science fictions

In Slaughterhouse 5, Vonnegut writes that Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" used to have all the answers to life's problems -- but that after Dresden that wasn't enough anymore. I think GR may come closer to fitting that bill than any other book around. It is the Moby Dick of the 20th century, where the hunt is on, not for the Great White, but for Rocket 000.

Pynchon knows his history and entwines it into the story in such a way that it becomes hard to know what is real, and what is not. The result: paranoia. And paranoia is a condition of the modern individual.

After reading this for the 3rd time, I became aware of things like Operation Paperclip, John Foster Dulles' work for Nazi industrialists, MK ULTRA, intelligence work with LSD and other drugs, the official abuse of children, and Pynchon's work took on more and more meanings. There is a lot here. And if it is difficult to read, consider what it was like to get the "A treatment" at Cornell or Harvard and keep your sanity -- TK is a case in point. I would not be surprised if Pynchon knew about this too, given Slothrop's discovery that his family contracted with authorities to perform Pavlovian conditioning experiments on him.

Read it. Read it again. Think about it.

It's a great book.

There are a number of reasons one might write a review of a book. Most of these reasons aren't all that helpful when it comes to Gravity's Rainbow. One reason is to provide potential readers with a sense of the book (plot, structure, style, characterization). The best way to get a sense of Gravity's Rainbow is to read the first page. It basically goes on like that for another seven or eight hundred more. Another reason is to enlighten the world with your sparkling insight into the subtlties of symbolism and layers of meaning in the book. With regard to Gravity's Rainbow, you can save that stuff for your weekly book club. The symbolism and layered meaning in GR are about as subtle as a rocket attack on a movie theater. This is why GR is often compared to Finnegan's Wake. If you've ever watched Joseph Campbell explain that novel, you realize that the search for deep intellectual insight is a conceit. These novels require your best effort just to understand the LITERAL stuff. Another reason to review a book is to provide your own subjective opinion about the overall quality of the experience. I've found that many such GR reviews fall into one of two camps: "I read 'X' pages and couldn't/didn't finish it" or "Thomas Pynchon is God". The problem with reviews like this is that they say more about the meta-experience (sorry, but that is the appropriate word) of reading the book than they do about the book itself. Those of us who finish it are subject to a kind of "Iron John" machismo which falls apart if we are forced to admit that the whole thing might be a colossal put-on. On the other hand, those who give up can't help feeling that perhaps they are missing the big IT and don't like feeling that they might be unable to appreciate genius. So is it the Emperor's New Clothes, or Pearls Before Swine? It doesn't matter. The question is probably meaningless anyway. If you like incredibly obscure cultural references, if you like dense imagery, if you like chilling portrayals of paranoia and the dire consequences to humans when people with power succumb to it and if you like conspiracy theory, you'll dig this book. I do, so I did. On the other hand, if you're hung up on little things like narrative structure, characterization, plot, etc., I'd stay away.

Before I throw in my two cents, I should admit that, aside from Faulkner, I believe Pynchon to be the most gifted American writer of the 20th Century. I've read all of his books (as I have Faulkner's), and some of them more than once. Therefore, the following remarks are not those of a dispassionate and objective critic, but of a fan. That being said, the first time I read Gravity's Rainbow, I was as perplexed as most. And yet, even in my confusion, I couldn't help but recognize the beauty of the writing. Say what you will, Pynchon's prose is undeniably some of the most beautifully written stuff out there. The second time I read it, I did so in conjunction with Weisenburger's annotations, and both before and after the second reading, read some articles and essays presenting possible themes, interpretations, intentions of the author, etc., etc. I was really getting into Pynchon at this time and was reading his other novels as well. All of this reading, research, whatever, sparked new ideas about the book, clarified, and sometimes reaffirmed, notions that had arisen in my first, and more strongly, my second reading of the novel, and gave me a fuller understanding of Pynchon's influences, his ideas, and how he was attempting to present those ideas in his work, especially this, his "masterpiece." But there was no revelation, no comprehensive understanding of the book, no "Oh, I get it" (although overall, when appraising the novel as a whole, I did feel less confused) and those seeking such a thing when reading fiction, I feel, are somewhat misguided. "Comprehensive understanding," to me, sounds a little oxymoronic, and very likely nonexistent. Even the worst stuff out there, in its own way, resists definitive interpretation, which to my mind, is the greatest thing about literature, or any form of art, in that anyone who experiences it, can take from it what they wish. A year or so later, on a whim, I picked it up one afternoon and began reading the first few pages to kill some time. Before long, I had dropped everything else I was then reading and read nothing else until I had finished it yet again. This third reading was the most enjoyable, and I believe the reason for this was that for the first time I wasn't seeking understanding, or instruction, or entertainment, but was simply indulging my admiration for technically brilliant and beautiful writing. The prose is poetic (some would say overwritten, depending on what you go for), even in its descriptions of very shocking and disgusting acts (Brig. Gen. Pudding's copraphagic (sp?) encounter with Katje being one of these), but especially in its treatment of relationships familial and romantic, unrequited desires, etc. (e.g. Roger's yearning for Jessica, Slothrop's for Katje, Enzian and Tchitcherine's first and only meeting). The novel, in it's own quirky and eccentric way, is incredibly sad at times, sentimental even, nostalgic (for a spiritual innocence that's been lost, maybe, a faith in mysticism, magic, prior to what is modern as symbolized by the 20th Century before technology, so in- and per-vasive, became man's faith and paranoia an ideology (It's no coincidence the setting is the end of World War II on the eve of cold war, before the Bomb became just another fact of life, one of many what if? points perhaps) yet you have to really look for this sadness behind the despairing humor and all of the information and allusions and puns and wordgames with which Pynchon bombards the reader (this bombardment, in my opinion, having a thematic purpose rather than the shameless self-glorification that so many readers assert, however, just thinking about trying to explain why I think this is so seems very wearisome, and I'll gladly spare the both of us.) Enough. I'm rambling. Just read it, or at least try. Have no expectations, ignore your ideas about fiction, and how you think a novel should be constructed. Read it simply for the brilliance of the writing. If a shedding of conventional expectations is possible, perhaps in doing so, you'll realize that Pynchon's treatment of old fears and concerns, i.e. his humanity, is not so unconventional as once thought.