Evan’s Reviews > Gravity’s Rainbow > Status Update

Never dreamed I'd be able to to follow this book, but so far I am. Reading lotsa tough ones in succession has heightened the awareness. In any case, this is prime time for heightened awareness, innit? When they want the ones with heightened awareness dead. Pynchon is telling us in 1973 what's going on right now.

Outside shot to make it to page 100 today but just stopped short. Book is getting dense now.

Crutchfield seems partly a model for Judge Holden in McCarthy's Blood Meridian, but chatGPT tells me that's not the case. But here's where the human mind prevails over AI. The mind virus will not take me. So, we're in the first infamous scatological passage of the book. Naturally I was eating breakfast while reading it. haha. I'm following this blend of fantasy and "reality" somehow. Onward.

Three times farther into this than I've ever gotten before, so the mo' is rolling. A crazed state of being is the state to be in, for this.

Getting to the experimentation part of the book and the parallels to our current AI-technocratic-autocratic era could not be clearer. Pynchon is very prescient here.

Book's getting a bit fuzzy, but still following it well enough. The impeccable writing helps. Reference to an entourage of little people showmen make for an odd intersection with The Tin Drum, which I just read. Fascinating serendipity. Combination of blood thinners, cigars (nicotine) and unusually good cheap wine making the words sing; a combination of downers that even Hunter Thompson never dreamed of. Onward.

Merrily rolling along now. Reading this aloud is quite a pleasure. It helps greatly that I understand all the references. Life-long learning, people.

OK. Tommy boy Pynchon, I think I have you now. Reading Gaddis, Grass and Burroughs in advance have burst you wide open for me. Those guys may have been the key to prep me. This is now EASY?, somehow, and for the first time I'm actually enjoying this thing. Even laughing here and there. The writing is unparalleled. I haven't lost the thread yet, but it is early on. Good cardiology report today, so that helps.

I have started and quit this novel so many times I feel I should be able to recite the opening pages from memory. Glutton for punishment as I am, and having notched three other gnarly behemoths in a row, let's go for it! Can we finally do this, this year? I just bought a pristine copy for $11 at Half Price Books. That's a motivator.

Gonna bail, again. Maybe try again in the year 3000.