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Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), set in an alternative-universe version of World War II, has been called a modern Finnegan’s Wake for its challenging language, wild anachronisms, hallucinatory happenings, and fever-dream imagery. With Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow, artist Zak Smith at once eases and expands readers’ experience of the book. A leading exponent of punk-based, DIY art, Smith here presents his most ambitious project to date - an art book exactly as long as the work it’s 760 drawings, paintings, photos, and less definable images in 760 pages. Extraordinary tableaux of the detritus of war - a burned-out Königstiger tank, a melted machine gun - coexist alongside such phantasmagoric Pynchon inventions as the “stumbling bird” and “Girgori the octopus.” Smith has stated his aim to be “as literal as possible” in interpreting Gravity’s Rainbow, but his images are as imaginative and powerfully unique as the prose they honor.
784 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 30, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
November 16, 2012
You could think of Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow as the Classics Illustrated version of Gravity's Rainbow for the illiterate. There is no text, except for the brief introduction and forward. The 760 pages consist of an illustration from the corresponding page in GR, the 1973 original edition published by Viking Press. All the pictures are online here, and happily with the relevant text.
I haven't read GR, so I can't say how well the pictures match Pynchon's intention. Smith says in the forward:
I generally like the illustrations, which are mostly ink drawings. Some of them are coloured. The style is a nervous searching of form, visually pleasing, with variety in line and texture. They range from completely abstract to more or less realistic and look like photographs were used as a reference. It is unfortunate though that all the pictures have a dull grey tone as a ground, rather than the white you'd expect. It might be a side effect of reproduction, but it is unpleasant. It's not apparent in the online pictures, but some of the detail is lost in those. And I don't like the lack of text, in spite of what Smith says. Still, it's a cool idea, and probably a lot of fun for GR fans. Here are a few sample pictures:
I haven't read GR, so I can't say how well the pictures match Pynchon's intention. Smith says in the forward:
I am conventional and sober-minded enough that when Pynchon writes, say, "ambulance," I see an ambulance in my head, not a washrag. I might even go look up a 1940s German ambulance to make sure I get it right. So don't worry, this book is not some hippie word-association game.
On the third hand—"Silver and black. Curvewarped reflections of stars flowing across, down the full length of, round and round in meridians exact as the meridians of acupuncture" (page 699). OK, dude, you draw that. Sometimes— maybe half the time—Pynchon's language requires interpretation, which is one of the reasons it was fun to draw (How can I make a thing that looks like a benzene molecule and a snake at the same time? How can I make an angel in the sky that you're not sure you're actually seeing?), and one of the reasons it might be fun for you to compare notes with me as you read, and one of the reasons that any attempt to make a definitive set of illustrations for Gravity's Rainbow would be doomed from the start.
That's why there are no words opposite the pictures in this book. There is nothing official about what I saw when I read. What you're holding right now is just my end of a three-way conversation about a book between you, me, and the guy who wrote it.
I generally like the illustrations, which are mostly ink drawings. Some of them are coloured. The style is a nervous searching of form, visually pleasing, with variety in line and texture. They range from completely abstract to more or less realistic and look like photographs were used as a reference. It is unfortunate though that all the pictures have a dull grey tone as a ground, rather than the white you'd expect. It might be a side effect of reproduction, but it is unpleasant. It's not apparent in the online pictures, but some of the detail is lost in those. And I don't like the lack of text, in spite of what Smith says. Still, it's a cool idea, and probably a lot of fun for GR fans. Here are a few sample pictures:
your blood spurting from the flaccid stub of artery,
the snowy roof slates fallen across half your bed
How Pointsman lusts after them pretty children
Black faces, white tablecloth...White college boys
August 13, 2019
Some of the book on Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/artitall24/...
What might the market be for a book of wordless illustrations (not comics) that would purport to capture the central idea (according to Zak Smith) on each of the 902 pages of Thomas Pynchon’s postmodern novel, Gravity’s Rainbow? Well, first, you have to have read the damned thing, which, check, I have done a couple times. (I approached a professor of mine in graduate school in Ann Arbor with a question about what he thought was the best novel of all time and he asked me to specify: In English? (Joyce’s Ulysses, which I read with him). In any language? (Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, of which I have still only read the first volume). The best English novel since “the war” (WWII), according to this prof? (Gravity’s Rainbow, which I also read with him in another class).
