"Oh fuck, the thread archived" edition.
Let's keep the discussions going, folks. I know there's more than enough of us to keep these threads alive.
In the previous thread: >This book is amazing
>This book is puerile
>More good discussion
RESOURCES:
>Annotations and detailed notes on each page
gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com
>Section Summaries
ottosell.de
>Link to a PDF of the book we're going off of:
gen.lib.rus.ec
We're still using this schedule. To get the ball rolling:
Guys if you think
>What the fuck was that part about
Then post it as a question here so we can get something discussion going.
what kind of baby bitch schedule is this? i started the book two days ago and i'm already 100 pages in
No clue where you guys are in the book but I love GR so I have a few questions:
Is there any significance to Pointsman stepping in/getting his foot stuck in that toilet? And
What did Slothrop mean when he said "that's where I broke the speed of sound"?
Tfw you try to get people to discuss the book but no one will discuss it and when you try to bump it from being archived there's a gateway error.
This thread is doomed
Just hit 600pages in the vintage edition, feels good. And yes I know it's an ugly cover.
Which allusion/reference has pleased you the most? I personally liked seeing the Romanian iron guard get some mention
The reference to Don Giovanni was nice. Now that I know what the Shirley Temple references are about they're kind of interesting, too.
>Cuxhaven
what did he mean by this
Looks like you're gonna have some guests, user.
What is the pre-req reading for Gravity's Rainbow?
Pynchon-wise, I recommend V. as a prerequisite. A lot of people say The Crying of Lot 49 is a good Pynchon gateway because it's short and straightforward, but I think V. is a better intro because its style is closer to GR's. As for non-Pynchon resources, there's lots, but I don't know where to start.
Let's have a quick headcount.
>Where are you in the book?
>Are you enjoying it?
>What are you having trouble with, if anything?
>620
>I was in a rut but am enjoying it now again
>I feel like I am missing most of the meaning. I knoe whats happening on a plot level but I feel like I am missing a fuckload.
>440
>Yeah, I'm not well read so this is quite a new ride for me.
>I am having trouble following the overall narrative, but am using the annotations provided which are very helpful.
It is like I have an understanding of the novel from a 'bottom-up' perspective - I can follow each section, and understand thungs thematically but struggle to put each non-linear plot-line together into a cohesive narrative. As I said, I am quite new to 'literature' so a novel leaving so much up to the reader is foreign to me.
>Page 389 of 776
>I'm liking this a lot, yeah. For me, this has the charm that V. had but better. It's a lot funnier and a lot smarter than I thought it would be, but not nearly as impossibly difficult as I thought.
>Connecting the dots, remembering certain characters and their nicknames, making total sense of the non-linear storyline, understanding major references and allusions. All that aside, though, I'm still getting a lot out of reading this. I already know I want to read this again in the future.
I feel like a lot of stuff is going over my head, too, like 'big picture' overarching things, how certain characters are connected, stuff like that. But when I flip back to skim certain parts, I remember the characters and what happens in each episode just fine.
Same here. I'm new to literature of this scale.
I’m so far behind but I’m still enjoying myself
How far behind are you? Seeing as there's not a whole lot of discussion, there's not a lot motivating me to keep up to the schedule, though I'm only a couple days behind. Not sure how many of us are left.
I have only just started the second part. Just read about the octopus.
Gotcha. Your reading place looks v comfy, by the way
Rural train in country side Japan. Not bad really.
alexa how to live on train
alexa google how to train japan
I like it all very much, but was pleasantly startled when it started talking about, at least I think, all sorts of russian things and russian people and names, that was very interesting and fun-ny
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> On schedule
> I'm liking it a lot. It's funny, challenging and interesting.
> Same problems as you other guys. As a nonnative English speaker, I just enjoy the ride and it's not bugging me that I don't get everything. That's what rereading is for. The ottosell site is helping though.
start with the beginning
I've found Waldo on that image, but I'm yet to find Pinecone, and I'm ready to give up.
Pynchon is Waldo though, look again.
Right under the woman in the dressing room
Anubis scene was pretty classic. This and the Pökler sections reminds me of Lolita.
