Gravity's Rainbow
by Thomas Pynchon
On This Page
Description
Classic Literature. Fantasy. Fiction. Literature. HTML: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.Tags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
AndySandwich Gravity's Rainbow = paranoia
House of Leaves = claustrophobia
43
tootstorm Like Pynchon? Like DeLillo? Here we gots DeLillo's enthusiastic and goofy response to his own, favorable experience with Pynchon's most famous monsterwork. Wit, mathematical math and DeLillo dialogue.
11
charlie68 Written in the same style. I felt like taking a shower after reading, warm and cold.
by Citiria
Member Reviews
"To find that Gravity, taken so for granted, is really something eerie, Messianic, extrasensory in Earth's mindbody . . . having hugged to its holy center the wastes of dead species, gathered, packed, transmuted, realigned, and rewoven molecules to be taken up again by the coal-tar Kabbalists of the other side (...) teased apart, explicated to every last permutation of useful magic, centuries past exhaustion still finding molecular pieces, combining and recombining them into new synthetics - "Forget them, they are no better than the Qlippoth, the shells of the dead, you must not waste your time with them. . . ."show more
The rest of us, not chosen for enlightenment, left on the outside of Earth, at the mercy of a Gravity we have only begun to
learn how to detect and measure, must go on blundering inside our front-brain faith in Kute Korrespondences, hoping that for each psi-synthetic taken from Earth's soul there is a molecule, secular, more or less ordinary and named, over here - kicking endlessly among the plastic trivia, finding in each Deeper Significance and trying to string them all together like terms of a power series hoping to zero in on the tremendous and secret Function whose name, like the permuted names of God, cannot be spoken. . . plastic saxophone reed sounds of unnatural timbre, shampoo bottle ego-image, Cracker Jack prize one-shot amusement, home appliance casing fairing for winds of cognition, baby bottles tranquilization, meat packages disguise of slaughter, dry-cleaning bags infant strangulation, garden hoses feeding endlessly the desert. . . but to bring them together, in their slick persistence and our preterition. . . to make sense out of, to find the meanest sharp sliver of truth in so much replication, so much waste. . . ."show less
I have never been this hard-pressed by a book either to understand it or just to finish it. I realize now that understanding it was never really the point, though. There are parts of Gravity's Rainbow that operate as a regular novel would. There is plot and character development and a connection between one event and another. But I don't think that this is necessarily the best way for me to have read this book (and that is how I read--follow the characters through a plot as they do things that lead on to other things).
This is a big idea book but is one written on the sentence level. I think I could easily agonize over each sentence and find something to say, but I think that would take away the enjoyment this book taught me to take in show more the reading of it. Gravity's Rainbow is complex (obviously), high-minded, incredibly coarse, funny, frustrating, self-referential, self-deprecating, and (ultimately) circular. One of my favorite lines in the book happens near the end, an absurd simile that reminded me that Pynchon is just playing: "The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting an apple." I laughed and nearly threw the book. I had been holding the book too tightly mentally, and Pynchon seemed to reach through and say 'Relax. None of this matters. Everything is absurd.'
Would I recommend this book? It would really depend on the person. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons not to bother with this book. But there are plenty of reasons that someone might find pleasure and even enlightenment in this text. It has taken me the better part of a year to get through this because of some false starts and fractured attention, and laborious reading and re-reading of passages. If that does not sound like fun (or that it would be worth it despite not being 'fun'), then perhaps no. This is one of those books that I feel like you have to finish to appreciate, though (duh). The end ties things together like a good punchline. show less
This is a big idea book but is one written on the sentence level. I think I could easily agonize over each sentence and find something to say, but I think that would take away the enjoyment this book taught me to take in show more the reading of it. Gravity's Rainbow is complex (obviously), high-minded, incredibly coarse, funny, frustrating, self-referential, self-deprecating, and (ultimately) circular. One of my favorite lines in the book happens near the end, an absurd simile that reminded me that Pynchon is just playing: "The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting an apple." I laughed and nearly threw the book. I had been holding the book too tightly mentally, and Pynchon seemed to reach through and say 'Relax. None of this matters. Everything is absurd.'
Would I recommend this book? It would really depend on the person. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons not to bother with this book. But there are plenty of reasons that someone might find pleasure and even enlightenment in this text. It has taken me the better part of a year to get through this because of some false starts and fractured attention, and laborious reading and re-reading of passages. If that does not sound like fun (or that it would be worth it despite not being 'fun'), then perhaps no. This is one of those books that I feel like you have to finish to appreciate, though (duh). The end ties things together like a good punchline. show less
This is a hard book to rate and review. It took me about five months to read. It’s a book where you often have to reread pages multiple times to figure out what is going on. It’s a book where you often have to go back and review some scene from 300 pages earlier to remind yourself who a character is and what they’re all about.
There are many stunningly great things about the book: it is often exceedingly funny; it has brilliantly surreal digression after brilliantly surreal digression; it makes you curious about history; it makes you think about today; and it offers a huge cast of colorful, fascinating characters. On the other hand, it is an exceedingly dense and often confusing book, which at times loses momentum and at times show more wades into quite uncomfortable territory. Characters will pop up and dominate the narrative for several pages, only to disappear forever…or for several hundred pages at least. And sometimes when they come back, you’re not really sure whether they’re the same person or not.
In Pynchon’s world man is a horny, perverted animal, and even the most paranoid amongst us isn’t nearly as paranoid as we all should be. Our protagonist Slothrop is one of the least interesting characters in the book, a sort of everyman who bumbles his way through a fantastic world.
Think Catch 22 meets Ulysses meets Justine meets The Sound of Music, and you’ll have some idea of what Gravity’s Rainbow is all about. Like Ulysses, I imagine this is a book that would get better each time you read it. And I will plan to reread it, but not for a few years. show less
There are many stunningly great things about the book: it is often exceedingly funny; it has brilliantly surreal digression after brilliantly surreal digression; it makes you curious about history; it makes you think about today; and it offers a huge cast of colorful, fascinating characters. On the other hand, it is an exceedingly dense and often confusing book, which at times loses momentum and at times show more wades into quite uncomfortable territory. Characters will pop up and dominate the narrative for several pages, only to disappear forever…or for several hundred pages at least. And sometimes when they come back, you’re not really sure whether they’re the same person or not.
