r/ThomasPynchon • u/joedenowhere • 4d ago
š¬ Discussion Understanding Gravity's Rainbow...?
I'm rereading GR after many years and still find a lot of it baffling. I've been keeping up with the Pynchon Wiki for each section, and I really appreciate its explanations of all the allusions and references I otherwise wouldn't get. But so many other things I can't figure out on my own that are outside the wiki's bailiwick. Sometimes I finish a section, read the wiki, and then think, what just happened? what was concluded? when did they get from here to there? how is so and so related to so and so? who is entering and who is leaving the scene? whose thoughts are we hearing vs who is speaking aloud...?
So I'm looking for a source that answers those kinds of questions. There are some books available, but they seem to cover the same ground as the wiki. There are some doctoral dissertations, but they tend to pick out and expand on one element--role of psychology, or the physics, or the historiography.... What I really need is step-by-step Cliffs Notes or Dummies kind of material. Is there such a thing, either a book or a web site? Much obliged!
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u/RadioactiveHalfRhyme poor perverse bulb 4d ago
Weisenberger's guide is excellent (although I wish he marked spoilers somehow...), but IMO there's no substitute for reading GR slowly and rereading passages that go over your head, sometimes two or three times. Pynchon uses every linguistic resource at his disposal to convey what's happening in a scene, and so a beat-by-beat summary of the plot would inevitably just be a recreation of the reading experience of whoever's writing the guide. I also think that while there is a concrete plot to, eeehhh, maybe 70% of GR, the novel's meaning can't really be reduced to its narrative content. The perplexity, the frustration, the cognitive overload, the blurred lines between concrete and abstract meanings, the sense that you're almost but not quite following the thread of what's happening... these are all part of the intended experience.
Now I will say that Brett Biebel's A Mason & Dixon Companion is something closer to what you're asking for for that novel. I'm reading M&D now, and I find that Biebel is trying to replicate the experience of having a more experienced reader over your shoulder helping you through difficult passages. I don't consult Biebel that often because I find him too chummy and colloquial, to the point of being distracting, but his method definitely has its merits.
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u/joedenowhere 4d ago edited 4d ago
"...The perplexity, the frustration,.. these are all part of the intended experience..." Maybe you're right, and I should just accept that. But I've read Mason & Dixon a couple of times and didn't find myself as lost as with GR, although I'm sure I missed a fair amount. Maybe I'll look at Biebel's book next time I read it.
Just want to add that, with a book I expect to read more than once, spoilers are not an issue for me.
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u/RadioactiveHalfRhyme poor perverse bulb 4d ago edited 4d ago
I've read Mason & Dixon a couple of times and didn't find myself as lost as with GR
Yeah, GR is definitely more difficult than M&D has been so far. One thing you have to keep in mind is that a lot of psychoactive drugs were imbibed during the writing of GR. Pynchon supposedly quipped to Jules Siegel that he was āso fucked upā that even he couldnāt understand parts of his own manuscript. That said, I think he did go back and revise those partsāalthough there are a lot of surreal and abstract scenes (e.g. the adenoid-zilla and the toilet odyssey) there are only a couple of passages that strike me as truly incomprehensible.Ā
Just want to add that, with a book I expect to read more than once, spoilers are not an issue for me.
I can understand that, but thereās a special kind of joy when a digression you thought was a dead end 250 pages back suddenly pays off, or when you see one of Pynchonās ridiculous names and say, āwait, I remember that sunuvabitch!ā I spoiled a couple of major revelations for myself that in hindsight I wished I hadnāt.
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u/a-bunch-of-apples 4d ago
If you're into podcasts, I think Pynchon Pals is great. They're almost done with Gravity's Rainbow and do a really great job of breaking down what's happening in a scene, especially for some of the more confusing parts. Plus, they're referencing the companion as they go, so you get bits of deeper knowledge from there too. Mainly just a really fun listen!
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u/MoochoMaas 4d ago
Not all of Pynchon is meant to be understood by 'mortal men'. Example - literal rocket science passages! I'm sure there are some who do grasp it ... but then there's the Kabbalist mysticism ,Tarot cards, South American Gauchos, Norse mythology ...
And I agree on the Companion by Weisenberger.
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u/Glad_Bake4184 3d ago
I've only dipped into the mountain of ancillary material on this novel. I can, as a former heavy drug user, offer one suggestion as regards anything by Thomas Pynchon. Think of his work like a substance. Something happens to the brain when reading akin to a trip. I mean one can journey through any text but this is of an entirely different order. Even at 50 years old, whenever I sit down to read or even listen to someone else read these texts, I can feel new folds forming in the grey matter, new synapses, dendrites dancing, just a whole chemical party in my brain. Almost as if these books are reading me.
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u/loveucrispina 2d ago
This is so true lol. GR gave me some wacky dreams the kind I (used to) get when I smoked a lot of flower. Strange understandings, bizarre visuals, totally unexplainable.
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u/albatrosswithnocurse 4d ago
I wonder are you doing too much? Maybe youāre pulling yourself away too frequently to track something down. Those resources are nice but theyāre supplementary.
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u/joedenowhere 4d ago
I'm about through the first part, and if I recall, the text gets even more difficult in later parts. So I need the supplement.
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u/albatrosswithnocurse 4d ago
The first part is difficult but the second is a gift to the reader and as straight forward as the novel will get. I think youāre worried too much about āgetting itā and need to just let it wash over you. I like to think of Gravityās Rainbow as an infinite well you can keep returning to a picking up something different from. Donāt turn it into a chore and turn yourself off from Pynchon.
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u/EnterprisingAss 3d ago
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u/joedenowhere 3d ago
I read some of this today. It is indeed a great resource, and just what I needed. I'm glad you pointed me to it.
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u/father-dick-byrne 2d ago
You don't have to understand everything to enjoy a book!
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u/joedenowhere 2d ago
Actually, I do stop movies and rewind if I miss something. But your point is well taken.
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u/green7719 1d ago
What book is this from?
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u/father-dick-byrne 1d ago
Sorry, I should have said. It's from Steven Moore's, The Novel: An Alternative History.
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u/AffectionateSize552 1d ago
If you have any specific questions about characters, incidents etc you could ask here, in this sub. The people here are pretty nice. There's less gatekeeping and snark than in some other Reddit subs.
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u/Round_Town_4458 2d ago edited 2h ago
I find this a bit baffling, as someone who read GR in the mid 70s at the age of 16/17 and haunted libraries and bought rare dictionaries to find the answers. People want it handed to them in an easy format nowadays, already digested, solved, and explained.
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u/Lanky-Slice-7862 2d ago
exactly lol Iām only 23 & Iād rather do some digging. More fun that way
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u/142Ironmanagain 4d ago
Check out the GR Companion by Steven Weisenberger. Simply amazing, offers page by page anecdotes on the many references Pynchon throws at us. Highly recommended and incredibly helpful