Second, you have to at least appreciate what Pynchon was doing in the book; I mean, if you thought it sucked, you wouldn’t read this illustrated version, of course, because then who cares? (I didn't love the book, but thought it and Pynchon generally amazing..
Third, you have to appreciate (as I just bet Pynchon--a pop culture junkie; even as the recluse that he is, he did the voice for a character depicting Himself in an episode of The Simpsons, you can look it up—would have loved this version of his book) illustration, cartooning, comics as a way of representing reality. (This was my main interest in it, actually, and this paid off for me).
Fourth, you would actually have to be willing to pick up the original book and at least look at it side by side with Smith’s version; if you have not read the book the illustrations would be individually useless to view, though collectively they present a foreboding/funny view of the apocalypse Pynchon depicts. (I kind of feel that these conditions winnow down the potential readership to about seven, but who knows?)
I liked it and admire Zak Smith for his artistry and interpretation and for just spending a chunk of his remaining time on the planet creating this impressive tome, though I can’t imagine there are five people who have read this in the Chicago area in the past year. I hope I'm wrong! But I did, so I get to ratchet up my (snobbish) view of myself as super cool, so there.
https://www.pinterest.com/artitall24/...
What might the market be for a book of wordless illustrations (not comics) that would purport to capture the central idea (according to Zak Smith) on each of the 902 pages of Thomas Pynchon’s postmodern novel, Gravity’s Rainbow? Well, first, you have to have read the damned thing, which, check, I have done a couple times. (I approached a professor of mine in graduate school in Ann Arbor with a question about what he thought was the best novel of all time and he asked me to specify: In English? (Joyce’s Ulysses, which I read with him). In any language? (Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, of which I have still only read the first volume). The best English novel since “the war” (WWII), according to this prof? (Gravity’s Rainbow, which I also read with him in another class).
Second, you have to at least appreciate what Pynchon was doing in the book; I mean, if you thought it sucked, you wouldn’t read this illustrated version, of course, because then who cares? (I didn't love the book, but thought it and Pynchon generally amazing..
Third, you have to appreciate (as I just bet Pynchon--a pop culture junkie; even as the recluse that he is, he did the voice for a character depicting Himself in an episode of The Simpsons, you can look it up—would have loved this version of his book) illustration, cartooning, comics as a way of representing reality. (This was my main interest in it, actually, and this paid off for me).
Fourth, you would actually have to be willing to pick up the original book and at least look at it side by side with Smith’s version; if you have not read the book the illustrations would be individually useless to view, though collectively they present a foreboding/funny view of the apocalypse Pynchon depicts. (I kind of feel that these conditions winnow down the potential readership to about seven, but who knows?)
I liked it and admire Zak Smith for his artistry and interpretation and for just spending a chunk of his remaining time on the planet creating this impressive tome, though I can’t imagine there are five people who have read this in the Chicago area in the past year. I hope I'm wrong! But I did, so I get to ratchet up my (snobbish) view of myself as super cool, so there.
February 22, 2009
As a teenager in the Seventies with literary ambitions, I knew Gravity's Rainbow as the Great American Novel of the day. I read it several times then, and again several years ago. I'm old enough now to admit I've never gotten much out of it. My mind wanders while my eyes forge ahead. But the allure of the novel still beckons! Maybe I'll try it again. I had great fun paging through these drawings. They have a stark mystery of their own. In his introduction Zak Smith offers good advice for understanding Gravity's Rainbow: "go off looking for the answer to some maybe-meaningless question, collect and connect the obscure clues, find out that the world is weirder and wider than you'd imagined and so are you."
August 24, 2009
I think this is a really ingenious idea, especially to accompany a novel of the length and complexity of Gravity’s Rainbow. At times, the novel reads like nothing more than a series of images flashed verbally across the page. Smith’s artistic renditions of these are not only intriguing and varied, but they actually did help me to solidify certain more abstract pieces of text. Some pictures, on the other hand, left me completely baffled; I had no idea what image they were meant to represent. However, even these images were perfectly in tune with the novel, as certain pages of text left me completely baffled. Overall, this book is a wonderfully inventive piece that demonstrates the many applications of art and how different artistic mediums can be married to create an even more powerful piece of artistic expression. I hope that more visual artists apply this concept to more literary works.