In Pynchon’s world man is a horny, perverted animal, and even the most paranoid amongst us isn’t nearly as paranoid as we all should be. Our protagonist Slothrop is one of the least interesting characters in the book, a sort of everyman who bumbles his way through a fantastic world.
Think Catch 22 meets Ulysses meets Justine meets The Sound of Music, and you’ll have some idea of what Gravity’s Rainbow is all about. Like Ulysses, I imagine this is a book that would get better each time you read it. And I will plan to reread it, but not for a few years. show less
Oh my goodness, what did I just read? Maybe I'm just not worthy. It was supposedly up for the Pulitzer in 1974, but they didn't give an award that year. Very dense, very disjointed, in my opinion. Very graphic, had some of the most shocking sex scenes I've ever read (and I'm no blushing violet). He touched on some fetishes that I didn't even know were real. The main crux of the story is the German rocket program and the allies trying to find this one special rocket via very phallic means. The saving grace was George Guidall, who narrated the audio, even at 1.6x, which I had to do to be able to finish, he kept me listening. I got shades of William S Burroughs and Hunter S Thompson when reading this. Its always been a bucket list read and show more I'm glad I did, but I can't really recommend it. show less
I first read this a long time ago when it was given to me by a someone whose tastes I admire.
Over the years since that initial immersion it has never been far from my mind. It often surprised me how many things would be on the radio, on TV, in songs, in films, where you could say, "do you know that bit in Gravity’s Rainbow where......."
So I returned to Gravity's Rainbow. But first I read a few reviews on Amazon because when I first read it there was no Internet.
This is my favourite one star review:
"Every sentence (every, single sentence) of this novel attempts grandiose, complex profundity, so much so that it feels like being flayed alive by words alone. I wanted to stab myself in the head just to relieve the pain."
Imagine show more wearing a pair of glasses that have one eye covered with one of those thick lenses that distort everything and the other with one of those prism lenses that split the image into six or eight kaleidoscopic images. Then imagine wearing those glasses while facing backwards on a runaway horse that is running through a hallucogenic landscape populated with very strange people having sex in every imaginable position. Somewhere in front of you someone is shouting something and even though you can catch most of the words you do not understand a single thing that is being said.
That is what it is like when you start to read Gravity's Rainbow. It is not a book with a "beginning", it just "is", hence the numerous one star reviews like the one above.
If you have ever taken really good strong LSD you will feel right at home here. If you have read and enjoyed Ulysses you will be right at home here. If you have ever had a serious mental condition you will be right at home here. If you have lived your whole life between the lines and never looked sideways then you may feel a tad uncomfortable with this book. There is more that is bent in this book than you can shake a very large penis shaped stick at.
BUT...once you are in there you will feel really alive and wonder if you are becoming addicted. At 776 pages there is time enough to form a very unhealthy addiction and for anal sex to look like a healthy pastime.
BUT...fear not dear reader, for once you have acclimatised you will witness one author achieving something that painters, potters, philosophers, musicians, writers, film makers have all tried at least once to do and that is to make something come alive and transcend its medium. For this book will take you to another place entirely.
There is a flow about this book that once experienced will never completely leave you. It is like visiting another country while you are dreaming and yet awake at the same time. There are those shifting sliding dioramas familiar in dreamscapes, words that will stretch out to mean something altogether different.
Like a spell this book will make you its own. You will never be really sure that you know what it is about then one day you will think you do know only for a later revelation that you never really knew even while snatches of it will be reaching out for you to hold on to.
It's like this book wants to be rated at exactly 5.01293774265 Stars show less
Over the years since that initial immersion it has never been far from my mind. It often surprised me how many things would be on the radio, on TV, in songs, in films, where you could say, "do you know that bit in Gravity’s Rainbow where......."
So I returned to Gravity's Rainbow. But first I read a few reviews on Amazon because when I first read it there was no Internet.
This is my favourite one star review:
"Every sentence (every, single sentence) of this novel attempts grandiose, complex profundity, so much so that it feels like being flayed alive by words alone. I wanted to stab myself in the head just to relieve the pain."
Imagine show more wearing a pair of glasses that have one eye covered with one of those thick lenses that distort everything and the other with one of those prism lenses that split the image into six or eight kaleidoscopic images. Then imagine wearing those glasses while facing backwards on a runaway horse that is running through a hallucogenic landscape populated with very strange people having sex in every imaginable position. Somewhere in front of you someone is shouting something and even though you can catch most of the words you do not understand a single thing that is being said.
That is what it is like when you start to read Gravity's Rainbow. It is not a book with a "beginning", it just "is", hence the numerous one star reviews like the one above.
If you have ever taken really good strong LSD you will feel right at home here. If you have read and enjoyed Ulysses you will be right at home here. If you have ever had a serious mental condition you will be right at home here. If you have lived your whole life between the lines and never looked sideways then you may feel a tad uncomfortable with this book. There is more that is bent in this book than you can shake a very large penis shaped stick at.
BUT...once you are in there you will feel really alive and wonder if you are becoming addicted. At 776 pages there is time enough to form a very unhealthy addiction and for anal sex to look like a healthy pastime.
BUT...fear not dear reader, for once you have acclimatised you will witness one author achieving something that painters, potters, philosophers, musicians, writers, film makers have all tried at least once to do and that is to make something come alive and transcend its medium. For this book will take you to another place entirely.
There is a flow about this book that once experienced will never completely leave you. It is like visiting another country while you are dreaming and yet awake at the same time. There are those shifting sliding dioramas familiar in dreamscapes, words that will stretch out to mean something altogether different.
Like a spell this book will make you its own. You will never be really sure that you know what it is about then one day you will think you do know only for a later revelation that you never really knew even while snatches of it will be reaching out for you to hold on to.
