Gravity’s Rainbow
question
The point?
Goose
Jul 17, 2017 12:03PM
Seriously: I'm not trying to be sarcastic or antagonistic; I'm genuinely nonplussed.
Why would anyone want to - that is, why do so few regret doing so - read this book? Again and again I hear/read people saying "don't be alarmed when you don't understand half of it" and "it really requires at least two readings, and do yourself the favor of consulting the guide as you plod along". How can you simultaneously say that and think it's a wonderful book?
Or, to put it differently: why do you read fiction? Speaking for myself, my answer would be "to be entertained, somewhat to daydream about something else than my every-day life (not that I don't like that, but I also like diversions); and if I furthermore find myself stopping to reflect on something or other, or come to view some previously held notion differently because of the book, that's delicious icing on the cake".
If I need to work real hard to achieve one or more of these things, then count me out. I have plenty of hard work besides reading books. I read books for pleasure.
Moreover, if in fact I actually want to LEARN something, if erudition rather than entertainment is the goal, then I'll read non-fiction. Why would you go to fiction to learn, before non-fiction?
If you feel more or less that way too, and you didn't just zip through GR, got all/most of it in the first run, and had a blast doing so, and still don't think it's just expensive toilet paper, then please explain it to me? Again, I'm honestly not trying just to point fingers and be like "I like apples and anyone who prefers bananas are jerks"; rather, I'd really like to hear an insightful and enlightening response, also/especially from those who don't agree with my premises for reading fiction (in which case, please explain).
I just don't get it. How can you give a book that didn't quite make sense until you studied it like a rabbi does the Torah five stars?
I'm not saying fiction should be easy, just that it (in my opinion) shouldn't be unintelligibly abstruse. Does that sound completely preposterous to you??
Why would anyone want to - that is, why do so few regret doing so - read this book? Again and again I hear/read people saying "don't be alarmed when you don't understand half of it" and "it really requires at least two readings, and do yourself the favor of consulting the guide as you plod along". How can you simultaneously say that and think it's a wonderful book?
Or, to put it differently: why do you read fiction? Speaking for myself, my answer would be "to be entertained, somewhat to daydream about something else than my every-day life (not that I don't like that, but I also like diversions); and if I furthermore find myself stopping to reflect on something or other, or come to view some previously held notion differently because of the book, that's delicious icing on the cake".
If I need to work real hard to achieve one or more of these things, then count me out. I have plenty of hard work besides reading books. I read books for pleasure.
Moreover, if in fact I actually want to LEARN something, if erudition rather than entertainment is the goal, then I'll read non-fiction. Why would you go to fiction to learn, before non-fiction?
If you feel more or less that way too, and you didn't just zip through GR, got all/most of it in the first run, and had a blast doing so, and still don't think it's just expensive toilet paper, then please explain it to me? Again, I'm honestly not trying just to point fingers and be like "I like apples and anyone who prefers bananas are jerks"; rather, I'd really like to hear an insightful and enlightening response, also/especially from those who don't agree with my premises for reading fiction (in which case, please explain).
I just don't get it. How can you give a book that didn't quite make sense until you studied it like a rabbi does the Torah five stars?
I'm not saying fiction should be easy, just that it (in my opinion) shouldn't be unintelligibly abstruse. Does that sound completely preposterous to you??
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If I was stuck on a deserted island and allowed one book, it would be Gravity's Rainbow.
I don't think it's meant to be understood; I believe it's meant to be a Tough Mudder course for your language center. A doorstop-sized whonk of impenetrable, backwards-talking, hyperintellectual brain porn.
The way I read it, the imagery and the phrasing appear to transcend the literal meaning of the words. In some sections, the very sounds of the words conjure up their own imagery secondary to, or even at times in contrast with, the meaning of the phrase. As a story, I don't think it's meant to mean anything, except to show what you can do with words. I don't consider it fiction as much as I do a work of art, like a painting that's made up entirely of millimeter-square other paintings.
Mainly, I like to open it to a random passage right as I'm falling asleep and let a few paragraphs be the last thing that I think about. Awesome dreams. YMMV.
I don't think it's meant to be understood; I believe it's meant to be a Tough Mudder course for your language center. A doorstop-sized whonk of impenetrable, backwards-talking, hyperintellectual brain porn.