As a final note and as obvious as it might seem, I would highly recommend purchasing the edition of Gravity’s Rainbow to which this book corresponds. I, unfortunately, did not have the foresight to do so, so the pages did not align correctly.
As a final note and as obvious as it might seem, I would highly recommend purchasing the edition of Gravity’s Rainbow to which this book corresponds. I, unfortunately, did not have the foresight to do so, so the pages did not align correctly.
February 17, 2021
Yes, there's a picture illustrating each page of the Pynchon novel -- exactly corresponding, at least, to the Penguin Modern Classics edition that I own, from p. 3, where the narrative begins, to p. 760 where it "ends." Mostly black & white pen & ink drawings, with the occasional splash of watercolor or foray into multimedia abstraction, photo-collage, etc.
December 20, 2023
V cool project
August 20, 2016
This is a book for those who haven't read it, don't want to read it, want to not feel insecure about being daunted by it, and, further, have slipped into sub-dialogues about "not getting it" or needing to — unlike, say, William Gibson and the cyberpunk novelists following in its wake (he's said they've all read it several times; since, one presumes, in the "pre-punk 70s doldrums,"[*] one felt one had to) or the
IMPOLEX
director Alex Ross Perry, who's claimed that "after 2 years of film school, this 750-page perfect novel taught me more about to play with, break, and respect the rules of narrative fiction."
If you like Rorschach blotches — but without the psychoanalytical theory, insight, or personal investment — and you like flinching at Modern Art to the point where you can feign "getting not getting it is the point, dude!" you'll purport to make heads or tails out of this mess, and spill some verbiage, either here or in your head, justifying seeing nothing about Tyrone Slothrop, the English officer he has to get juiced just to get some info out of him ("they're so cold ... they've got no passion, dammit!") or the many, many other things that stay with you such the point that you can recall them extemporaneously, as I am, here.
Hey, folks: why noy join the others who plough through the attention-span expander — the "war book" — "to end them all"? (As Anthony Burgess says. But, hey, what does he know?)
--------------------------
[*] Gibson's comment in his Introduction to the '95 ed. of Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren — what, am I making this stuff? Daring you to believe me? Please.
If you like Rorschach blotches — but without the psychoanalytical theory, insight, or personal investment — and you like flinching at Modern Art to the point where you can feign "getting not getting it is the point, dude!" you'll purport to make heads or tails out of this mess, and spill some verbiage, either here or in your head, justifying seeing nothing about Tyrone Slothrop, the English officer he has to get juiced just to get some info out of him ("they're so cold ... they've got no passion, dammit!") or the many, many other things that stay with you such the point that you can recall them extemporaneously, as I am, here.
Hey, folks: why noy join the others who plough through the attention-span expander — the "war book" — "to end them all"? (As Anthony Burgess says. But, hey, what does he know?)
--------------------------
[*] Gibson's comment in his Introduction to the '95 ed. of Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren — what, am I making this stuff? Daring you to believe me? Please.
August 13, 2009
I could look at this for hours. Good visual metaphors for human vices, desires, and idiocies. Interesting, vibrant drawing based on the punk aesthetic. Still, the whole book lacks maturity as does the artist. Mentally, he stayed in 9th grade with his hand on his dick and that's what justifies and propels his art.
We all need something to believe in even if we think it's the truth.
We all need something to believe in even if we think it's the truth.
September 30, 2016
This is just a cool book. Coupled with the original novel it makes for some really interesting reading as you can compare the artistic interpretation to the original written source. Absent the original novel, it stands on it's own as a wonderful work of art, leaving the viewer to interpret the story completely visually.
July 20, 2008
"aspirations doomed to failure are the only ones worth aspiring to."
December 18, 2010
ugly and stupid. Sorry, but it's true. Attaching yourself to a great novel does you no good if your work sucks.
April 11, 2016
I feel this book is a sucking ass piece of shit.