It's like this book wants to be rated at exactly 5.01293774265 Stars show less
Antes de emprender el viaje, es necesario pertrecharse. Se trata de un largo camino en el que te encontrarás con incontables obstáculos: múltiples personajes, continuas referencias a términos sobre ingeniería, matemáticas, química; saltos temporales constantes y cambios de escenario repentinos, casi en el mismo párrafo; una narración deslavazada, que no sabes por dónde te va a llevar; extrañas y brillantes metáforas. Pero también son de agradecer los paisajes que podrás apreciar durante el viaje: bellas y líricas descripciones, personajes atractivos de nombre carismático, erudición enciclopédica, visiones salidas de una potente imaginación, humor extravagante.
Con Pynchon no valen las medias tintas, exige el cien por show more cien de tu atención. La determinación es esencial, sobre todo en los pasajes más aburridos, que los hay. Una vez mentalizado de lo que te vas a encontrar durante este largo peregrinaje, empiezas a leer, emocionado pero también algo atemorizado por las dimensiones de la obra y por el autor, siempre impredecible. Pero sabes que merecerá la pena el esfuerzo.
La primera parte te reafirma en lo que ya pensabas: el libro va a ser un hueso duro de roer. Se trata de una novela excesiva en todos los sentidos. Un planteamiento en el que Pynchon te da a conocer docenas de personajes, la gran mayoría para no volver a aparecer más, pero a los que sin embargo intenta darles voz. Las escenas y argumentos crecen sin parar, ramificándose salvajemente. Terminas desorientado, ya que Pynchon no se para a explicar demasiado lo que está sucediendo. Pero bueno, es la seña de identidad de los autores posmodernos, plantear situaciones que no tendrán solución. Pynchon te da a conocer el escenario: Londres, 1944, acabando la segunda guerra mundial, con las bombas volantes V-2 cayendo desde el cielo. Conoces al que parece será el protagonista de la novela, Tyrone Slothrop, militar americano que trabaja en inteligencia y que tiene la capacidad de predecir cuándo caerá uno de estos artefactos del cielo porque se lo avisa una erección, todo ello producto de un experimento de un alemán demente, Jamf. Pero Pynchon no abunda en más explicaciones. Aun así, tienes paciencia porque hay suficientes páginas por delante para entrar en detalles. Parece que la idea es hacerse con las diversas piezas de un enorme rompecabezas, sin tener un plan claro de cómo van a encajar. Hasta aparece una sección sobre estudios paranormales aplicados al espionaje donde es posible comunicarse con los muertos. Pynchon recurre al uso de cancioncillas humorísticas y paródicas, un recurso marca de la casa. Sexo, mucho sexo y pornografía y escatología tienen su lugar en la trama, en algunas escenas realmente desagradables y obscenas. Y es que Pynchon no tiene freno, no le importa tocar temas que provoquen rechazo. Él va por libre y utiliza todos los recursos a su alcance.
Empiezas a entender el porqué de la polémica que rodea a esta novela, tanto las cosas malas que dicen sobre ella, como las buenas. Te viene a la cabeza el artículo ‘Las posibilidades perdidas de la ciencia-ficción’, de Jonathan Lethem, que se publicó en The Village Voice, en el que analiza lo que podría haber significado para la ciencia ficción el que ‘El arco iris de gravedad’ hubiese ganado el Premio Nebula de 1973, al que estaba nominado: "En 1973, El arco iris de gravedad de Thomas Pynchon recibió el Premio Nebula, el mayor galardón otorgado en el campo antes conocido como "ciencia-ficción" (un término que prácticamente ha caído en el olvido)..." ( ‘The Squandered Promise of Science Fiction’)
En la segunda parte de la novela es cuando empieza a ser reconocible el Pynchon que más te gusta, el de ‘V.’ y ‘La subasta del lote 49’. Parece que tenías razón respecto a Slothrop, ya que éste empieza a tener más preponderancia en la historia. Entras en un escenario donde predomina el juego de máscaras y los cambios de identidad, y donde Slothrop es el blanco de todo tipo de estrategias. No es raro por tanto que S. caiga en un estado de paranoia permanente. Te introduces en un tramo donde resalta el paradigma posmoderno. Slothrop es producto de visiones y de manía persecutoria; el delirio es constante, así como la utilización y acumulación de siglas; parece que exista un enorme ente que lo controla todo; Guerra=Capitalismo. El humor está muy presente, con una serie de persecuciones dignas del mejor cine mudo. Empiezas a entender mucho más a los personajes y cómo están definidos.
Y entras en la tercera parte. Y no puedes evitar exclamar a viva voz: "¡Qué cabrón!" A lo largo de quinientas páginas, Pynchon te adentra en la Zona, en su particular visión de la Guerra y la Devastación. Te presenta, en un absoluto frenesí, un mundo dominado por descripciones de pesadilla, hiperrealistas, barrocas y bizarras, donde tienen lugar todo tipo de personajes, aparte de los ya conocidos: estafadores, traficantes, degenerados, enanos, es difícil distinguir la realidad del panorama mítico que Pynchon te propone. Parece que todo empieza a cobrar sentido. El rompecabezas del principio toma forma de espiral, de molécula con múltiples brazos, donde todo se dirige hacia un núcleo pero donde no es necesario que todas las ramificaciones tengan un final y una explicación, porque están ahí como parte del Juego, para darle sentido al Todo que es la novela. Slothrop tiene su misión personal, encontrar una explicación a su pasado, y saber qué sucede con el Cohete. Los personajes que se cruzan en su camino también tienen su propia historia: Squalidozzi, Enzian, Tchitcherin, Pökler, Greta. Así como algunos de los lugares que Pynchon te va presentando: Mittelwerke y sus túneles, Berlín o el Sudoeste de África. Todo ello te recuerda la imagen de la conspiración por antonomasia, esos tableros que aparecen en las películas de conspiraciones, esos donde un montón de hilos están atados a chinchetas que conectan entre sí cientos de fotos.
