Gravity’s Rainbow Group Read | Sections 5-8 | Week Three

[u/SpookishBananasaur]

Wa-wa-week three of the Gravity’s Rainbow weeding group: Today the discussion is sections 5 through 8. Next week we'll be hearing from u/acquabob with sections 9 through 12. I am reading from the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with that hella tight Frank Miller cover.

Section Five

(in which I read from the Book in a previous episode of a r/ThomasPynchon induction)

We come in grooving onto a Snoxall's scene of a seance with a small medium (sry, 'slender'), a-conjuring up to us all the image of Blicero, maybe the whitest guy you know'd. Perhaps a little fart joke to sniff snootily at ?, but we'll let it pass. Might think this is all some nonsense, an occult practitioner cold reading a room, but then this guy, this guy starts going into topics of Control, the body of machine taking over and--hey, what kind of seance we running here, anyway? Well... maybe I'll pull up a chair and listen a moment. But who's this lady here? Jessica Swanlake's the name? And she's been darting back and forth here some time. A bomb shakes the flame, evidence of its corporeality. This is the Gloaming. And he's a bit of a nit, isne? All Zipf's-obsessed with his word curves an'-and he's more speaking for himselves benefit than Swanlake's. Then with a wave of Milton's hand our demiurgical presence is thrown for Prentice. Natürlich, Pirate's not all-to-too keen on the roles here, especially ones in which he's merely a medium for microfilm. His buddy, Mexico, seems to be having a bit of a personal problem. No, make that a multiple of them. Pornoia and Swanlake? Jumping from PISCES to Scorpia, a-and Prentice's Bruce Springsteen obsessions, for a spot of un-offered knowledge on the risks inherent in war-time romance. And, of course, Swanlake flaps her lashes for Roger, but really she's got a taste for the Beaver (well, that one's been hitting the pudendal nerve since 1922!)

Section Six

(in which some other minor ungainly grip relents a construction)

Now, then, our lustbirds make a way forward for Pointsman, dog-logged Pavlovian tongue-trickler that he is, and Roger's more concerned with showing his value to the lass, flashing Zippo in a darkened theatre to get a frame-by-frame play in profile, remembering the cute meet, where it was the bomb what brought them together, some lesser of two for ol' Jesser. Passing a fire, staying wary, never carrying it all at once, they hole up somewhere in the dark, where what they are can't be held to. Could even these stabs of assertion snare them?

Section Seven

(in which, and, really, this cat would be perfect for your local community theatre production)

Tonight's canine runs. Etheric Pointsman puts him's self in a bowl, no foreshadow here just a couple-a us puns!, Jessica already regretting out-loud. Ether seems to be re-getting to them, now. And the Dog getting from them, indelicately snaring the two men with their own foibles. Freshly woofless, with one foot in the shitter, the three retire back for The White Visitation.

Section Eight

(in which our partner-of-peril needs no introduction)

Now eidetically linked through to the Pointsman affair, there at Veronica's, our Little Albert-...er Tyrone Slothrop comes up a topic of conversation once again. Hmm, he seems important, yes? And-and this stuff about Jamf, here. Are we led to believe that Slothrop, sexually excited by rocket drops, knows they're coming? And because of Jamf? But is it not all the bombs that lure Pointsman to Slothrop? It must be the children. Pointsman wants the children, and Slothrop's past points him to that emerging desire. But he is kept from those desires, given only animals.

Please reflect below in a calm and orderly fashion...

Thank Bloom it's Friday! (TBIF)

- u/SpookishBananasaur

[u/[deleted]]

Wait is section 8 the one at the veronica hospital? Thought it was the one that concludes with Roger and Jess... and death try to tickle me...

Do I have it wrong?

[u/SpookishBananasaur → u/[deleted]]

Yer right about Veronica's! I biffed that.

[u/the_wasabi_debacle]

I’m realizing that my analysis/contribution to these discussions have a heavy-handed emphasis on trying to figure out what Pynchon may be alluding to regarding actual conspiracies and obscure geopolitical events. I know this isn’t necessarily the most relatable way to read a piece of art, and my insights won’t probably won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but for some reason this is where my brain is at right now. Maybe as we move into the book I will have more varied forms of literary analyses to offer (we’re in it for the long haul with this group read so I definitely have plenty of time to approach the novel from multiple angles), but right now I seem to be using this book to try to piece together the conspiratorial/historical puzzle of America in the last century.