Has anyone read Vineland? I picked up a copy a while back and hope it's not nearly as bad as everyone says it is.
It's still good but the middle is a drag. I'd say it's worth your time but expect it to be to much.
(It's better than BE but worse than IV)
has anyone tried out the GR companion? i got it becuase i planned on rereading GR but so far its just been pointing out things like vacuum cleaner brand names and stuff
I haven't used it, no. Is that the one that has every character name explained or is that a different book?
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I'm behind but I tend to read in big chunks so am gonna try get up to schedule tonight and over the weekend.
Still really enjoying it. Realise discussion has slowed and I'm sure there are a fair few drop outs by now but I'd encourage people to persevere to the end.
Then at the very least you can feel superior to 90% of people on Veeky Forums, which I'm sure you'll agree is really the most important thing.
That's the spirit. I plan on finishing the book regardless of how these threads go. I'm about a day behind schedule but I still plan on sticking around for discussions and all that.
>feel superior to Veeky Forums
I am persevering, but if anything this book has reminded me how stupid I am.
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I'd really like to look at the Japanese translation to see what it's like but it's expensive as fuck and I'm pretty sure it comes in multiple volumes
Here's a really neat passage I just read that ties into the idea that the □□□□□□□ at the beginning of every section are film sprockets. Lots of stuff about movies and cyclical structure has been hinted at at this point in the book.:
"So it has gone on for the six years since. A daughter a year, each one about a year older, each time taking up nearly from scratch. The only continuity has been her name, and Zwölfkinder, and Pökler's love––love something like the persistence of vision, for They have used it to create for him the moving image of a daughter, flashing him only these summertime frames of her, leaving it to him to build the illusion of a single child. . .what would the time scale matter, a 24th of a second or a year (no more, the engineer thought, than in a wind-tunnel, or an oscillograph whose tuning drum you could speed or slow at will. . .)?" (429)
Multiple volumes? I thought having the book in Japanese would condense it a bunch, but what do I know.
"Wind has shifted around to the southwest, and the barometer's falling." (Part 1, p.20)
"In the spring, when the winds at Peenemünde had shifted around to the southwest, and the first birds were back, Pökler was transferred to the underground factory at Nordhausen, in the Harz." (Part 3, p.433)
Just before this passage, Pökler is sitting in a trench waiting to observe the fall of an A4. Specifically, he's watching for a problem with the rocket's internal pressure:
"The Rocket at that point was plagued by an airburst problem in its terminal phase––the vehicle blew apart before reaching the target. Everyone had an idea. It might be an overpressure in the liquid-oxygen tank." (Part 3, p.431)
The whole "wind had shifted around to the southwest" struck me, as did the parts about pressure (barometric pressure, pressure in the liquid-oxygen tank). Is there any connection here or am I going insane?
I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this. What other connections, theories, or themes have you noticed? I'm slowly piecing things together but I definitely don't think I'll understand everything once the book's over.
top 100 (maybe 75) book covers ive ever seen
I re-read recently using the companion and highly recommend it. It makes the general plot seem trivial and lets you focus on the discourse
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Thomas Pynchon holding up a peace sign behind the door of his home in Manhattan Beach, California, 1965.
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Man, I miss the first few threads where everybody was excited to read and people talked about the book a bunch. I wonder how many people we've lost since then.
Does reading comprehension (the english word) just a meme? As long as you consume the text you still get fragments of power
>fragments of power
What did you mean by this?
is anybody still here? :(
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Be the change you wish to see in the world you lazy bum
For those who have bought a physical copy of the book on Amazon, I read a review saying the Penguin Books edition had typos and missing words, is this true? I was eager to get this version but now idk
Really enjoying the book but am on a week and half schedule at the moment, so no time to power through a few hundred pages in a couple days. I'll be here till the end, but will probably miss a lot of discussion. I never got to that break down of how "The Image" and "Society of the Spectacle" come up and how they relate to the structure and overall themes. If you've read these books I'd think it would be obvious where he's referencing at least one of them. I forgot to find the quotes, but the idea of the spectacle is addressed early on. I'm still in the 200's. The SG-1 thing keeps making me think about Nazi's and UFOs, and I can't help but wonder why someone would write in the way he does to throw you off into some speculation about real or fake history. It's gimmicky like a cartoon, and kind of detracts from any impact the theme is suppose to have, but it's also fun, so fuck it I guess....
