasm seems to be as stellar as his capability to push readers to their limits. Of note, one such limits is the sense of disorientation. Going into the book, the prospect of being confused and disoriented should be welcomed, as I believe there are certain chapters that are quite deliberately there to disorient the reader as much as possible.

Pynchon is mindbogglingly well-read and well-informed on literally every single topic he touches in this book, and there is a staggering number of them. Psychology, spirituality, history, mysticism, rocket science, war economics, military complexes, limericks, western pop-culture, drugs, etc. Such a vast arsenal of knowledge along with his absolute mastery of prose enables him to weave the most intricate plots and counterplots, while contributing to the difficulty of the book for the vast majority of uninitiated readers. However, one is inclined to begrudge Pynchon his world-annihilating indulgence due to the sheer brilliance of bringing all of these subject matters together in a meaningful, albeit horrifying, way.

If you fancy a challenging reading experience in fiction, I can scarcely think of a better, or even more rewarding one. GR is certainly a full-on experience. Everyone will come away from reading it having gone through a plethora of different emotional and intellectual reactions, but one thing is almost certain: You won’t be the same.

Donald

Bolaño and DFW are great, but Pynchon is king.

Daryl Houston

This was my second time through Gravity's Rainbow. After my first read, I ruled that it's the sort of book that's like nasty medicine -- good for you but it's hard to get down. This was still the case with GR for me, but to a lesser degree. Better oriented and with Steven Weisenburger's companion in hand, I was much better equipped to like the book this time around. There's still much about GR that baffles me, but it's such an ambitious book that it's hard not to admire the work in spite of any confusion and frustration.

Before I read it again (and I will), I think I'll get some more Rilke under my belt (read some of Rilke in college but wasn't a great fan and probably didn't do him justice) and maybe study up on the White Goddess mythology a bit more.

Phil James

Obviously this long, complicated book is immensely worthy, for the way it pushed the boundaries of post-modern writing. It used all the taboo breaking energy of the seventies to include as many fetishes and sexual inclinations as it could, and it is also occasionally brilliantly poetic and heart-breakingly beautiful...BUT...
the way it felt for me was mostly a slog, through a turgid marsh, where I was frequently lost. There's too many characters in too many plot-lines that jump about seemingly at random, leaving me not really caring. I made the mistake of continuing beyond the point where I could easily give up.

Gravity's Rainbow

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