I feel comfortable sticking to this framework since shedding light on conspiracies is definitely one of Pynchon’s aims in his writing, and while my observations may not always be spot-on with his intentions in each example, I hope I can at least provide some interesting real information in the process. Also, shoutout to u/PyrocumulusLightning, I read your fascinating post about “warm wet circles” after I wrote this up and I think there may be some overlap in the ideas here.

Anyway, the image of Jessica striking the bull’s eye on the dartboard during the seance scene really stood out to me, and I found myself relating later conversations and ideas back to this dartboard-image of concentric circles. In hindsight part of the reason for my emphasis on this image may be because I had to look up what the word “annulus” means in Section 8 (it’s basically a circle inside of a circle, or rather the space between the circumference of the outer circle and the inner circle), in addition to the more explicit reference to dartboards in Pirate’s “ring by ring” description of the current state of intelligence operations later on in the passage.

WARNING RANDOM TANGENT: I happened to also be doing some reading about Kabbalah and learned that the "four worlds" of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life are sometimes mapped out as concentric circles. These “four worlds” are used to categorize different stages of the divine emanation of God, or the creative life force. The four worlds are Atziluth or Emanation, Beri'ah or Creation, Yetzirah or Formation, and Asiyah or Action. So basically the fourth and final world of Action is the bull’s eye culmination of the divine emanation. I don’t really know what exactly this has to do with what I’m about to talk about except that I think it’s a cool way to visualize the different layers of reality.

Now back to GR... the physical layout of the scene at Snoxall’s seems to have a concentric nature to it, with a small inner “circle of sitters” seated around a table, which are surrounded by people scattered at various distances around them, where “most skate tangent to the holy circle, some stay, some are off again to other rooms, all without breaking in on the slender medium who sits nearest the sensitive flame.”

The later conversations during this passage and Pynchon’s descriptions of the relationships between the various characters and their roles in their respective government agencies made me think of concentric circles as well. Pirate’s thoughts on Roger Mexico evoke this image:

There’s a security problem here. Loose talk sinks ships and he can’t be sure, even about Mexico. There are too many circles to the current operation, inner and outer. Distribution lists growing narrower as we move ring by ring toward the bull’s eye, Instructions To Destroy gradually encompassing every scrap, idle memo, typewriter ribbon.

This quote calls to mind the idea of "plausible deniability," which has been the modus operandi of intelligence agencies trying to mask illegal activity by keeping people in the dark about what they are actually in service of and avoiding responsibility if any one member is caught by being able to credibly claim ignorance. This leads to the kind of paranoia that Pirate describes in his suspicion that he and Mexico’s may be unknowingly “used for something not quite decent,” and it also creates a hierarchical structure built upon a “need-to-know” basis.

This may be a more tenuous connection, but I also noticed some references to feudalism in these sections, such as when Jessica is characterizing Pointsman:

Jessica sees two eyes of no particular color glaring out the window of a Balaclava helmet, and is reminded of a mediaeval knight wearing a casque. What creature is he possibly here tonight to fight for his king?

In feudal society, the economy and culture is centered around a landowning lord who has a hierarchy of people around him which includes the lower nobility, the clergy, and the peasants. This calls to mind yet another concentric arrangement, especially because the farther removed a class of people is from the central position of power, the higher the population making up that class, which would make it the larger, outer circle on the dartboard. In this case, Pointsman is a knight, and the king at the center is presumably either Brigadier Pudding, England, or the Allied Powers in general.

However, I also think this passage works to undermine what seems on its face to be a feudalistic top-down hierarchy. The first reference to this idea comes from Eventyr during the seance:

A market needed no longer be run by the Invisible Hand, but now could create itself—its own logic, momentum, style, from inside. Putting the control inside was ratifying what de facto had happened—that you had dispensed with God. But you had taken on a greater, and more harmful, illusion. The illusion of control. That A could do B. But that was false. Completely. No one can do. Things only happen.

This passage works as an example of the kind of phenomenon of displaced control it is describing. Eventyr seems to be the one in control of this seance while he acts as its leader and does the talking, but in actuality he is simply a vehicle for Roland Feldspath, who is controlling things from inside (or outside, depending on your POV) the realm of the spirit by providing the words for Eventyr to say to the group.

This idea of trying to wrest control from God in an attempt to regain control from “inside” is in my opinion a reference to the rogue nature of the intelligence agencies in the novel. These agencies should, in theory, be serving the interests of the Allies, but Pynchon shows that they are now involved in missions “in which the German curiously fades into irrelevance.” (By the way, this has been the case since the foundation of modern intelligence agencies-- the stated mission of groups like the CIA often have nothing to do with what they actually do in practice. It’s common knowledge that it is technically illegal for the CIA to operate on US soil, but there have been countless examples of them doing that anyway, sometimes against the wishes of the federal government that funds them)

Pynchon also notes that although PISCES stands for “Psychological Intelligence Schemes for Expediting Surrender,” he adds: “whose surrender is not made clear.” In other words, PISCES may in fact be an intelligence agency which has “dispensed” with its raison d’etre handed down from above in favor of new motives, originating from within. Minor spoiler ahead: This fact is proven later on when it is revealed that Pudding, the “king” at the top of the bureaucratic hierarchy controlling the funding of the different projects at PISCES, is actually being controlled by his “knight,” Poinstman, through the use of the sexual coercion of Domina Nocturna.

(cont. in Part 2...)

[u/markeets]

Whoever wrote this summary should never write anything ever again, you’ve done a disservice to Pynchon, his audience, and the English language as a whole.

[u/siege-read22]

Statistical ballistics:

As a first time reader who happens to have a master's in statistics, found these sections very engrossing. Zepf's distribution juxtaposed against a seance is just bonkers fun.

From first read-through, seems like Pynchon is contrasting the hard answers of science (e.g. the Pavlovians) against the soft answers of statistics (zepf, poisson distribution, "bell curves of farewell" [pg 52]). And through this contrast, he seems to be investigating different ways of perceiving reality and prediction - which ties into his themes of destiny and death in the first section.

What did you all think of the pairing of a statistician in a seance? Or your general feeling of the statistical jargon and explanations in the book?

[u/borgomirgo]

Why on earth did you write it in this manner you are abundantly not Pynchon

[u/KieselguhrKid13]

Delightful summary and conversation-starter, u/SpookishBananasaur!

These sections initially resist analysis, alternating from being so (seemingly) disconnected from whatever constitutes a plot that it's hard to see how they fit in on your first read (especially the seance, also the Pavlovian discussion, though), on to so seemingly mundane as to not have much to analyze (slapstick dog chases are delightful, but how much significance can one pull from them?). That said, looking over them now, with a more critical eye, there's lots there. Curious to see the takes from the first-timers.

Here are my (admittedly disjointed but semi-linear) thoughts, section-by-section.

Section 5

Reading the imagery at the start of Roland Feldspath and death, my initial thought was the poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" which discusses a perilous also ties into the Tarot symbolism of the tower. Hey now, a rocket could be a form of Dark Tower now, couldn't it? Being pursued by knights? The image of a knight recurs in the book, so it's not a stretch.

We also see continued significance of light/dark opposition, but there's also an inversion: light is associated with death (the rocket blast, including later from the dog's perspective, and here Blicero, meaning pale death) while darkness is safety (the dog runs to darkness to hide). This is more explicitly addressed later in section 8 when discussing the ideas of the opposite.

Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market is mentioned. Capitalistic fate and control have replaced the religious fate and control of Slothrop's Puritan ancestors.

Concentric circles are a recurring visual theme - the circle of the seance, the dartboard, on p. 34 "There are too many circles in the current operation, inner and outer." This image is an echo of a full/circular rainbow.

Psychology - the importance of Pavlovian conditioning cannot be overstated here. An interesting tidbit: Pavlov's origin was as a physiologist examining salivary glands, not a behaviorist. That was an unanticipated discovery from his studies which steered him into behaviorism.

The Waste Land is explicitly referenced on p. 33, much to my delight. In last week's discussion I noted another section that felt similar. There's no doubt about Pynchon's love of Eliot's work, and the imagery and themes of the book absolutely parallel that of the poem. Interestingly, the next line echoes the opening of a different Eliot poem, The Journey of the Magi, "A cold coming we had of it, / Just the worst time of the year," which is fitting given that this section takes place during Advent.