July 30, 2010
This is an interesting companion to a reading of Gravity's Rainbow. Smith's impressions of what's in the text of each page aren't always clear, but more often than not I liked the artwork for itself. That artwork ranges in style from abstractions to the graphically realistic to something approaching a comic strip, all of which suit the encyclopedic gamut of popular flair and high seriousness of Pynchon's novel. Though Smith's visual interpretations of the beauty and terror, the terrible beauty of each page, is always a stiumlating sidebar to the novel, it's not a necessary adjunct to it.
May 18, 2011
This was pretty interesting to have, though I wouldn't say very helpful in understanding Gravity's Rainbow, beyond adding a welcomed...relaxed-pace step in the otherwise-tedious process. It's been an unusual and very bulky reading experience: a brow-furrowing chapter in GR, then the corresponding "fer real?" section in Weisenburger's GR companion, and then pretty cool page-by-page art that...well, maybe 30% of the time you can relate somehow to the text. When you can't, you often think: eh, I still like this particular one (mostly the expressions and figures)...NE-EXT.
November 30, 2007
People that like GR often become obsessed with the work. I am one such dude and I rank the novel as my all-time favorite work of fiction. A lot of the pictures in this collection are just sloppy, falling in between abstract impressionism and modern realism but doesn't succeed in honoring the ideals of either art movement. I've looked through all 700+ pictures online several times though and the sheer audacity of this project commands my admiration.
September 17, 2012
I was lucky enough to see this piece several years ago at the 2002 (i think?) whiney biennial. It's looses something in book form (as opposed to being able to see the whole thing at once on the wall) I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow right now, so it's pretty interesting to see the things he picks out of certain pages. I find that I enjoy it most when I have read a good sized chunk of gravities rainbow and then later look at the corresponding drawings - as opposed to viewing them concurrently.
July 25, 2019
It's worth noting that Smith actually tracked down Pynchon and consulted him before making this. I found it to be useful art. My one real criticism is how many images are only black and white. Not because I don't like the medium, but because it's simply impossible for me to think much about GR and not think in color... overall a good attempt to visualize a book that isn't always easy to conceive in such terms...
May 28, 2007
An ambitious project centered around a notoriously difficult novel. There are no words in this book. Cox 'simply' provides an illustration of the happenings on every single page of Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow. A must have for fans of the novel and/or the artist, this book also stands on it's own merits as a work of art.
January 24, 2008
An amazing collection of drawings. The idea of illustrating every page of the Pynchon novel is an interesting compulsion. I went back and reread Gravity's Rainbow to sort of cross reference the illustrations.
July 14, 2008
I have the old version before lawers were involve and the title of this book was simply Gravity's Rainbow Illustrated: One Picture for every page. This was a great idea and I praise Zak Smith for putting so much effort into this, it is a quality work.
January 11, 2009
If you like Gravity's Rainbow, Zak Smith, or art, this is the book for you. Smith's take on each page of Gravity's Rainbow is spell-binding. Pull both books out, lay them side by side and compare.
January 30, 2015
I loved the idea of this book much better than I loved the book itself. The task was obviously Herculean, and I commend the artist. I just didn't love the work, I guess. I read it side by side with the novel, as you'd have to.
September 18, 2007
this book is as simultaneously engaging and ADHD as gravity's rainbow, except that it's all pictures.
November 9, 2007
I bought this on a whim. I just liked the pictures. I haven't read any Pynchon, and I don't think I ever will. Seeing the pictures was close as I want to get.
Want to read
April 27, 2008THIS LOOKS FREAKING COOL
August 14, 2009
fantastic idea. not sure it illuminates much of the book - but it's fantastic nonetheless. and from a porn/art star no less.
October 15, 2009
Not really reading this. Can't. It's just pictures. But it is a pretty cool book though :)
Want to read
May 12, 2012Just in case I get lazy, I'll flip through the pages instead of reading Gravity's Rainbow.
January 29, 2011
Gorgeous, and one hell of a feat.
June 28, 2011
very helpful in visualizing Gravity's Rainbow, but there are plenty of pieces when I couldn't figure out what Smith was trying to represent at all.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews