Gravity's Rainbow discussion

I am guessing you can all see where I am going with all this, but this is the place for focused discussion, sans spoilers, for all things relating to Section One.

My assumption is that Section One is that part titled "Beyond the Zero"

Yes indeed. I'll go fix that right now.

I'm going to risk this set of comments in the "No Spoilers" thread. If anyone thinks these are spoilers, please delete, or alert me to delete these comments.

One of the more striking experiences a new reader will have reading through "Beyond the Zero" is discovering how startlingly lurid and intense some of the "pornography" is. Some of the more scatological scenes seem so depraved, so uncompromising, and so cynical, that many readers will find themselves particularly repelled. Some of the more dominance-related and racially demeaning descriptions can be equally grating on the nerves.

I have always read through these with the leap-of-faith attitude I give to any book. I want to see where the author is going to take me, even if it seems to require going through rugged territory.

Now, I'm about 80% of the way through "Beyond the Zero"; and I know from earlier readings that there is at least one more particularly lurid scene (either in this Section or the next, I don't remember).

In this context, I am now reading one of the more emotionally-beautiful, poetic episodes in the love affair of Roger Mexico and Jessica Swanlake--a Christmas sojourn of sorts.

This Christmas "sojourn" is, so far, weepingly beautiful--articulated with numerous everyday details that highlight the blessed and historically-tragic nature of this particular European Christmas. This reader has fallen deeply in love with both these characters, because it seems that Pynchon is also in love with them. So, I'm rediscovering that Pynchon's ability to appall is matched, and possibly exceeded, by his ability to invite our love and empathy for his characters.

Surprisingly, at times it appears that Pynchon loves all the characters, even the "villains". I am able to understand and usually sympathise with their positions, even when I disagree with--and sometimes am repelled by--their actions.

Pynchon's ability to sicken the reader lives alongside his ability to delight.

Mosca wrote: "I'm going to risk this set of comments in the "No Spoilers" thread. If anyone thinks these are spoilers, please delete, or alert me to delete these comments.

One of the more striking experiences..."

Beautifully said, Mosca. That totally nails exactly what I love most about Pynchon. I don't even no how to respond beyond that.

I’ve just finished reading the first Section “Beyond the Zero” (the first time in ten years).

And this is the first time that I‘ve experienced anything like a completeness of all the story's parts. This time it’s like a rhythmic fugue with all the separate pieces each piping their own tune; but the whole is proceeding down some path towards a fascinating and yet ominous future.

The last three, maybe four, episodes of “Beyond the Zero” have really set The War center stage as a seemingly conscious entity with its own malevolent agenda. Political, economic, emotional, and metaphysical forces have been converging around the numerous characters, sweeping them through an ongoing storm of gathering size.

The unique prose is central to this gathering storm. Its rhythmic form, its poetic colors, its harmonic shifts, and emotional interludes and crescendos—these pull the reader along, distract us momentarily with details along the voyage, and wash us through the surges in a way that no simple stripped-down narrative would be able to.

I would love to talk in detail about the historical and political speculations spun out so far. But there is no way that I could do justice to these--at least not at this time. It would be like trying to describe a symphony.

Mosca wrote: "I'm going to risk this set of comments in the "No Spoilers" thread. If anyone thinks these are spoilers, please delete, or alert me to delete these comments.

One of the more striking experiences..."

That was wonderful what you said Mosca.
The Christmas sojourn episode was indeed beautiful and very touching.
I just finished reading this section and must have already encountered about as many characters as the pages I have read.