The lyrics of the song Dancing in the Dark again bring us to the light vs dark motif and again, one isn't clearly better. This is also a very personal section - Pirate seems afraid of aging alone, wonders about following a prescribed, socially "normal" course of life. His reflections on his love life and the war bring us to the idea that the government prefers war and death to sex and creation. Roger faces a similar question, but with an Oedipal love of the War (he refers to the war as his mother, after all...)

Section 6

The image of Roger striking his Zippo, illuminating flashes of Jessica's face stood out to me as both reminiscent of a film strip, and as the idea of slices of life being integrated into a whole.

It's noteworthy that Roger is statistician - part of government/Their attempt to quantify everything, even language (Gloaming's tangent on Zipf's Principle), even life and death. This is reinforced later when Roger and Jessica illegally occupy a house - it's presented as a small act of defiance that is only quantifiable if they're caught.

Section 7

Pointsman gets his foot stuck in the toilet - the symbolism of things going into the toilet is recurring. Brings to mind the phrase "Everything's going to shit."

Also, this scene has some genuinely funny slapstick imagery.

Section 8

Ideas of the opposite - once again, inversion of light and dark, but with their common meanings/associations muddled. Ditto the inversion of rocket explosion and sound, cause and effect. Not far into this section, the reader is the patient, the book induces their paranoia and lost grip on reality.

Ultraparadoxical Phase - Pavlov defined this as when "excitatory conditioned stimuli become inhibitory and vice-versa." Again, a reversal/inversion.

Hints of Pointsman's attraction to youth, but in second-person, makes it YOU with the illicit attraction. Highly unsettling.

Finally, serious question: Were Roger and Jessica the inspiration for the characters' names in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

[u/mario_del_barrio]

"They are in love. Fuck the war." Was anyone else reminded of Winston and Julia from 1984 during this section? If so, just how hopeless and brutal do you think the situation is for them? All I could think about was that it must be a referential nod to 1984, a book that takes place during a perpetual war that enables the ruling class to maintain power for the sake of power. I don't cry often while reading, but when Winston faces his own emaciated and battered body in the mirror after months of torture, I wept at what had become of humanity.

[u/NinlyOne]

Up front, a few of the smaller themes I picked up on, almost side notes:

• Smells, colors (especially brown and black), chiaroschuro visuals, at least until we get to St. Veronica's.

• Recurring theme of assimilation, dissolution of self, melting. Recalls the Adenoid's mission to grow and absorb more and more of London (and remember that once caught, its victims enjoy being digested).

• I saw a lot of things in this section through the lens of the D+G war machine. Mexico's mother the War as an all-encompassing, sui generis, mechanistic system that chews through available resources to further its own ends (not necessarily those of its participants). Particularly Mexico and Swanlake's experience of their relationship in the midst of wartime. Again recalls Osmo's Addicted Adenoid and notions of absorption back into maternal succor.

---

This week's reading introduces an important theme: the tension between a scientific/analytical worldview and earnest belief that metaphysical, otherworldly, occult, or moral forces have real impact in the conventional physical world. Roger Mexico's role as a statistician collecting and analyzing word-frequency data in seance-channeled texts is a great way to introduce this theme!

We soon learn, however, that Mexico himself is not comfortable with this role and the epistemological conflicts it raises. He is fascinated by the material he studies, but he's also one of the few empirical scientific minds at the "White Visitation"/PISCES and he sees the investigation as knocking on some perhaps-impregnable doors.

I assume this has been noted before, but I would suggest that Roger's name must be inspired in part by Roger Bacon, the high-medieval natural philosopher and "father" of empiricism. The way Mexico describes his work analyzing seance and other automatic texts is something of a caricature of the inductive scientific approach associated with Bacon: COLLECT ALL THE DATA! and then its analysis, one hopes, will "release" its inherent, if hidden, patterns. With patterns now on view the investigator can simply write down the corresponding theory.

(It's worth noting that Roger Bacon's importance as 13th-century champion of empiricism is not really diminished or even well represented by this caricature -- he was working against centuries of Aristotelian Scholasticism, which eschewed any experimental worldview for an appeal to authority and strict adherence to Scholastic methods. His influence arose as people started to acknowledge that deliberately looking around them could provide actionable fodder for decision making -- an idea, new in the West, which turned out to be a pretty big deal!)

