TheChilly
12-25-2010, 03:07 AM
No comment.
These are two words that I want to sum up the 'magnum opus' of author Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel, titled "Gravity's Rainbow", for both good and bad. The funny part is that what I liked about this work rivals very, very closely with what I hated about this work.
According to my understanding, this novel contains a wide array of characters, one of them a GI whose sexual conquests correspond and coordinate with German V-2 rockets dropping on those locations (or is it?). There are also many, many other motifs, such as the mystery behind the Schwarzgerat, a rocket known as "00000", and the fusion of actuality with something in the realm between science-fiction, fantasy... or just one bad LSD trip.
In my reading, the novel did read to me like a strange yet nightmarish LSD trip: The narrative goes in millions and millions of directions... up, down, left, right, southeast, northwest... you get the picture. Characters weave in and out of the sprawling narrative, have fantasies of body parts such as Aenoids wreaking havoc on cities, partake in perverse/nightmarish games such as castrating people in pig suits, and scenes that range from weird to out there to flat-out disturbing, one outlandish yet nightmarish scene in the work involving a graphic depiction of the eating of feces (I say 'Ewww...').
Also note that "Gravity's Rainbow" is a punishing, punishing novel. Punishing in its extreme difficulty (It really is going to take more than one reading to even get what is even going on) and punishing in the fact that the work simply REEKS of metaphor.
What I feel the work does best is in its writing style, in which I sense that within lies a violent surge and feeling of paranoia throughout that drives the highly confusing narrative. The reader gets the feeling that he is going slowly insane and that dreaded feeling haunts the reader throughout his journey through "Gravity's Rainbow", and it is done in a way that almost no author has ever been able to replicate that extreme feeling of anxiety, paranoia, and extreme confusion that Pynchon strikes within his prose and in the reader.
My personal flaw with this novel was the fact that... I didn't even know what was going on throughout neither did I seem to find a purpose to the events described (though it makes sense that the events described symbolize the horrors of war, without detailing them... in a way). The author's style, I thought, was something I would call an acquired taste. It's hard to get at first, but has to take at LEAST more than one reading to comprehend where the author was going and where he was coming from.
For people who want to get into the works of Thomas Pynchon... do start with "The Crying of Lot 49" or his recent "Inherent Vice", accessible works that convey the same themes described in "Gravity's Rainbow", but is made easier for the reader to understand before venturing into not only this big work, but another later work titled "Against The Day".
I also would like to add that as difficult as my venture with "Gravity's Rainbow" was, I also ended up seeing my experience as rewarding and worth it.
To make a long story short... this is an excellent experience of a novel that will seriously MESS with your mind, and will take a couple of readings to even comprehend, lest get the gist of what has happened.
As Pynchon once said... "Let the reader decide. Let the reader beware."
Good luck.
-- Chilly
These are two words that I want to sum up the 'magnum opus' of author Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel, titled "Gravity's Rainbow", for both good and bad. The funny part is that what I liked about this work rivals very, very closely with what I hated about this work.
According to my understanding, this novel contains a wide array of characters, one of them a GI whose sexual conquests correspond and coordinate with German V-2 rockets dropping on those locations (or is it?). There are also many, many other motifs, such as the mystery behind the Schwarzgerat, a rocket known as "00000", and the fusion of actuality with something in the realm between science-fiction, fantasy... or just one bad LSD trip.
In my reading, the novel did read to me like a strange yet nightmarish LSD trip: The narrative goes in millions and millions of directions... up, down, left, right, southeast, northwest... you get the picture. Characters weave in and out of the sprawling narrative, have fantasies of body parts such as Aenoids wreaking havoc on cities, partake in perverse/nightmarish games such as castrating people in pig suits, and scenes that range from weird to out there to flat-out disturbing, one outlandish yet nightmarish scene in the work involving a graphic depiction of the eating of feces (I say 'Ewww...').
Also note that "Gravity's Rainbow" is a punishing, punishing novel. Punishing in its extreme difficulty (It really is going to take more than one reading to even get what is even going on) and punishing in the fact that the work simply REEKS of metaphor.
What I feel the work does best is in its writing style, in which I sense that within lies a violent surge and feeling of paranoia throughout that drives the highly confusing narrative. The reader gets the feeling that he is going slowly insane and that dreaded feeling haunts the reader throughout his journey through "Gravity's Rainbow", and it is done in a way that almost no author has ever been able to replicate that extreme feeling of anxiety, paranoia, and extreme confusion that Pynchon strikes within his prose and in the reader.
My personal flaw with this novel was the fact that... I didn't even know what was going on throughout neither did I seem to find a purpose to the events described (though it makes sense that the events described symbolize the horrors of war, without detailing them... in a way). The author's style, I thought, was something I would call an acquired taste. It's hard to get at first, but has to take at LEAST more than one reading to comprehend where the author was going and where he was coming from.
For people who want to get into the works of Thomas Pynchon... do start with "The Crying of Lot 49" or his recent "Inherent Vice", accessible works that convey the same themes described in "Gravity's Rainbow", but is made easier for the reader to understand before venturing into not only this big work, but another later work titled "Against The Day".
I also would like to add that as difficult as my venture with "Gravity's Rainbow" was, I also ended up seeing my experience as rewarding and worth it.
To make a long story short... this is an excellent experience of a novel that will seriously MESS with your mind, and will take a couple of readings to even comprehend, lest get the gist of what has happened.
As Pynchon once said... "Let the reader decide. Let the reader beware."
Good luck.
-- Chilly