Ese afán por los saltos constantes entre tramas y cuestiones, la inmersión en los temas históricos y enciclopédicos, el sexo como arma, ese ir más allá en los géneros y estilos, convierten la lectura de ‘El arco iris de la gravedad’ en todo un reto. Pynchon parece que es como una religión. Has de tener fe y creer que te va a llevar a buen puerto. O eres creyente, o no lo eres. show less
Con Pynchon no valen las medias tintas, exige el cien por show more cien de tu atención. La determinación es esencial, sobre todo en los pasajes más aburridos, que los hay. Una vez mentalizado de lo que te vas a encontrar durante este largo peregrinaje, empiezas a leer, emocionado pero también algo atemorizado por las dimensiones de la obra y por el autor, siempre impredecible. Pero sabes que merecerá la pena el esfuerzo.
La primera parte te reafirma en lo que ya pensabas: el libro va a ser un hueso duro de roer. Se trata de una novela excesiva en todos los sentidos. Un planteamiento en el que Pynchon te da a conocer docenas de personajes, la gran mayoría para no volver a aparecer más, pero a los que sin embargo intenta darles voz. Las escenas y argumentos crecen sin parar, ramificándose salvajemente. Terminas desorientado, ya que Pynchon no se para a explicar demasiado lo que está sucediendo. Pero bueno, es la seña de identidad de los autores posmodernos, plantear situaciones que no tendrán solución. Pynchon te da a conocer el escenario: Londres, 1944, acabando la segunda guerra mundial, con las bombas volantes V-2 cayendo desde el cielo. Conoces al que parece será el protagonista de la novela, Tyrone Slothrop, militar americano que trabaja en inteligencia y que tiene la capacidad de predecir cuándo caerá uno de estos artefactos del cielo porque se lo avisa una erección, todo ello producto de un experimento de un alemán demente, Jamf. Pero Pynchon no abunda en más explicaciones. Aun así, tienes paciencia porque hay suficientes páginas por delante para entrar en detalles. Parece que la idea es hacerse con las diversas piezas de un enorme rompecabezas, sin tener un plan claro de cómo van a encajar. Hasta aparece una sección sobre estudios paranormales aplicados al espionaje donde es posible comunicarse con los muertos. Pynchon recurre al uso de cancioncillas humorísticas y paródicas, un recurso marca de la casa. Sexo, mucho sexo y pornografía y escatología tienen su lugar en la trama, en algunas escenas realmente desagradables y obscenas. Y es que Pynchon no tiene freno, no le importa tocar temas que provoquen rechazo. Él va por libre y utiliza todos los recursos a su alcance.
Empiezas a entender el porqué de la polémica que rodea a esta novela, tanto las cosas malas que dicen sobre ella, como las buenas. Te viene a la cabeza el artículo ‘Las posibilidades perdidas de la ciencia-ficción’, de Jonathan Lethem, que se publicó en The Village Voice, en el que analiza lo que podría haber significado para la ciencia ficción el que ‘El arco iris de gravedad’ hubiese ganado el Premio Nebula de 1973, al que estaba nominado: "En 1973, El arco iris de gravedad de Thomas Pynchon recibió el Premio Nebula, el mayor galardón otorgado en el campo antes conocido como "ciencia-ficción" (un término que prácticamente ha caído en el olvido)..." ( ‘The Squandered Promise of Science Fiction’)
En la segunda parte de la novela es cuando empieza a ser reconocible el Pynchon que más te gusta, el de ‘V.’ y ‘La subasta del lote 49’. Parece que tenías razón respecto a Slothrop, ya que éste empieza a tener más preponderancia en la historia. Entras en un escenario donde predomina el juego de máscaras y los cambios de identidad, y donde Slothrop es el blanco de todo tipo de estrategias. No es raro por tanto que S. caiga en un estado de paranoia permanente. Te introduces en un tramo donde resalta el paradigma posmoderno. Slothrop es producto de visiones y de manía persecutoria; el delirio es constante, así como la utilización y acumulación de siglas; parece que exista un enorme ente que lo controla todo; Guerra=Capitalismo. El humor está muy presente, con una serie de persecuciones dignas del mejor cine mudo. Empiezas a entender mucho más a los personajes y cómo están definidos.
Y entras en la tercera parte. Y no puedes evitar exclamar a viva voz: "¡Qué cabrón!" A lo largo de quinientas páginas, Pynchon te adentra en la Zona, en su particular visión de la Guerra y la Devastación. Te presenta, en un absoluto frenesí, un mundo dominado por descripciones de pesadilla, hiperrealistas, barrocas y bizarras, donde tienen lugar todo tipo de personajes, aparte de los ya conocidos: estafadores, traficantes, degenerados, enanos, es difícil distinguir la realidad del panorama mítico que Pynchon te propone. Parece que todo empieza a cobrar sentido. El rompecabezas del principio toma forma de espiral, de molécula con múltiples brazos, donde todo se dirige hacia un núcleo pero donde no es necesario que todas las ramificaciones tengan un final y una explicación, porque están ahí como parte del Juego, para darle sentido al Todo que es la novela. Slothrop tiene su misión personal, encontrar una explicación a su pasado, y saber qué sucede con el Cohete. Los personajes que se cruzan en su camino también tienen su propia historia: Squalidozzi, Enzian, Tchitcherin, Pökler, Greta. Así como algunos de los lugares que Pynchon te va presentando: Mittelwerke y sus túneles, Berlín o el Sudoeste de África. Todo ello te recuerda la imagen de la conspiración por antonomasia, esos tableros que aparecen en las películas de conspiraciones, esos donde un montón de hilos están atados a chinchetas que conectan entre sí cientos de fotos.