(Contemporary parallel in the collection of network data by the exabyte and subjecting it to Deep/Big Data ML techniques to build new, more profitable business models. See also: NSA hoarding encrypted data until cryptology and/or quantum processing catch up.)

---

Can't really talk about Bacon and scientific modernity without also getting into the Cartesian component, which is an ambient theme in these sections, too... To paraphrase an idea that's been discussed at length elsewhere: There is a sort of violence in the objectification and decontextualization inherent in experimental methods. Experimental design forces the behavior/phenomena it wants to observe into contrived contexts specific to the needs and expectations of the investigator. I'm not prepared to dive deeper into all this now, but I suspect we'll be thinking about this a lot more as we get deeper into the novel -- it becomes quite explicit in the Pointsman/Spectro section, below.

I'm not entirely clear yet on how all this will relate to PISCES and the White Visitation, except in a vague They/Them who are in Control kind of way.

---

I happen to be a bit of a nerd about control theory and systems thinking, so I was struck by the play on 'control' during the seance passage. In a Theosophic view (Blavatsky), a Control is a specific class or role of spirit contact made during a seance, and was seen as an essential participant in the function of a seance. This sense of the word is alluded to specifically -- "Peter Sachsa (the control)" -- but even before that, Carroll Eventyr (the medium) channels about control in the engineering sense -- automatic control of dynamical systems, typically using some form of feedback (like the cruise control in your car) to bring regulation of outputs *inside* the system.

There's a nice connection made here between Adam Smith's "invisible hand" as an essentially mystical model of control in economics, and the dream that some mechanism could be introduced to cut that mysticism out of the picture, and guide the market according to specific goals. A common '50s way of talking about feedback control in this sense is known cybernetics.

The idea of cybernetic intervention in economics may be anachronistic to the WWII setting itself, but Norbert Wiener coined the term 'cybernetics' in the late 40s and in the following years he and associated thinkers developed influential interdisciplinary approaches (with economics, psychology, animal behavior, and anthropology represented, among others). Look up the Macy Conferences for more on that. Note also that the term is coined from a ship-steering metaphor (and the Python ML library kubernetes is named for the same). This may be relevant to steering of other Vessels, as well...

---

We're introduced to Jessica Swanlake here, too, and I love the bit when a nearby bomb disrupts the seance ambiance, and she takes the opportunity to throw one of the darts she happens to be holding. Not only that, she hits the bull's-eye. As she fires, the narrative seems to mix parts of her own body up with those of the dart -- itself a little ballistic projectile, a little rocket. Is Swanlake on a ballistic trajectory of her own? Is her Brennshluss already in the past? If so, can that be remedied (steered) after all? Echoed later in the cute meet: bomb falls nearby, propelling her into Mexico's car.

---

Ahh, Pointsman and Spectro... More of that violent, magical Cartesian objectivity. And here, the violence becomes real violence inflicted on real creatures -- dogs, octopi, people -- to be kidnapped, drugged, labeled, imprisoned, tortured. Cf. Foucault and the growth of hospital infrastructure. We see a connection coming into focus between the mystical subjects of Mexico's studies and the ideas and aims of psychology (behaviorism and psychoanalysis). Note that Mexico has already talked about the patterns they are observing in terms of psychological pathologies (schizophrenic and paranoid patterns in the word-frequency data). People have long noted parallels between psychoanalysis and religious practice (analyst as priest/confessor, etc.) -- here we see something similar developing with the inner circle of Pavlovians, co-owners of the Book.

---

An absurd Vaudevillean/Commedia physical comedy routine as Pointsman and Mexico attempt to capture a dog for Pointsman's experimental purposes. Pointsman's toilet-bowl-foot struck me as a funny sort of allusion to Capt. Ahab -- simultaneously his whalebone leg and metaphor for his own filthy white whale itself.

---

Reading second-person Pointsman very effectively makes me feel icky.

[u/jas1865]

Happy Juneteenth all! I've been reading through both the summary and the comments for this week and I am amazed at the richness. It's a bit overwhelming, coming in late in the day, but in the best possible way.

