Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

Don't know what I can add to what's already been said about Gravity's Rainbow except that to the people who find it hard to read, I suggest consideration of reading what Pynchon doubtlessly had read while writing it: I found the book super doable and even brilliantly instructive --one user on Goodreads has remarked that the book teaches you how to read it, and I think that's correct --because I've already read Joyce, Dos Passos, Henry Miller and Ballard. The book has some elements that remind me of Atrocity Exhibition, which Pynchon may have been aware of, and he most certainly had enjoyed the former writers. For me, Gravity's Rainbow on a technical level is basically 1919 plus crazy WW2 technology education plus a gang of hash. Hope it's just so! Maybe after 1919 and Tropic of Cancer the book will sit a little more stably on some readers' laps... ( )

When will people finally realize that Pynchon is a hack? All of his books are entirely void of any real meaning, and his sense of humor is less developed than even a five year old's. My guess is that he's some random autistic guy who decided to make a book that's as stupid and random as possible, to see if the hippies were stupid enough to find meaning in it. So he squeezes as many different sciencey words and dumb sex joke character names as he could think of into every sentence, and because it's such an obnoxious read, this book becomes the emperor's new clothes. Nobody wants to admit that this book is awful, because they want to appear smart. But understanding this book doesn't make a person smart. Any common idiot could understand this book. Yet somehow hardly anybody understands the boy behind the writing. Imagine your average autistic guy who masturbates ten hours a day and hides behind the internet occasionally saying stupid cringey shit because he cannot face the social consequences of his awkward behavior in person. This is the author, but fifty years earlier, and just as much of a virgin.

Pynchon is a hack and I'm 100 percent sure of this. Several years prior to reading any of his books, I myself decided to write a totally nonsensical novel as a social experiment, to see if pretentious hipsters would try to find meaning in it and act like they're smart for understanding it. Ironically, the result was exactly like any Thomas Pynchon novel, except the jokes and character names were a little less cringey and autistic. I never published the novel because I moved on to better things, but the moment I opened The Crying of Lot 49 I knew immediately what Pynchon was doing. He had the same goal in mind as me, except that I could tell he actually thought his jokes were funny. This is why I despise him. Because everybody who likes him is a pseudo intellectual, and he himself is just a dork with an awful sense of humor. His books are easy to understand because he has the maturity level of a five year old, and I'm convinced that people read him because they're not smart enough to understand real stream of consciousness like William Faulkner and James Joyce.

I'm convinced he's autistic because for somebody with such a large amount of random trivial facts stored in his brain, Pynchon has absolutely no understanding of how the world works. He tries to mask this by trying to come off as entirely goofy and aimless, but it really shines through if you can read between the lines. I don't think he realizes his unconscious racism or sexism, and general lack of understanding of the female gender. I doubt he's had any real experience in interacting with women, or with sex in general. The detail of his descriptions is revealing of the fact that he's had little to no real life experience with sex, and is only capable of describing his fantasies. A lot of what he writes about sex is for shock value and is hardly erotic, but I'd argue that his obvious lack of experience makes the shock value far less shocking, nothing more than a middle school joke made by the class nerd to his buddies. ( )

L'arcobaleno della gravità è uno di quei libri che quando li si chiude, un po' storditi, ci si domanda cosa si sia veramente letto. Non si tratta solo di un romanzo, ma di un vero e proprio labirinto in cui il lettore deve necessariamente perdersi per farsi travolgere dal fascino e dalla suggestione che l'autore cerca di trasmettere. Non è un libro facile e non lo consiglio a tutti ma, ciò nonostante, penso che si tratti di un libro necessario, la versione postmoderna di quegli antichi e misteriosi libri sapienziali che custodiscono le verità nascoste sul mondo.

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. ( )

If you like this kind of book, you'll love this one; if you don't, you won't.

It is a rambling, non-linear, non-plot driven story based in the immediate post ww2 period in Europe, with the v2/a4 rocket program as a central element. Lots of graphic sex, drugs, and frequent sidetracking into technology or historical stuff.

As an audiobook, this edition was excellent. I would have finished it in text, but it was great for multiple long car rides. ( )