Ese afán por los saltos constantes entre tramas y cuestiones, la inmersión en los temas históricos y enciclopédicos, el sexo como arma, ese ir más allá en los géneros y estilos, convierten la lectura de ‘El arco iris de la gravedad’ en todo un reto. Pynchon parece que es como una religión. Has de tener fe y creer que te va a llevar a buen puerto. O eres creyente, o no lo eres. show less
Can you imagine what an experience this was for Pynchon’s editor. I’ve read [b:The Crying of Lot 49|2794|The Crying of Lot 49|Thomas Pynchon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375727632l/2794._SY75_.jpg|1477756], [b:Vineland|59721|Vineland|Thomas Pynchon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1357603865l/59721._SY75_.jpg|1934], and [b:Bleeding Edge|17208457|Bleeding Edge|Thomas Pynchon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1369067221l/17208457._SY75_.jpg|23688523], the latter written decades later, yet was wholly unprepared by them for the onslaught of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. It was recommended to me by my Dad, who read it in the show more 1970s while under the influence of various substances. That was certainly his excuse when I commented upon its vicissitudes. While the shorter Pynchon novels of my experience certainly had the same turgid and labyrinthine quality, ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ intensified this in length and depth to the point of burying the reader. I only became capable of reading more than a handful of pages at a time once I gave in to this and allowed shovelfuls of baffling and arcane tangents to be heaped upon my head. Initial attempts to discern plot, characterisation, and themes were futile. I did not quite resort to the approach of treating the whole thing as poetry rather than prose, but at times got close to it. It is always indicative when a novel has no description of what its about on the cover at all, just reviewer quotes equating it with other notoriously long and opaque tomes ([b:Ulysses|338798|Ulysses|James Joyce|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1428891345l/338798._SY75_.jpg|2368224] and [b:Moby-Dick or, the Whale|153747|Moby-Dick or, the Whale|Herman Melville|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327940656l/153747._SY75_.jpg|2409320]). The blurb writer may have thrown up their hands in despair, but I shall attempt what they would not: ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ illustrates the paranoia and sexual perversion incited in men by rockets.
The novel’s form is a sequence of scenes and digressions tangled together like so many strings of fairy lights. It apparently begins in London at the very end of the Second World War and proceeds chaotically across occupied Europe (referred to as The Zone) beyond VE day. In the final twenty or so pages, the reader suddenly finds themself in the 1970s apparently listening to Pynchon make excuses for what they have just read, in addition to intimations of time travel via a lengthy tarot card reading. The other 740 pages follow a handful of protagonists through the chaos of Western Europe in 1945. Said protagonists have distinctive names (perhaps my favourite element of Pynchon’s work), yet appear to all be exactly the same man. Or rather, they all behave in the same reactive, horny, chaotic fashion while fleeing, fighting, fucking, falling off things, and contracting food poisoning across hundreds of pages. One of them is American, but this makes surprisingly little difference. As in [b:Vineland|59721|Vineland|Thomas Pynchon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1357603865l/59721._SY75_.jpg|1934], paranoia and conspiracy are so heavily featured as to become meaningless and absurd, another thing I appreciate about Pynchon. An ever-capitalised ‘They’ are referred to constantly, and specifically associated with multinational industry, without being personified or clearly explained. The absence of catharsis about this is oddly satisfactory, given that the world is in fact a conspiracy insofar as no single person could possibly understand all the interests, organisations, and technologies involved. We just blunder around using simplified theoretical frameworks in order to function.
Of course, I am projecting this from the vantage point of 2020. It could just as easily be that Pynchon won a bet that he could get a full bingo card of sexual perversions to be considered serious literary fiction. I was disconcerted, to put it mildly, by quite how much weird sex there was. I like to think I’m not too prudish, but Pynchon leaves De Sade in the dust with the number of heavy kinks his characters engage in. Bestiality, incest, paedophilia, rape, whipping, piss and shit consumption, orgies, and interruption by an owl are especially notable. I was surprised, in fact, by the absence of necrophilia, as there was one scene that seemed to be going that way then did not. Death is certainly sexualised throughout, although no-one actually fucks a corpse. (Spoilers?) This is the kind of thing that one might be tempted to label problematic, were it not so mulched into the novel’s word-compost as to be absolutely lacking in titillation. The combination of incest and paedophilia is extremely creepy, though. Something entirely absent from all sexual scenes, I noticed, are condoms. From this I infer that every character has many STDs. Late stage syphilis would certainly explain some of their bizarre behaviour.
Since I added ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ to my to-read list, goodreads has once or twice recommended me a companion volume which allegedly explains all the references. I believe life is too short for me to read that. The references I did pick up on were disorientating, as nearly all were to later fiction. Page 539 contains major spoilers for the Magnus Archives podcast, for example. That reflects upon my familiarities, of course, and presumably Pynchon’s conscious or subconscious influence on later writers. There are also a great many terrible puns and enough songs that I wondered if the novel could be made into a musical. “Ha ha!” thought I, “Who would turn an incredibly long and digressive literary novel into a Broadway musical!” And then, “Oh shit, Les Misérables”. I doubt such a project could make it to Broadway, but reckon someone could get an Edinburgh Fringe show out of it. If they have not already.
My tone may suggest that I suffered through ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ purely for the satisfaction of having achieved something during lockdown and being able to hold my head high when finally able to return my library books. To a point, this is true. Still, there is something curiously compulsive about it once one accepts its fundamental incomprehensibility. On many occasions while reading literary fiction, I have reflected that I am merely lacking the appropriate training and knowledge to fully appreciate the text. In this case, I refuse to concede that even esteemed Emeritus Professors of English Literature could entirely explain things. What of the robot crabs? The chapter from the perspective of a lightbulb? The Toilet Ship? The Argentine submarine? The pig costume? The banana-based breakfasts? The sexy polymer? The monkey orchestra? The mistaken identity castration? The hot air balloon custard pie skirmish? Yet behind the relentless onslaught of vividly surreal details can be found brief glimpses of reality: concentration camps, refugees, weapons of unprecedented destructive capacity. The book is animated by a sense of constant movement, as all characters seem to be running away from the horrific aftermath of WWII both physically (on boats, planes, cars, and foot) and mentally (via drugs and sex). Reducing it to that stolid description removes everything weird and distinctive, albeit often unpleasantly so, about the reading experience, of course.