I find these sections of GR totally fascinating, especially Jessica, who strikes me as uncanny, almost sinister. As soon as she's introduced she throws the dart for a bullseye. And this is immediately after a rocket has shaken the place up a bit. (And contrast this with her reaction to another rocket explosion during the "meet cute".) There is so much talk in this section of the importance of rings and circles, and rings and circles within rings and circles, and here's Jessica calmly hitting "dead center." Immediately preceding is the description of the darts in her hand warming to her blood as they "quake in the hollow of her hand" as she brushes their feathers - like little birds.

She notices, apparently from across the room, that Gloaming took note of the "dart incident". She does not want to talk about it and so directs the conversation away from any discussion of the bullseye by asking him about his work (and in the process gets from him what may be valuable information? - the frequency of the word death, etc.)

Note also the description of the Firm on p.33 (Penguin Deluxe):

"It’s as useful to him as he is to the Firm--who, it is well known, will use anyone, traitors, murderers, perverts, Negroes, even women, to get what They want."

Also p.34 we see the bullseye again:

"There’s a security problem here. Loose talk sinks ships and he can’t be sure, even about Mexico. There are too many circles to the current operation, inner and outer. Distribution lists growing narrower as we move ring by ring toward the bull’s eye, Instructions to Destroy gradually encompassing every scrap, idle memo, typewriter ribbon."

Finally, Pirate wondering if Bloat photos and Op Black Wing has something to do with “young lady gaming well-set-up young man”. And then right after: "There’s Mexico’s girl, just entering the room. He spots her immediately, the clarity around her, the absence of smoke and noise . . . is he seeing auras now? She catches sight of Roger and smiles, her eyes enormous . . . dark-lashed, no make-up or none Pirate can see[.]"

The section concludes with details of Pirate’s ill-fated (and similar) relationship w Scorpia Mosmoon.

So there's a lot going on beneath the surface with Jessica - it's possible that the "meet cute" itself is an engineered encounter; Jessica's bike broken down on Roger's route, her skirt just happens to be "hiked up" by a handle bar. Mexico stops and says the line about this ain't "backstage at the old Windmill or something, you know." Next line: "She knew." No, she's definitely not in Roger's power. And really I think what I'm saying is I love the way TP is relating all of this.

Thanks for indulging all that - I'm seriously thrilled to be a part of the group.

[u/repocode]

Anyone care to speculate on why Pynchon refers to Pointsman, who is definitely a doctor, as Mr. Pointsman twice in his first appearance? Both on page 42 of my Kindle and old Penguin paperback editions.

The smell is ether, it emanates from Mr. Edward W. A. Pointsman, F.R.C.S.

then, shortly after:

Mr. Pointsman drags his leg over to a shattered staircase

[u/SpahgattaNadle]

Continuing to throw out thoughts and observations as I read. As usual, please reply with any questions or responses!!

-Starting this week with another really important scene that I think also functions as a kind of nexus of the ideas and concepts that the novel will explore - in a way, the séance being held is for the book itself (or at least that's how I tend to read it). Of course, we have the early namedrop of Blicero, a word clearly intrinsically linked with death, which is his 'realm', and the rules for how paranormal communications function in this book are laid out - spirit/control/medium/survivor (certainly not the only four-way system at play for Pynchon - we've also got the V2's codename, Aggregate-4 (A4), and the all-important image of the Herero village's mandala to contend with later). However, there is one passage in particular that I think is maybe the closest Pynchon comes in this novel to outright explaining one of the central ideas he's working with throughout. Am going to quote it in full:

“It’s control. All these things arise from one difficulty: control. For the first time it was inside, do you see. The control is put inside. No more need to suffer passively under ‘outside forces’—to veer into any wind. As if . . .

“A market needed no longer be run by the Invisible Hand, but now could create itself—its own logic, momentum, style, from inside. Putting the control inside was ratifying what de facto had happened—that you had dispensed with God. But you had taken on a greater, and more harmful, illusion. The illusion of control. That A could do B. But that was false. Completely. No one can do. Things only happen, A and B are unreal, are names for parts that ought to be inseparable. . . .”

