Gravity's Rainbow discussion

I haven't heard of anyone to get through Gravity's Rainbow on their one and only try (but, of course, they must be out there). A much more common experience is the "aborted attempt". I had two aborted attempts before I finally finished the book for the first time in 2003, and I started reading it again this weekend only to have to abort my most recent attempt.

I've got two five year olds running around my house, and I realized that even the quiet moments I thought I could steal enough time to read in aren't quiet around here, and I just can't concentrate. So 1 finish out of four attempts. That's not so bad, I suppose.

I'm around 420 pages into my first attempt. While I never aborted, it took me weeks to get through part one and only about another week to get through the next 250 pages or so.

Hunter wrote: "I'm around 420 pages into my first attempt. While I never aborted, it took me weeks to get through part one and only about another week to get through the next 250 pages or so." At 450 you are most certainly through. Nice work. That jibes with the time I finished it. The first section requires so much concentration that it is the place where it is easy to give up, once I got out of that it flew.

My 30 years of aborted attempts are nakedly posted on my Profile page.

Just finished Section One (again). Hoping to keep the momentum.

Brad, with two five year olds running around, finishing at all seems to me to be an Olympic achievement.

What is it that makes the first section so challenging? I'm hoping to start this in about a month, depending on how quickly I finish up In Search of Lost Time.

I think it is just letting yourself get immersed in Pynchon's style. He really throws you into the action and doesn't waste any time with exposition, and his descriptions are uncommonly rich, which is often a bit of a shock, but I wouldn't say so for someone who's just read Proust. I should think you would make the transition without any trouble.

I think for me, by the time I reached Section 2 I was just nice and comfy and then it really clipped along.

Cool, I'm excited! I'm reading some of his very early short stories now which, unsurprisingly, aren't that great (college writing). But I loved The Crying of Lot 49 and can't wait to read this, V, et al.

I made it through on my first try. I stopped around page 540 in Nov. '08, periodically and sporadically getting a few pages in here and there until last month. (July '09.) Read through a summary of what I'd read so far to refresh myself, picked the thing up again, and tore through the remainder. I'll definitely be re-reading it in a year or two though.

Welcome, Nathan. Good to see you here.

You are, of course, invited to participate in any of the book discussions that are set up here.

We set up this group hoping for a place we could all digest the book after reading it as well.

I've read the book twice, ont he second time I used the companion book along with it. It is nice to actually know what the hell is going on. I wonder if there is an advantage to being so obscure that readers don't know whats happening most of the time. Then again I think obcurity is a theme for Pynchon. Still, I don't think literature should require a guidebook, and I think this book does require one.

My goal is to get past 30 pages. 31 pages would satisfy me.

I made a good enough dent my first time out. 177 (8?) pages. Then, I just sort of fell over the side of the cliff. I look back on those two weeks of my life and struggle to remember what happened to me, and what happened to Slothrop. I don't THINK I followed my dropped-harmonica down into the sewers beneath a jazz club, but then again...
Whatever the case, I've decided to read and finish V. before I start in on GR again. Perhaps then...