I am of the opinion that lockdown was the right time to read ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. Its sense of time as erratic, fungible, and meaningless reflects current experience. I found it slow to read and could not manage more than a hundred pages at a time. The narrative is so loose and sloshy that even in the final fifty pages I found myself wondering who the fuck Roger was and checking back for his surname. Not that this knowledge clarified anything, as the male protagonists were essentially indistinguishable. Yet that sense of being engulfed by the dense bafflement of Pynchon was surprisingly calming. I wondered what the hell I was reading, while being glad it wasn’t more articles about the death toll and long-term health effects of coronavirus. I did not think of the pandemic at all; my brain was wholly transported from one fucked-up reality to another. At least in the world of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’, I have the luxury of being able to make sardonic remarks from a distance rather than being stuck there whether I like it or not. Sometimes I think that’s the main appeal of long novels. Whether every paragraph, page, or chapter is necessary to the book becomes irrelevant (perhaps never more so than in this case) as the sheer weight of it all submerges the reader.
Amid the freewheeling mayhem and flatulence, there emerge occasional moments of pointed insight and sometimes unsettling prescience. These are all the more disconcerting for their arbitrary contexts. For instance, this occurs in a vast communal toilet:
I was also very taken with the comparison of Jormungandr the world serpent and capitalism, which as far as I can tell occurs within a memory within a dream:
That paragraph is followed by an extended metaphor of a bus, which had less appeal, then a comparison of Jormungandr and the atomic structure of benzene. In moments like this, it feels like the character (and possibly the writer) is briefly coming down from their trip and realising what they got high to hide from.
Reading a more normal, less Pynchon novel will require some mental readjustment. I thought to alternate ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ with a sci-fi thriller, [b:Spin State|48623|Spin State (Spin Trilogy, #1)|Chris Moriarty|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388463444l/48623._SY75_.jpg|47567], but found this impossible. Once in the Pynchon Zone, my brain found a plot-led narrative outlandish and could not concentrate upon it. One might almost suppose that reading this manner of writing employs different synaptic connections to most fiction; a paranoid thought worthy of a Pynchon protagonist. Would I recommend ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’? No. Was it worth reading? Yes. Would I read it again? No. Will I read another, even longer Pynchon novel? Yes, in a few years time. show less
The novel’s form is a sequence of scenes and digressions tangled together like so many strings of fairy lights. It apparently begins in London at the very end of the Second World War and proceeds chaotically across occupied Europe (referred to as The Zone) beyond VE day. In the final twenty or so pages, the reader suddenly finds themself in the 1970s apparently listening to Pynchon make excuses for what they have just read, in addition to intimations of time travel via a lengthy tarot card reading. The other 740 pages follow a handful of protagonists through the chaos of Western Europe in 1945. Said protagonists have distinctive names (perhaps my favourite element of Pynchon’s work), yet appear to all be exactly the same man. Or rather, they all behave in the same reactive, horny, chaotic fashion while fleeing, fighting, fucking, falling off things, and contracting food poisoning across hundreds of pages. One of them is American, but this makes surprisingly little difference. As in [b:Vineland|59721|Vineland|Thomas Pynchon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1357603865l/59721._SY75_.jpg|1934], paranoia and conspiracy are so heavily featured as to become meaningless and absurd, another thing I appreciate about Pynchon. An ever-capitalised ‘They’ are referred to constantly, and specifically associated with multinational industry, without being personified or clearly explained. The absence of catharsis about this is oddly satisfactory, given that the world is in fact a conspiracy insofar as no single person could possibly understand all the interests, organisations, and technologies involved. We just blunder around using simplified theoretical frameworks in order to function.
Of course, I am projecting this from the vantage point of 2020. It could just as easily be that Pynchon won a bet that he could get a full bingo card of sexual perversions to be considered serious literary fiction. I was disconcerted, to put it mildly, by quite how much weird sex there was. I like to think I’m not too prudish, but Pynchon leaves De Sade in the dust with the number of heavy kinks his characters engage in. Bestiality, incest, paedophilia, rape, whipping, piss and shit consumption, orgies, and interruption by an owl are especially notable. I was surprised, in fact, by the absence of necrophilia, as there was one scene that seemed to be going that way then did not. Death is certainly sexualised throughout, although no-one actually fucks a corpse. (Spoilers?) This is the kind of thing that one might be tempted to label problematic, were it not so mulched into the novel’s word-compost as to be absolutely lacking in titillation. The combination of incest and paedophilia is extremely creepy, though. Something entirely absent from all sexual scenes, I noticed, are condoms. From this I infer that every character has many STDs. Late stage syphilis would certainly explain some of their bizarre behaviour.
Since I added ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ to my to-read list, goodreads has once or twice recommended me a companion volume which allegedly explains all the references. I believe life is too short for me to read that. The references I did pick up on were disorientating, as nearly all were to later fiction. Page 539 contains major spoilers for the Magnus Archives podcast, for example. That reflects upon my familiarities, of course, and presumably Pynchon’s conscious or subconscious influence on later writers. There are also a great many terrible puns and enough songs that I wondered if the novel could be made into a musical. “Ha ha!” thought I, “Who would turn an incredibly long and digressive literary novel into a Broadway musical!” And then, “Oh shit, Les Misérables”. I doubt such a project could make it to Broadway, but reckon someone could get an Edinburgh Fringe show out of it. If they have not already.
My tone may suggest that I suffered through ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ purely for the satisfaction of having achieved something during lockdown and being able to hold my head high when finally able to return my library books. To a point, this is true. Still, there is something curiously compulsive about it once one accepts its fundamental incomprehensibility. On many occasions while reading literary fiction, I have reflected that I am merely lacking the appropriate training and knowledge to fully appreciate the text. In this case, I refuse to concede that even esteemed Emeritus Professors of English Literature could entirely explain things. What of the robot crabs? The chapter from the perspective of a lightbulb? The Toilet Ship? The Argentine submarine? The pig costume? The banana-based breakfasts? The sexy polymer? The monkey orchestra? The mistaken identity castration? The hot air balloon custard pie skirmish? Yet behind the relentless onslaught of vividly surreal details can be found brief glimpses of reality: concentration camps, refugees, weapons of unprecedented destructive capacity. The book is animated by a sense of constant movement, as all characters seem to be running away from the horrific aftermath of WWII both physically (on boats, planes, cars, and foot) and mentally (via drugs and sex). Reducing it to that stolid description removes everything weird and distinctive, albeit often unpleasantly so, about the reading experience, of course.