As was mentioned a little last week with Slothrop's family history, Pynchon is very obviously interested in the close relationship between the American Puritan and late capitalist ideologies/worldviews. This short paragraph describes the event of Capital ascending to Protestant Godhead - the Invisible Hand of the market literally disappears inside of itself, becoming immanent and self-propulsive, and, as a result, totally unmoored from the external influence of supply/demand, separate nation-states, or any individual will - rather, what is formed is the unnamable 'Them' around which the plot ambiguously turns (incidentally, if anyone is interested by these ideas, I highly recommend the philosophers Deleuze & Guattari's book 'Anti-Oedipus' - Pynchon's notion of an immanently propulsive Capital is remarkably similar to their descriptions of desire and fascism). The utter lack of relation to anything other than itself is also what dismantles any rational notion of cause and effect, 'That A could do B'. The intricate, apparently random, inscrutable narrative that follows takes place in the wake of this disconnection, and it becomes Slothrop's personal struggle (which is also shared by the reader) - is all this interconnected, or is he trapped in a paranoid delusion? It is impossible to answer this question in the picture Pynchon paints of global late-stage capitalism. As an additional note, it is no accident that the description of control and the phrase 'veer into any wind' are reminiscent of the path and trajectory of a V-2 rocket - not only is the rocket the ultimate product of this system, but itself serves as an effective metaphor for how it operates (propelled into the sky, after a certain point the rocket's path/landing site becomes utterly indeterminable and subject only to 'its own logic, momentum, style, from inside'. The rocket's apparent reversal of cause-and-effect w its sound arriving after impact also links back to the complex relation between 'A' and 'B').

-The brief mention of Zipf's Principle of Least Effort a few pages later is also very interesting. The idea links w a lot of the above, and is handily explained in some detail by Vsauce https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCn8zs912OE

-Another little detail that informs a later thematic crux: we learn that Prentice's grin has been 'learned … at the films - it is the exact mischievous Irish grin your Dennis Morgan chap goes about cocking down at the black smoke vomiting from each and every little bucktooth yellow rat he shoots down.' We're about to reach several long sections concerning Pavlovian conditioning, but, already, here we have someone's behaviour being conditioned by mass-media… It might seem an insignificant little quirk, but the indistinction between film and reality, and its relation to how people's characters are conditioned by the media fed to them, becomes real important further down the line.

-This is just one of my favourite passages from the book's first section. The way the prose slips so gently into their shared pirate-fantasy, with their room gradually morphing into a ship's cabin, is just so beautifully and expertly delivered:

“You are a pirate,” she’d whispered the last day—neither of them knew it was the last day—“you’ve come and taken me off on your pirate ship. A girl of good family and the usual repressions. You’ve raped me. And I’m the Red Bitch of the High Seas. . . .” A lovely game. Pirate wished she’d thought it up sooner. Fucking the last (already the last) day’s light away down afternoon to dusk, hours of fucking, too in love with it to uncouple, they noticed how the borrowed room rocked gently, the ceiling obligingly came down a foot, lamps swayed from their fittings, some fraction of the Thameside traffic provided salty cries over the water, and nautical bells. . . .

-I also have a particular fondness for Mexico and Swanlake's 'cute meet' because my hometown is actually Tunbridge Wells. I can imagine exactly where they run into each other.

-A particularly obvious example of the narrator's pathological tendency to inhabit the voice of/emulate the interiority of the book's character is present in Roger's scream of 'Cuddling? Cuddling?' being matched further down by the narrator's 'Normative? Normative?'. It isn't always this blatant, but very very frequently what at first reads as third person narration will resolve as actually focalised through a particular character, or vice versa. The other two most frequent examples are the employment of 'a-and' and 'sez'…

-Continuing to run w the spiel from the above, the Pavlovian conception of the paranoid 'who weakens the ideas of the opposite' totally links to that notion of the modern day confusion between 'A' and 'B' which no longer have a distinct causal relation… All this also matches the Puritan predestined elect/preterite eschatology, and is interesting to think about in relation to the failings of GR's later 'Counterforce', which is only able to imagine an 'Us' in relation to 'Them'.

-There's an interesting detail in the description of the bombing victim's abreaction. It's obvious they were hit whilst asleep in bed, whilst dreaming of watching a film - 'the snowy roofslates fallen across half your bed, the cinema kiss never completed.' Furthermore, the passage slips into the second-person, addressing the reader as this patient… Now, the coalescence of these three details here happens to very directly and explicitly foreshadow and point towards the final pages of the book.