The way I read it, the imagery and the phrasing appear to transcend the literal meaning of the words. In some sections, the very sounds of the words conjure up their own imagery secondary to, or even at times in contrast with, the meaning of the phrase. As a story, I don't think it's meant to mean anything, except to show what you can do with words. I don't consider it fiction as much as I do a work of art, like a painting that's made up entirely of millimeter-square other paintings.
Mainly, I like to open it to a random passage right as I'm falling asleep and let a few paragraphs be the last thing that I think about. Awesome dreams. YMMV.
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I really enjoyed Gravity's Rainbow. I found is to be more a reflection of the world--through a looking glass--rather than a portrait of the world. It's like looking at one of Picasso's cubist paintings, where the image is seen simultaneously from all sides. I don't believe I understood everything Pynchon was doing with this book, and I have no intention of ever doing so. As was mentioned earlier, if I wanted linear information, I would go to non-fiction. Gravity's Rainbow removes a veil from the world and shows me how it might be... in actuality, abstractly. If that makes any sense.
I thought Pynchon captured the cultural shift that developed in the West post-WWII. The romanticism of good guys and bad guys and the metaphysical forces that guided the two gives way to technological advances, clouded moral lines, unclear villains and heroes, espionage and chaos, heralding the Cold War. And the world was never the same...
I really don't think Gravity's Rainbow lives up to its reputation of impenetrability. You can skim the surface of the novel without getting bogged down in particulars and follow the narrative's breezy thru line, the tragicomic travels of the Fool Tyrone Slothrop. It's one of the funniest novels I've ever read, and despite the criticisms that Pynchon's characters aren't human I actually find the latter half of the novel incredibly sad.
I think this is how it is best enjoyed, as a picaresque satire on one man's helplessness against all the manipulating forces of the modern world - authoritarian governments, militaryindustrial capitalists, psychologists, propagandists, and scientists trying to get inside your head - while coming into contact with a loose, dialectical kind of resistance of partisans, criminals, deserters, and a whole slew more of postwar drifters.
But it is also the novel's unique pleasure that it can be taken slow and examined under a microscope, at which point its narratives and themes seem to become fractal, almost inumerable. It not only explores issues relevant to the modern world, the marriage of industry and the state, the economy of war, the spiritual death of the modern world, racism, insanity ETC ETC but it also has a bafflingly dense self-contained narrative world that can actually be investigated and pulled apart and put into some kind of order.
From my own notes, Slothrop's journey comes at the intersection of the following main arcs:
1 Jamf / IG Farben's conditioning (and surveillance) of Slothrop to Imipolex G which leads to
2 his unique abilities and scientific pursuit by Pointsman
3 and his being put on the trail of the S Gerat by Scammony and Mossmoon as a means of infiltrating the Schwarzkommando
4 Tchitcherine's pursuit of Enzian and eventual revelation of the Rocket State
5 The development of the V2 rocket whose instantaneous death seems to unhinge old world Cause and Effect and usher in a world of statisticians and probabilities
6 Blicero's desire to merge with The System through the ritual firing of rocket 00000
7 Enzian's desire to create a symbolic 00001 as a Counterforce Counterpoint to the 00000 and a means of racial unity
None of which come organically from Slothrop. He is the ultimate pawn, put on an arbitrary search for truth which brings him partial contact but leads him ultimately only downward.
I think this is how it is best enjoyed, as a picaresque satire on one man's helplessness against all the manipulating forces of the modern world - authoritarian governments, militaryindustrial capitalists, psychologists, propagandists, and scientists trying to get inside your head - while coming into contact with a loose, dialectical kind of resistance of partisans, criminals, deserters, and a whole slew more of postwar drifters.
But it is also the novel's unique pleasure that it can be taken slow and examined under a microscope, at which point its narratives and themes seem to become fractal, almost inumerable. It not only explores issues relevant to the modern world, the marriage of industry and the state, the economy of war, the spiritual death of the modern world, racism, insanity ETC ETC but it also has a bafflingly dense self-contained narrative world that can actually be investigated and pulled apart and put into some kind of order.
