so i started gravity's rainbow the other day

Post-modern lit in general yes is obnoxious but do not discount Donald Barthelme or early John Barth (through Chimera) if you are enjoying Gravity's Rainbow this much.

There's one other thing I just remembered about the style/plot split. The National Book Award selection committee chose Gravity's Rainbow under some kind of protest about its supposed unreadability. Pynchon sent a clown to accept the award.

That and the banana nausea thing early on were the two bits I enjoyed.

I think it may be slightly unhelpful to talk about GR as PoMo lit. I guess I would call it post-Beat, post-hippy, post-'permissive-age' / The 1960s / whatever US Romantic espionage fiction. But possibly for some that means PoMo.

The scene with Slothrop and the English girl I found offensive, or at least annoying. I have said often before, and seem to be saying again: the book is oversexed, sexually obsessed, crammed with promiscuity and rampant (male) infidelity, to an extent that to me was odious.

i haven't read this, at all, over the past three days. but tonight i will probably read some.

esotericness wasn't what got me, rather the bloated boringness. my eyes glazed over at the banana roll-call, and i skipped and skimmed around for several years running.

I don't know what 'hazmat' means.

(Haz - Hazardous Mat - Materials)

ugh. i hated catch 22. i think i have a problem with the late-modernist masculine canon.

Got much less bogged down the second time around - the first time there was definitely too much to take in all at once.

I've read Vineland twice too, and considering rereading M&D pretty soon - again, the sheer density means I probably missed a lot of the nuances first time around.

When I said 'I don't really agree', that meant, largely: 'you like the book and I don't'. I don't think I had very specific points in mind. But I will look and think, about that.

http://www.bookforum.com/pynchon.html

The long Gerald Howard piece is pretty interesting.

I loved all of the little anecdotes sprinkled throughout, like the alliterative restaurant dishes (pubic parfait and whatnot), Benny the Bulb, the boat that magically missed the torpedos, Roger Mexico pissing all over the boardroom and then crawling out under the table, etc. I like how Pynchon maintains a jovial/fantastical feel through most of the book, I don't think it'd be near as great if he was writing a realistic narrative. And has there ever been a more musical book? There was a song every ten pages it seemed

I have to say though that the pedophilia, poop-eating, toilet-diving, etc. made me squirm while I read it and grew somewhat tiresome by the end. I'll probably pick up the commentary book at some point and re-read GR with it, but before I read any more Pynchon, I need a few years off. Phew!

j., though there are places that made me laugh i think of it as closer to, i dunno, reading comic books; most of the gags aim for amusement or wonder, instead of laffs.

the chase scene in the mountain, btw, is where pynchon totally excels at this in GR. by Vineland, it's increasingly how he's doing EVERYTHING.

i like it that pynchon sort of forces me into a sense-driven reading mode precisely b/c it cuts across how i (& probably lots of foax) learned to "appreciate" literature in school.

Wow that's embarassing. I think I've always spelled it like that too. *hangs head in shame*

oh wait, i know, i knew i was gonna finish this in part four when thanatz gets on the boat with the dude who really wants to get struck by lightning, and that section’s transition into the immortal messianic lightbulb stuff is so good

i think the disintegrated last part is the hardest and most alienating section by far. but by then yr pretty, as it were, locked in.

like, the nixon bit-- hard to think of another book i'd tolerate that in.

byron tho a major work of short american prose fiction prob. u can read it alone as a lil borges thing even (but you shouldn't).

yep!

the story behind the nixon epigraph is so hilarious imo

oh, the epigraph is great. meant the, is it "zhlubb"? part.

yeah that’s what i thought u meant

it took me a minute to realize that section was a flash forward to the ‘70s

otm that that old imago post is otm (followup about against the day also pretty convincing imo)-- i mean the book is literally a musical, not just with songs but with numbers; plus in certain places (all over but most brutally w the camp/daughter story + most universally w The Integral) the fake? unity of infinitely subdivided time that movies work by is both technique+theme, but yes, maybe only animation accustoms the audience to surreality+discontinuity in the way the book's treatment of this stuff requires?

still think laurie anderson should have called his bluff.

agreed

honestly i think pynchon earnestly wanted that to happen

the taffy skyscraper bit (is that the same bit?) is a crazed flash forward as well

i basically considered all the action plausible right up until the oneurine torpedo, at which point i realised none of it was. but still...it all really happened obv ;)

*oneirine idk

honestly i think pynchon earnestly wanted that to happen

yeah!

think it’s reasonable to assume slothrop didn’t have all that sex

only blicero gets his orgasm :(

(nah there are other orgasms in this book)

lol

btw this is such a rich thread, v thankful for ilx in times like these

Infinite jest slays GR in terms of readability

unfortunately gravity's rainbow has put me in the mood to attack both mason & dixon and against the day but i might hold off for at least another year

i would totally read w/ u, brad

i would much rather read (finish) m&d but i'd do my part for atd too

i'd be down for a group read tbh. too long since i've read pynchon. idk why i even bother to read anything else tbh.

miseducated prolly

I'm jumping into this, but we'll see how far I get. I read V. a few years ago, it had its moments, but didn't make tons of sense to me. So far this is more comprehensible, but I'm sure it won't last.

There are some great, heavily researched guides and supplements online for GR that follow basically page by page. Totally worth it. Really illuminated my reading experience.

One thing I have to say is, at least in my experience, you might be picking up more than you realize. Take those hallucinogenic detours for what they are. Pynchon shoots into space sometimes and you just have to ride it but it always comes back to the ground. Mostly.

Trickiest part for me was remembering the 2,000 or whatever characters. That’s where the guides come in handy.

The first appreciation I've read for Gravity's Rainbow in its 50th anniversary year – many more to come I'm sure. Arguing for Pynchon's relevance but asking – if reality has become as absurd as Pynchon, does that constitute an obstacle to reading him? https://t.co/4mgRk9q32C

— James B (@piercepenniless) February 17, 2023

There are some great, heavily researched guides and supplements online for GR that follow basically page by page. Totally worth it. Really illuminated my reading experience.

I should try that. I've read the book twice, have been contemplating a third read. I think a guide might add something. It did with Ulysses.

Happy 50th birthday!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fp_lwtqXgAMypQK.jpg

hb you amazing fucked-up freak :)

"tussodyne" is a 2023 meme just waiting to unfurl

nice to see Nestlé's original brand name before they went woke

hbtp

having read three copies of this to pieces (original trade paperback w swollen red sun, frank miller penguin classic ew, 70s mass market paperback w rainbow contrails-- this one in many pieces) maybe today is the day to find a copy of that nice earlier penguin w the rocket blueprints on it

...keep hearing thread title in Letterkenny voice...

FIrst read that as "in Lemmy's voice"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99wSTVMRkIk

(6'53" if you don't want to sit through the whole thing)