Gravity's Rainbow

Tyty

Good sample page of Pynchon to understand his gestalt? Came across a "Top 10 most difficult Pynchon quotes" page and they didn't seem very difficult and were actually quite good.

I always like this little paragraph from Gravity's Rainbow.

“And one cried wee, wee, wee, all the way—" Jessica breaking down in a giggle as he reaches for the spot along her sweatered flank he knows she can't bear to be tickled in. She hunches, squirming, out of the way as he rolls past, bouncing off the back of the sofa but making a nice recovery, and by now she's ticklish all over, he can grab an ankle, elbow—
But a rocket has suddenly struck. A terrific blast quite close beyond the village: the entire fabric of the air, the time, is changed—the casement window blown inward, rebounding with a wood squeak to slam again as all the house still shudders.
Their hearts pound. Eardrums brushed taut by the overpressure ring in pain. The invisible train rushes away close over the rooftop....
They sit still as the painted dogs now, silent, oddly unable to touch. Death has come in the pantry door: stands watching them, iron and patient, with a look that says try to tickle me.”

I wouldn't have GR as my first Pynchon book. If I were you I'd start with Crying of Lot 49.

Honestly, just read V.

It's a very enjoyable read and a stunning first novel. Many of the characters from V. also feature in Gravity's Rainbow, so it's best to have read V. first if you want to understand GR just a tiny bit better.

Becoming a carbon print on a wall with someone close to you seems like a blissful way to go.

Just recently finished the novel and I have a few questions-

*Although the conditioning of Tyrone is the starting point of the plot, it is never actually explained exactly how his ability to predict rocket hits work, right?

*The schwarzkommando start off as a propoganda piece, but later turns out to be real. Many characters in the novel are suprised by that, but their actual existence is never explained either. Did the Allies just happened to put out progoanda of a unit that existed IRL by luck?

Was the purpose of the Impolex G just to preserve, or at least not kill off immidietly the person inside the rocket?

What was the actual point of the 00000's launch, aside from being a ceremonial sacrifice?
Same for the 00001 launch, what are they hoping to achieve afterwards?

Is there any point to the anachist Argentinians? Their plot is kind of cut off.

The counterforce, as well. It seems to me that they just kind of lost the potential they could have had as an actually countrtforce to the rocket cartel.

What was the last paragraph all about? Are we back in the 70? Are we the people watching the film that is the book? Whats the deal with that?

I am very much looking forward into reading this again in order to gain more insight, but I would love some explanations. Right now it feels like too many pieces of the puzzle are missing.

Incredibly funny book. If you like Tim and Eric, or really any of the shows on Adult Swim, where you watch it and you look at your friends like, "Uhh... what are these guys smokin'?" That is Thomas Pynchon through and through. Basically he was doing Adult Swim humor before they were. I mean, Gravity's Rainbow is about World War 2, right? That's a pretty serious subject, so you would expect everything in the book to be pretty serious, right? Heh. Not at all, actually. There's a pie fight in the book, for instance. Hilarious. There's, God, a giant squid battle. Epic. The main character (I won't spoil his name, all the names are off-the-wall and absolutely freakin' hilarious) is being chased by some other characters and in order to escape, where does he go? Done guessing? Down the toilet. I was laughing like a hyena. First of all: random. Second of all: How would that even work? (Actually it's kind of a racist part because he uses the N word, which was considered OK back then, but I crossed it out with a pen.) There are also hilarious songs that you can sing with your friends when you get drunk (if you drink, I know some people don't). You can dress up as the characters for Halloween because duh. Umm.. that's it. Pynchon is epic, and Gravity's Rainbow is one of the most hilarious good books I've ever read. When you're reading it. you' have to stop sometimes and be like "This is literature??" because it's not like Charles Dickens, you're actually having fun reading it and it's surreal and random like today's humor is, not to mention he wasn't paid by the word. Highly recommend. Plz reed now. Go. go. ah! *disappears*

>V. Chapter Two: "The Whole Sick Crew"
>The chapter opens with Rachel Owlglass confronting the plastic surgeon Shale Schoenmaker who she accuses of manipulating her friend and roommate Esther Havitz into debt through repeated rhinoplasty. Schoenmaker responds by entering into a monologue on the nature of Jewish women and the nature of appearance.

How devastating is Pynchon's attack on der ewige Jude?

Tyrone doesn't predict rockets strikes. Their testing methodology is way off. They say that after Tyrone has had sex, within a few days after the fact, a rocket will strike within the same "grid-quadrant" as where the sex took place. Pic related is a grid map of WWII London. With Tyrone having dozens and dozens of sexual encounters, combined with the fact that hundreds and hundreds of rockets fell on London, you can draw your own conclusions. It's bad science.

Impolex G is sexually stimulating. I think it also shields the person until the rocket detonation.

The 00000 launch was a sexual celebration of the incoming apocalypse as far as I can recall. I think it was alluded to that the 00001 would be going to the moon, but I am not sure.

The Counterforce failed. Like so many others.

Attached: London-Grid.jpg (599x596, 426K)

Breddy gud. Ty.

Thanks will do.

That was written revenge from Pychon towards an ex girlfriend.

Okay, but Tyrone still got hard ons from rockets, didn't he?
Also, is there anyplace in the novel where it says that it's bad science, or is it left to the reader to draw that conclusion?

Slothrop got hard ons all the fucking time. It was a near constant.

As far as I recall, it's not stated anywhere in the novel, but when they reveal how they measured, it shows some serious flaws if you are doing any kind of saltworthy statistics.

I feel like a big theme in the book is wresting control, or being under control. The main "villain" guy, Blicero, is keyed into some of the kabbalist/metaphysical strictures which—it can be seen in either way—obstruct control and influence while also subjugating. The rocket, as I understood, was an attempt through r&d, science, sex and metaphysics to dominate forces which couldn't have been before.

But laszlo jamf did condition him as an infant (or at least I thought so until the novel suggested that he was a figment of Tyrone's psyche).
So basically Tyrone is just an unlucky dude that got The Man interested in him by accident?
Just shows how much I missed in first reading, at some point I decided to stop trying to understand everything and just enjoy the ride.

Laszlo thought he could condition someone to respond to something that hadn't happened yet.

Is GR really as hard as everyone says it is? I've read Lot49, IV, and I'm currently reading V. and for the most part it hasn't been too difficult to digest. Could I handle GR?

Gravity's Rainbow is harder, and you will get lost some places, but it's entirely readable.

If you read V. with no real issues, GR shouldn't be much harder for you.

Infinite Jest isn't that ugly

I found V way harder to read than GR.