Just finished Gravity's Rainbow

I thought it was pretty good. The ending was really strange and unnerving.I have a couple of questions, though.

What happens to Slothrop in "The Counterforce"? The book mentions that he has "broken apart" and all, and it's hard for people to remember him. Since the last coherent Slothrop scene is when you see him in the mountains crying, I assume Slothrop just ended up ditching everything, and what the book meant by him being "broken apart" was the only way people can remember him are through relics and rumors of his wacky antics.

If the book ended with the 00000 being fired off, what was the 00001 for? Also, many of the characters in the book acted as if the Schwarzgerat had already been fired off, so were they all simply mistaken?

"In the Zone" was probably my favorite part of the book. Are there any other books that have a similar feel to that sort of crazy paranoid wild goose chase?

No he has literally been scattered, he's Rocketman and the rocket's been sent and he's like its banana peel lying around and that's bio-degradable, baby
Even his dreams haven't come for him

>What happens to Slothrop in "The Counterforce"? The book mentions that he has "broken apart" and all, and it's hard for people to remember him. Since the last coherent Slothrop scene is when you see him in the mountains crying, I assume Slothrop just ended up ditching everything, and what the book meant by him being "broken apart" was the only way people can remember him are through relics and rumors of his wacky antics.
well his mind's been cracking for a while and I think his ultimate fate in the zone is insanity. one could probably argue somethign else, but the evidence is all there, those last pages of him wandering, utterly defeated, chasing his own graffiti messages and forgetting whether or not he sprayed them. the scattering is the scattering of his mental state. the scattershot scenes that follow can be seen as slothrop's broken interior world.
>If the book ended with the 00000 being fired off,
well remember, chronologically it actually got fired off somewhere around halfway through the book, only the scene is put at the end
>what was the 00001 for?
this is a pretty abstract answer for you because i don't think there are any more concrete, the 00001 exists to counterbalance the firing of the 00000. it makes, poetic sense. the schwarzkommando are in their own way a counterforce, so the 00001 is the symbolic rocket of the counterforce.
it is also in a more pragmatic sense, a rallying card for the lost schwarzkommando. it gives them direction and meaning and unity.
>Also, many of the characters in the book acted as if the Schwarzgerat had already been fired off, so were they all simply mistaken?
it already has
>"In the Zone" was probably my favorite part of the book. Are there any other books that have a similar feel to that sort of crazy paranoid wild goose chase?
other pynchon books

hope i've helped some. if you have any more questions i'll try to answer.

You're gonna have to be careful asking /lit about particular events in GR... you might inadvertently expose the fact that most of us haven't read it or know what it's about.

I was trememdously moved by Slothrop crying in the mountains and just "feeling natural," and understood his scattering as his succumbing to the entropy tht drives so many of the plots of the novel. Having lost grip on the paranoia that ordered everything for him, there's nothing left to tie together his experiences, mnowledge, and intuitions. It could suggesta complete psychological breakdown, but I like the notion of someone being lost to chaos and would rather read it liteally, even if it is necessarily fantastical.

>You're gonna have to be careful asking /lit about particular events in GR... you might inadvertently expose the fact that most of us haven't read it or know what it's about.

Anytime I see a GR thread I realize I desperately need to read it a second (and probably third or fourth) time.

>Having lost grip on the paranoia that ordered everything for him, there's nothing left to tie together his experiences, mnowledge, and intuitions.
more like he found bianca dead and got fucked over by Gerhardt Von Goll
the guy just had one too many tough breaks at that point

i want this edition

Ah, I see, this makes more sense. So, the 00001 was never made to fire at any specific target?

It's pretty interesting thinking of it that way. Kind of like how most of the characters in the counterforce ended up not changing much at all. Slothrop went insane, Mexico ended up not getting Jessica back, and Tchitcherine ended up not even recognizing Enzian.

i wpuld answer your questions but im on mobile

you missed some
pretty basic stuff though

Lol thanks for the post

yeah the target is never made clear. the lack of target could even be a point in itself, the demilitarization of the rocket, the castration of the phallic V2 even - which would go on to be used in early space missions - a point opposing the 00000's blood sacrifice for the systems of war, the 00001 is if nothing else, a protest of nonviolence

I think the 00001 is supposed to trace the other half of the rainbowcircle

and what significance would that hold

ineffability as only refuge

I assumed it was supposed to be fired into space as a symbolic way of escaping the Gravity of the whole military industrial complex that both started the war and led to the A4/V-2 being created in the first place.

I made my own thread but I might as well use this one since it was already here

Why are all the Enzian bits harder than the other characters? (Or am I just retarded)

What were your favorite characters/scenes?

What did GR say to you?

I find it difficult to reconcile the indictment of narratives (how stories and ideologies are self fulfilling and breed paranoia) and the novels endorsement of the Elite/Preterite dichotomy. Are We supposed to believe in that world view or is it just another narrative that needs to be destroyed?

Also what exactly happened to Slothrop? I understand he was dispersed but I struggle to understand it on any literal or plot level but I guess we're not supposed to get it on that level, with the book moving to a more metaphorical plane towards the end.

>Why are all the Enzian bits harder than the other characters? (Or am I just retarded)
you're just retarded
>What were your favorite characters/scenes?
"micrograms not miligrams!!! gah, i've overdosed!"
>What did GR say to you?
kill yaself my man
>I find it difficult to reconcile the indictment of narratives (how stories and ideologies are self fulfilling and breed paranoia) and the novels endorsement of the Elite/Preterite dichotomy. Are We supposed to believe in that world view or is it just another narrative that needs to be destroyed?
this sounds way too english major for gravity's rainbow. the only ideologies being indicted here are fascism and capitalism
>Also what exactly happened to Slothrop? I understand he was dispersed but I struggle to understand it on any literal or plot level but I guess we're not supposed to get it on that level, with the book moving to a more metaphorical plane towards the end.
he goes loony and ends up in a 1960's rock band "The Fool"

I've read it, and no other book, even Ulysses, has humbled me more regarding my absolutely shit reading comprehension skills.

>tfw 680 SAT Reading Comp
>tfw 800 math
>tfw how the fuck does my brain work
>tfw I never use green text but am trying to use it to camouflage my masturbatory ego-stroking humble braggery
>tfw Pig Bodine was my most relatable character

Aren't narratives in general being indicted? He also criticizes them in some Tchitcherine scene where they talk about Soviet ideology being just as comforting as the supposedly escapist ideologies it pretends to destroy (which could then be paradoxically applied to the novel itself). And the final scene is the destruction of the page and the theatre, the main forms of popular narrative

Also it heavily criticizes how narratives rely on traditional cause and effect

>What were your favorite characters/scenes?
Pig Bodine and Roger Mexico were probably my favorites, i liked a lot of scenes but one that particularly stands out was the part where Slothrop goes on that ship with the chimpanzees and the band, and he ends up trying to break out that one guy thats been captured.

>Why are all the Enzian bits harder
They're not, you probably just mean that you don't get much of what's going on with the Schwarzkommando. That's because not much is explicit.