I am of the opinion that lockdown was the right time to read ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. Its sense of time as erratic, fungible, and meaningless reflects current experience. I found it slow to read and could not manage more than a hundred pages at a time. The narrative is so loose and sloshy that even in the final fifty pages I found myself wondering who the fuck Roger was and checking back for his surname. Not that this knowledge clarified anything, as the male protagonists were essentially indistinguishable. Yet that sense of being engulfed by the dense bafflement of Pynchon was surprisingly calming. I wondered what the hell I was reading, while being glad it wasn’t more articles about the death toll and long-term health effects of coronavirus. I did not think of the pandemic at all; my brain was wholly transported from one fucked-up reality to another. At least in the world of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’, I have the luxury of being able to make sardonic remarks from a distance rather than being stuck there whether I like it or not. Sometimes I think that’s the main appeal of long novels. Whether every paragraph, page, or chapter is necessary to the book becomes irrelevant (perhaps never more so than in this case) as the sheer weight of it all submerges the reader.
Amid the freewheeling mayhem and flatulence, there emerge occasional moments of pointed insight and sometimes unsettling prescience. These are all the more disconcerting for their arbitrary contexts. For instance, this occurs in a vast communal toilet:
”Do you find it a little schizoid,” aloud now to all the Achtfaden fronts and backs, “breaking a flight profile up into little segments of responsibility? It was half bullet, half arrow. It demanded this, we didn’t. So. Perhaps you used a rifle, a radio, a typewriter. Some typewriters in Whitehall, in the Pentagon, killed more civilians than our little A4 could have ever hoped to. You are either alone absolutely, alone with your own death, or you take part in the larger enterprise, and you share in the deaths of others. Are we not all one? Which is your choice,” Fahringer now, buzzing and flat through the filters of memory, “the little cart or the great one?”
I was also very taken with the comparison of Jormungandr the world serpent and capitalism, which as far as I can tell occurs within a memory within a dream:
Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holdings its own tail in its mouth, the daydreaming serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent that announces, “The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally returning,” is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is to violate the cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that “productivity” and “earnings” keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity – most of the World, animal, vegetable, and mineral, is laid waste in the process. The System may or may not understand that it’s only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to begin with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which sooner or later must crash to its death, when its addiction to energy has become more than the rest of the World can supply, dragging with it innocent souls all along the chain of life.
That paragraph is followed by an extended metaphor of a bus, which had less appeal, then a comparison of Jormungandr and the atomic structure of benzene. In moments like this, it feels like the character (and possibly the writer) is briefly coming down from their trip and realising what they got high to hide from.
Reading a more normal, less Pynchon novel will require some mental readjustment. I thought to alternate ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ with a sci-fi thriller, [b:Spin State|48623|Spin State (Spin Trilogy, #1)|Chris Moriarty|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388463444l/48623._SY75_.jpg|47567], but found this impossible. Once in the Pynchon Zone, my brain found a plot-led narrative outlandish and could not concentrate upon it. One might almost suppose that reading this manner of writing employs different synaptic connections to most fiction; a paranoid thought worthy of a Pynchon protagonist. Would I recommend ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’? No. Was it worth reading? Yes. Would I read it again? No. Will I read another, even longer Pynchon novel? Yes, in a few years time. show less
Members
- Recently Added By
Published Reviews
ThingScore 75
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 show more 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. show less
added by elenchus
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 show more spite of its oddness but because of it. show less
added by Shortride
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 show more 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. show less
added by jlelliott
Lists
The Guardian's 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read
1,005 works; 550 members
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
1,448 works; 1,132 members
Great American Novels
158 works; 42 members
Novels from The Guardian's Great American Novelist Tournament
148 works; 24 members
Metafiction
84 works; 21 members
Favorite Long Books
330 works; 42 members
20th Century Literature
1,161 works; 54 members
Larry McCaffery's 20th Century Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books
103 works; 12 members
Favourite Books
1,817 works; 309 members
50 Tough Books for Extreme Readers
71 works; 39 members
Weird and Weirder Fiction
267 works; 32 members
Stream of Consciousness
87 works; 7 members
Significant works of postmodern fiction
86 works; 25 members
Magic Realism
371 works; 52 members
1970s
657 works; 23 members
Time Magazine's "All-Time 100"
113 works; 15 members
Most difficult novels
68 works; 27 members
Experimental Literature
141 works; 18 members
Speculative Fiction: Slipstream Literature
166 works; 16 members
National Book Award - Fiction
78 works; 10 members
Twentieth Century Greatest Hits
27 works; 11 members
Harold Bloom - The Western Canon: D. The Chaotic Age
833 works; 24 members
Time's All-Time 100 Novels
100 works; 27 members
Blue Pyramid 1,276 Best Books of All Time
1,248 works; 32 members
Best First Lines
133 works; 8 members
Books about World War II
241 works; 22 members
Best of American Literature
146 works; 9 members
1,001 BYMRBYD Concensus
723 works; 27 members
A Novel Cure
742 works; 23 members
Anthony Burgess 99 Post War Novels
99 works; 7 members
Pynchon ranked
10 works; 1 member
Books Read in 2023
5,547 works; 145 members
TML 200 Best Books 1950-1999
202 works; 10 members
Elegant Prose
80 works; 4 members
Books set in Berlin
46 works; 4 members
recalling favorites...
105 works; 2 members
Fiction: Historical
288 works; 3 members
E's Reader
30 works; 1 member
SHOULD Read Books!