From my own notes, Slothrop's journey comes at the intersection of the following main arcs:
1 Jamf / IG Farben's conditioning (and surveillance) of Slothrop to Imipolex G which leads to
2 his unique abilities and scientific pursuit by Pointsman
3 and his being put on the trail of the S Gerat by Scammony and Mossmoon as a means of infiltrating the Schwarzkommando
4 Tchitcherine's pursuit of Enzian and eventual revelation of the Rocket State
5 The development of the V2 rocket whose instantaneous death seems to unhinge old world Cause and Effect and usher in a world of statisticians and probabilities
6 Blicero's desire to merge with The System through the ritual firing of rocket 00000
7 Enzian's desire to create a symbolic 00001 as a Counterforce Counterpoint to the 00000 and a means of racial unity
None of which come organically from Slothrop. He is the ultimate pawn, put on an arbitrary search for truth which brings him partial contact but leads him ultimately only downward.
Goose wrote: "Seriously: I'm not trying to be sarcastic or antagonistic; I'm genuinely nonplussed.
Why would anyone want to - that is, why do so few regret doing so - read this book? Again and again I hear/read ..."
I think we all have had reactions like the one you've described, to various things -- art, media, entertainment (TV, movies etc.), books.
When I find myself in the state you've expressed, sometimes I ask myself, "what would I like to know about the story, it's characters etc.?" What is the text examining that I too am interested in? I then look into the text for those answers (and sometimes out of the text, biographies, criticism -- though this last one is always a last measure). If I cannot answer that question, then I turn the questioning inward and I ask myself to identify what I don't like about the book -- why is it difficult to find meaning, why I am not connecting, what would it take for me to find meaning in a story, or even life for that matter?
At the end of the day, one aspect of any story (and in particular, for me, this book) is the experience reading/viewing it. Like food, sometimes things just aren't to our "taste" and the above questions fall flat. In fact, I would say this is the case for most people with most art ! At least, like all art/artifacts of creation, it will (very likely) exist if you find your curiosity bubbling back up as you move through life !
I used to find no meaning with most history, in high school ("What's the point?"), but now, most questions I find intriguing are -- at least, partly -- historical in nature.
Anyway, I know it's been 2 1/2 years since your question so here's a boon from the future !
Read more, Corona less.
-Bryan
Why would anyone want to - that is, why do so few regret doing so - read this book? Again and again I hear/read ..."
I think we all have had reactions like the one you've described, to various things -- art, media, entertainment (TV, movies etc.), books.
When I find myself in the state you've expressed, sometimes I ask myself, "what would I like to know about the story, it's characters etc.?" What is the text examining that I too am interested in? I then look into the text for those answers (and sometimes out of the text, biographies, criticism -- though this last one is always a last measure). If I cannot answer that question, then I turn the questioning inward and I ask myself to identify what I don't like about the book -- why is it difficult to find meaning, why I am not connecting, what would it take for me to find meaning in a story, or even life for that matter?
At the end of the day, one aspect of any story (and in particular, for me, this book) is the experience reading/viewing it. Like food, sometimes things just aren't to our "taste" and the above questions fall flat. In fact, I would say this is the case for most people with most art ! At least, like all art/artifacts of creation, it will (very likely) exist if you find your curiosity bubbling back up as you move through life !
I used to find no meaning with most history, in high school ("What's the point?"), but now, most questions I find intriguing are -- at least, partly -- historical in nature.
Anyway, I know it's been 2 1/2 years since your question so here's a boon from the future !
Read more, Corona less.
-Bryan
Thanks for your question. I’ve read it twice, and I read the companion twice.
Here’s why: because it’s worth it. The writer has something to say. There are many books that are easier, and more entertaining. This one is not like that.
There is comedy, it’s very clever, but the real reason is all the themes. They are ahead of their time. It’s hard to make sense of. It makes you think about the themes
Here’s why: because it’s worth it. The writer has something to say. There are many books that are easier, and more entertaining. This one is not like that.
There is comedy, it’s very clever, but the real reason is all the themes. They are ahead of their time. It’s hard to make sense of. It makes you think about the themes
I read this one in the 1970s and I believe it was one of the first books I set aside in disgust, unfinished. Though I hated "Catcher in the Rye," I at least finished it. But GR... what a pile of nothing! If there is some deep inner meaning to the guy who lived in the furnace room, and had to space out his masturbation sessions, well it must be really deep because I couldn't find it. And I think that where I gave up.
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