Gravity's Rainbow

luka

Well-known member
I got stuck around page 650. It's mostly cos I entered a mucky turbid brain zone. Not so much the fault of the book. I couldn't read anything. quite unpleasant but yes these things happen. I'm back into it now got about 100 pages left. He was definitely smoking too much weed when he wrote it.
 

version

Well-known member
I think that's been a constant throughout his career though, and I doubt he's been that stoned for 50 years.
 

luka

Well-known member
I finished this a couple of days ago. It's ok. But compare it to Burroughs. Wsb is a major artist. Pynchon very much a minor artist, second rate by birth.
 

luka

Well-known member
The best bits are the descriptions (of mostly landscape drizzle. Mist.) The worst stuff is the slap stick the songs the whimsy the length the diffuseness
 

luka

Well-known member
They're not even well written they don't scan nuffink... it's a very tv/movies book obviously
 

luka

Well-known member
The simpsons. No wonder hes appeared on it. Same media literate thing but simpsons is much sharper
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
In the first few pages we get a character called DeCoverley. Surely a reference to Major de Coverley in the other great postmodern satirical WWII novel?
 

luka

Well-known member
I like the orgy scene with Greta's daughter, can't remember her name. Who cares, right? She's dead now. And the final scene with the kids in the rocket. The rest is just a convoluted mess (with some real clever writing and dense reference material you can plunder for years and (wasted) years!).

Heh
 

version

Well-known member
This is cool. Apparently Boeing had a pure research lab in the 60s due to having so much cash lying around and this bloke built a bunch of machines and experiments to test precognition and psychokinesis. The paper makes a pretty convincing argument for Pynchon having been aware of them.

Hard Science and the Paranormal in Gravity's Rainbow: Precognition Machines, Cockroaches, and Not That Helmut Schmidt

 

version

Well-known member
frequent antifa flyer
@MenshevikM


In Gravity’s Rainbow, the main character is injected with sodium amytal, and then has a surreal nightmare vision about American racism. The drug makes him fixate on the words “you never did the Kenosha kid”, which he repeats over and over. feel like I’m going slightly insane
 

version

Well-known member
People pointing out the muted post horn and attacks on the postal system in Lot 49 re: Trump vs. USPS too.
 
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