354 works; 9 members
Yet another list
67 works; 1 member
2022
17 works; 1 member
Literature which inspired Pop songs
85 works; 9 members
Books Read in 2020
4,379 works; 124 members
Overdue Podcast
803 works; 9 members
Books Read in 2006
421 works; 8 members
American Lit for Eng 11 Research Project
368 works; 6 members
Swinging Seventies
255 works; 18 members
Books Read in 2024
4,623 works; 126 members
Thomas Pynchon books
10 works; 1 member
.
396 works; 1 member
Secret Histories
28 works; 8 members
Bookshelf from Interstellar
62 works; 1 member
.
194 works; 2 members
Best Audiobooks
240 works; 114 members
DigitalDreamDoor top 300
300 works; 4 members
Retrospective of 20th- and 21st-century literature
154 works; 1 member
The 150 Greatest Novels of All Time
150 works; 6 members
Recommended Reading : 600 Classics Reviewed, Editors of Salem Press, 2015
634 works; 6 members
sotiris' favourites circa january 2023
43 works; 2 members
Biggest Disappointments
606 works; 168 members
Juggernauts (fiction)
21 works; 3 members
Books
85 works; 1 member
Books With Our Favorite First Lines
168 works; 104 members
scav
54 works; 2 members
Mustich's 1000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life Changing List
1,001 works; 18 members
Recommended Literary Books
111 works; 1 member
National Book Award winners
65 works; 11 members
Best War Fiction Books
41 works; 4 members
Genesis in literature
47 works; 7 members
Jones & Newman: Best Horror Books Further Recommended Reading
577 works; 4 members
Hulk's Essential Reading List
38 works; 1 member
The Modern Library (The Two Hundred Best Novels....
202 works; 1 member
I Can't Finish This Book
189 works; 22 members
Unread books
1,063 works; 84 members
Talk Discussions
Past Discussions
Club Read 2013 : Kesbooks reading plan in Club Read 2013 (June 2013)
Author Information
31+ Works 51,247 Members
Thomas Pynchon was born in Glen Cove, New York on May 8, 1937. In 1959 he graduated with a B.A. in English from Cornell, where he had taken Vladimir Nabokov's famous course in modern literature after studying engineering physics and serving in the U.S. Navy for two years. He worked as a technical writer at Boeing for two and a half years. Pynchon show more won the Faulkner First Novel Award for V. in 1963, and in The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), again his symbolism and commentary on the United States and human isolation have been praised as intricate and masterly, though some reviewers found it to be maddeningly dense. With this book Pynchon won the Rosenthal Foundation Award. Gravity's Rainbow, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 1974, is in part a fictional elegy and meditation on death and an encyclopedic work that jumps through time. Pynchon has also written numerous essays, reviews, and introductions, plus the fictional works Slow Learner, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, and Inherent Vice. His title Bleeding Edge made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2013. He is famous for his reclusive nature, although he has made several animated appearances on The Simpsons television series. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Contains
Has the adaptation
Inspired
Has as a reference guide/companion
Has as a commentary on the text
Has as a student's study guide
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Gravity's Rainbow
- Original title
- Gravity's Rainbow
- Original publication date
- 1973
- People/Characters
- Tyrone Slothrop; Pirate Prentice; Roger Mexico; Pig Bodine; Laszlo Jamf; Crutchfield the Westwardman (show all 55); Edward Pointsman; Katje Borgesius; Oberst Enzian; Teddy Bloat; Blatherard Osmo; Jessica Swanlake; Blicero; Jeremy; Kevin Spectro; Toro Rojo; Kenosha Kid ; Brigadier General Pudding; Octopus Grigori; Gottfried; Franz Pökler; Leni Pökler; Hermann Göring; Blodgett Waxwing; Tantivy; Laszlo Jamf; Ian Scuffling; Duane Marvy; Vaslav Tchitcherine; Rocketman; Harry S. Truman; José Hernandez; Martín Fierro; Margherita Erdmann; Der Springer; Enzian; Horst Achtfaden; Bianca; Miklos Thanatz; Shekinah; Frau Gnahb; Gerhardt von Göll; Klaus Närrisch ; Andreas Orukumbe; Chiclitz; Plechazunga; Frieda (pig); Muffage; Spontoon; Stephen Dodson-Truck; Osbie Feel; Milton Gloaming ; Thomas Gwenhidwy; Byron the Bulb; Geli Tripping
- Important places
- London, England, UK; The Zone; Stanmore, London, England, UK; East End, London, England, UK; France; Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany (show all 15); Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France; Harz Mountains, Germany; Nordhausen, Thuringia, Germany; Berlin, Germany; Bad Karma; Anubis; Hamburg, Germany; Stralsund, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany; Lüneberg Heath, Lower Saxony, Germany
- Important events
- World War II; Palm Sunday (1942); Potsdam Conference; Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Related movies
- Prüfstand VII (2002 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- "Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death." – Wernher von B... (show all)raun (Beyond the Zero)
"You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood." – Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray (Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering)
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas any more...." – Dorothy, arriving in Oz (In the Zone)
"What?" – Richard M. Nixon (The Counterforce) - Dedication
- For Richard Farina
- First words
- A screaming comes across the sky.
- Quotations
- This classic hustle is still famous, even today, for the cold purity of its execution: bring opium from India, introduce it into China – howdy Fong, this here's opium, opium, this is Fong – ah, so, me eatee! – no-ho-ho,... (show all) Fong, you smokee, [smokee], see? pretty soon Fong's coming back for more and more, so you create an inelastic demand for the shit, get China to make it illegal, then sucker China into a couple-three disastrous wars over the right of your merchants to sell opium, which by now you are describing as sacred. You win, China loses. Fantastic.
A former self is a fool, an insufferable ass, but he's still human, you'd no more turn him out than you'd turn out any other kind of cripple, would you?
They'll always tell you fathers are 'taken,' but fathers only leave – that's what it really is. The fathers are all covering for each other, that's all.
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answer. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Now everybody—
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- General Fiction, Fiction and Literature, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PS3566 .Y55 .G7 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 1961-
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 12,110
- Popularity
- 712
- Reviews
- 155
- Rating
- (4.04)
- Languages
- 22 — Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese, traditional
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 63
- ASINs
- 46