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I don't want to talk more until I read more.
I've been here since day 1 and have kept up. I rarely post though - mostly cause I have found this book really challenging and have very little of value to say.
The newer prints are corrected most likely
I've been here the beginning too but I'm about four days behind now.
I usually read a couple books side by side but since starting GR I’ve put everything else on hold. I picked up a copy of Don DeLillo’s White Noise last week so hopefully once this is done I’ll give it a go. How does DeLillo compare to Pynchon? Apparently they’re buddies and have been known to have lunch together.
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A passage that encapsulates how I feel when I try to dig into the deeper meaning of this book.
"If there is something comforting––religious, if you want––about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long. Well right now Slothrop feels himself sliding onto the anti-paranoid part of his cycle, feels the whole city around him going back roofless, vulnerable, uncentered as he is, and only pasteboard images now of the Listening Enemy left between him and the wet sky." (441)
>550
>yes
>what was with that chapter where pirate and katje confess? or possibly lament together?
Whereabouts is that? I probably haven't gotten there yet. I'm on page 464
>"that's where I broke the speed of sound"
I remember this. I'm not sure about Slothrop breaking the speed of sound, but the V2 travels fast enough to break the sound barrier, which is why you only hear it after the explosion has happened.
>Pointsman stepping in/getting his foot stuck in that toilet
Couldn't tell ya. I figured it was just a goofy scene. Maybe it has something to do with the Toiletship in Ep. 13 of Part 3, but who knows.
Good to know I'm not alone in feeling this way. Trying to bump with discussion as best I can.
yo haven't been on Veeky Forums in a while, saw this and just wanted to say that GR is awesome best book I've ever read, going through a reread right now
Part 4 has some incredibly terrifying passages, Byron the bulb was one of my favorite parts of the novel, in some ways I think that part pretty much essentially describes what the entire book is about
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I haven't finished it but I already know this is going to be my favorite book. I think I'll reread it on its 50th anniversary in a few years.
i say we let it die lads - let's stick to peterson videos and shitposting about plebs who only read harry potter
I'm surprised these threads have survived as long as they have, to be honest, but I'd still like to try to keep them alive. They're not nearly as active as the first few threads were, but there's still people here and there that contribute. I'm still finishing the book, obviously, but it's always nice to have company.
Still hanging in, didn't get to read much last week but I'm hoping to finish the last 300 pages this week
"it means this war was never political (...) it was dictated instead by the needs of technology"
Proto-Landian?
Is Bianca supposed to represent something? Why does react to her the way he does?
About page 540.
Ok let's do it.
V.
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I don't know why but I like the japanese covers.
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pure kino, this inspires me to write more and better
Nothing to discuss? Post kino bookcovers and rare Pynchons instead. Found this one today. He's wearing a beer bottle as a tie.
The words that give strength to the universe. Nabokov knew about them with his white tower, Dumas with his Chateu d’If, and it seems like Pynchon is probably aware of them as well. So as long as you keep consuming, you get closer
I only just started on part 3
boop
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Does anybody else make up melodies for the songs and then end up getting them stuck in your head?
Make up melodies? Yes. Usually I can make a solid tune while reading based on whatever pointers Pynch gives, like ‘jaunty tune in 3/4’ or whatever. I never remember them though.
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I love this picture. I wonder if Pynch actually fucked a lot?
this is the most patrician book ever. definitely my favorite still in part one
yeah right bud, most patrician book ever is by Dickens, Austen, or some fancy high class high society effeminate french man
wut?
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b
Byron the Bulb? Yeah, it's about planned obsolescence.
Fascinating concept.
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just bought GR off ebay. english version, even when its not my first language. i think of it as an act of bravery, i hope to read it all.