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S'està carregant… Gravity's Rainbow (1973)de Thomas Pynchon
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Puoi trovare questa recensione anche sul mio blog, La siepe di more Nel 1974, la giuria deputata a scegliere quali romanzi candidare per il Premio Pulitzer per la narrativa scelse L’Arcobaleno della Gravità all’unanimità; l’advisory board la prese così bene da definire il contenuto del romanzo come illeggibile, pretenzioso, troppo lungo e in certi passaggi osceno e si rifiutò di assegnare il premio per quell’anno. Sembra più probabile i membri dell’advisory board manco siano riusciti a finirlo, come ammesso candidamente da qualcunǝ… Difficile dar loro torto, comunque: L’Arcobaleno della Gravità è il classico libro dove non si capisce nulla tranne qualche qualche significato superficiale qua e là che ti fa arrivare strematǝ alla fine. Un po’ come l’Ulisse di Joyce, anche se devo ammettere di aver trovato il romanzo di Pynchon più comprensibile dal punto di vista dell’ambientazione: semplicemente, la storia della Seconda Guerra Mondiale e di tutto ciò che le è girato intorno mi sono più familiari della storia irlandese, quindi da questo punto di vista sono riuscita a seguirlo meglio. Per il resto, è tutto abbastanza oscuro. Posso dire di aver capito i temi generali (e di essermi anche sentita toccata profondamente in almeno un paio di momenti), ma c’è un mole enorme di dettagli che non sono minimamente in grado di spiegarmi – e che non ho nemmeno troppa voglia di approfondire perché ammiro la capacità di scrivere romanzi di questa complessità, ma non muoio dalla voglia di passare il mio tempo libero a sviscerarne i significati. Il mio impegno in tal senso si è fermato ad accompagnare la lettura con The Gravity’s Rainbow Handbook: A Key to the Thomas Pynchon Novel di Robert Crayola e solo perché lo avevo incluso nell’abbonamento di Scribd, visto che non è in grado di dirvi molto più di quello che potete tranquillamente capire da solǝ. Può essere giusto utile come glossario dei nomi e come mappa per ricordarsi dove si è all’interno del romanzo. Vale la pena di soffrire mille pagine per leggere questo romanzo? Difficile a dirsi. In alcuni momenti mi sono sentita così frustrata – il livello di paranoia descritto da Pynchon è stremante dopo anni passati a sorbirsi complotti su vaccini, QAnon e compagnia bella – e così annoiata – avete presente le scene di coprofilia che si mettono per disgustare i membri di un rispettabile advisory board? Ecco, una noia – che alla fine la voglia di lanciarlo dalla finestra era piuttosto forte. Allo stesso tempo, però, non penso di aver mai letto un romanzo così capace di descrivere lo sfacelo totale portato dalla Seconda Guerra Mondiale, non solo da un punto di vista fisico e materiale, ma anche psicologico e morale. Mentre lo leggevo, poi, continuava a risuonarmi in mente Zerocalcare, quando a proposito della pandemia e della sua gestione diceva: Questa invece è l’apocalisse più lenta che ci hanno mai raccontato. E manco sapemo a che punto stamo, perché ormai non ci sta manco più la fine del primo tempo. Quindi boh, forse stamo alla fine, forse non stamo manco a metà. Ma come fai a fare un cartone se non ci capisci più un cazzo e ormai te stai ad abbioccà perché sto film è sempre uguale? Ecco, se dovessi scrivervi come mi è sembrato L’Arcobaleno della Gravità nel complesso, vi scriverei che è la descrizione di una lunga discesa verso la fine. Forse non l’apocalisse e la fine di tutti i tempi (a voler essere ottimistз), ma sicuramente la fine di tutto quello che abbiamo conosciuto fino a quel momento. Roba che si adatta alla nostra contemporaneità, ma che non mi sento di consigliare troppo alla leggera, sia per la complessità della lettura, sia per la presenza di qualunque contenuto sensibile sia stato pensato dall’umanità. Niente che invogli la lettura, mi rendo conto, ma praticamente niente di questo romanzo è appetibile se non il fatto che altrз lettorз sono lì a dirvi che è più della storia di un tizio che ha un’erezione ogni volta che sta per cadere un razzo. E se la sola idea vi sembra folle, sappiate che non è niente rispetto alla follia – la follia umana – che troverete ne L’Arcobaleno della Gravità. I read this book slowly, often just for twenty minutes at a stretch on the subway. Like so many people, I'd tried a couple of times before to read it but lost steam. He does that on purpose -- the first hundred pages includes lots of wild fun to lure you in, but also some intensely dense stuff. It loosens up immensely in the second part. And the book is worth the read! Very funny, both smart and crass at the same time. So many side stories that push you on into a mysterious direction. It's a hard book to try to explain. I loved it, though, and look forward to reading it again. 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It took me months to read this, but it was wonderful. Pynchon is a genius.
There’s a dirty secret tucked away in Thomas Pynchon’s novels, and it’s this: beyond all the postmodernism and paranoia, the anarchism and socialism, the investigations into global power, the forays into labor politics and feminism and critical race theory, the rocket science, the fourth-dimensional mathematics, the philatelic conspiracies, the ’60s radicalism and everything else that has spawned 70 or 80 monographs, probably twice as many dissertations, and hundreds if not thousands of scholarly essays, his novels are full of cheesy love stories. Those who have read Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow know that those 700+ pages add up to more than just a novel; it’s an experience. The hundreds of characters are difficult to follow, the plot is nonsensical, sex is graphically depicted, drugs are smoked out of a kazoo and a poor light bulb goes through many humiliating experiences. But the brilliance of Gravity’s Rainbow is not in spite of its oddness but because of it. Like one of his main characters, Pynchon in this book seems almost to be "in love, in sexual love, with his own death." His imagination--for all its glorious power and intelligence--is as limited in its way as Céline's or Jonathan Swift's. His novel is in this sense a work of paranoid genius, a magnificent necropolis that will take its place amidst the grand detritus of our culture. Its teetering structure is greater by far than the many surrounding literary shacks and hovels. But we must look to other writers for food and warmth. Pertany a aquestes col·leccions editorialsContingut aContéTé l'adaptacióHa inspiratTé una guia de referència/complementTé un comentari al textTé una guia d'estudi per a estudiantsPremisDistinctionsNotable Lists
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. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
Cobertes populars
![]() GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:![]()
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Now, you can tell me that the whole thing gets wonderful on page 51, or at page 52 you see what the first fifty-one pages were about, but it doesn't matter. For me, a novel is about the journey, not the destination, and the journey in this is tedious. I'm not even convinced that it's a novel, more of a long poem designed for a readership of academics and fellow cryptic crossword aficionados. That's fine, but don't think this is a masterpiece just because it's popular among a certain crowd any more than a FK450C model aeroplane is a triumph of engineering just because it's universally adored in model aeroplane flying circles. And yes, I made that aeroplane up. (