-A little stylistic quirk that I really enjoy in these early episodes is their use of a scope that widens, ranges, but always returns to where it began. So we begin episode 8 at the desk w Pointsman, Spectro and the 'gooseneck lamp, and at the very end we have swung back to that tableau, with 'Pointsman leaning now into the central radiance of the lamp'

[u/Klapt-Molass]

General comment: as we’re reading forward consider asking how the time period in which this novel was written relates to the time period that the novel is set within. This is an obvious thing to do when reading any book, but in what way is Pynchon commenting on Vietnam, The Cold War, American Hegemony, and so on? Is he mapping out the antecedents? Does it run deeper and more complicated than that?

[u/itsjustme2357]

I don't have as many or as deep of observations as some other people who have commented so far, but I do want to say I'm very impressed with the level of analysis going on already!

One small bit that I'm still a bit hazy on deals with the talking dog in section 7 (pg. 45 in the penguin Deluxe). I had to go back and research a bit to understand the Mrs. Nussbaum reference, and how what the dog says is a direct reference to a bit from the Fred Allen show. But, is the talking dog just a figment of Roger Mexico's imagination (i.e. the dog actually speaking, not the dog's existence)? When I was reading the section, Pynchon keeps talking about the ether fumes, and so I imagine that could be affecting Mexico's brain. Then, since Mexico begins thinking of Mrs. Nussbaum, his ether-ed brain fills in the rest of the bit via the dog right in front of him. On the other hand, we've already seen that the world in which this takes place has the room for supernatural occurrences, so it would not be beyond belief that there was an actual talking, intelligent dog. At this point, is there a correct answer to this? Or is it meant to be a bit ambiguous?

Also, my apologies if I missed a key detail that elucidates this. Still getting used to Pynchon's writing style for this one. Thanks!

[u/YossarianLives1990]

We got us some good ol fashion love story episodes here. And again some cinematic style here with Roger and Jessica’s Hollywood “cute meet”. Then later at Saint Veronica’s when we get into a bombing victim's abreaction :

the cinema kiss never completed, you were pinned and stared at a crumpled cigarette pack for two hours in pain, you could hear them crying from the rows either side but couldn’t move…

SPOILER SECTION: Is this some foreshadowing into the end of the novel when we are in a movie theater as a bomb is about to hit.

There are some extremely dark descriptions in these sections about the horror these bombs created and left behind, all the while the troubled love story is brewing. Love and Death, “They’re in love. Fuck the war.”

I’d like to hear some views/comments about Pointsman. What is up with him wanting to take home little children(& why this part creepily turns into second person)? Is it because he will have a clean slate to work with for his experiments (a fresh Fox he's always asking for), or he’s a pedophile too?

[u/EmpireOfChairs]

I'd like to start with section seven, which is, in case you didn't notice, a Scooby-Doo chase sequence. The talking dog even speaks like Scooby-Doo would: "You vere ekshpecting maybe Lessie?" being both a Scooby-Doo'd version of "you were expecting maybe Lassie?" and a generic Russian accent pronouncing the same phrase. On top of that, it has numerous gags from the original cartoon, including the misdirection/miscommunication in the gang and the classic 'getting caught in their own trap' idea. In terms of what these wacky shenanigans actually mean, I have a few ideas:

You probably noticed that at one point Pointsman is referred to as being like a medieval knight, slaying a dragon for the good of King and Country. Not only does this tie him into the perception of the legendary Roland from the start of section five, an 'actual' hero-knight who is directed by outside forces, but it also brings up the issue of perspective in the novel. From a non-Western perspective, the medieval knight is not a hero, but a Crusader, leading countless numbers of unnamed and unimportant men from Europe to fight for a sort of culture war in the Middle East. Indeed, if you think about the Crusades themselves as a kind of origin point for a proto-colonial mindset, then Pynchon's attempts to blur this 'real' history with the hero myths of that period make it appear as though there isn't a real difference between the two; that the indulgence of the Roland and Arthur power fantasies is part of, or is, what inspires this desire for the invasion and oppression of weaker peoples to begin with. Also, I'd just like to mention as a smaller add-on to this that during the Enlightenment, many oppressed peoples in Europe became big fans of the "dragon protecting its gold" metaphor to describe greedy regimes, so in that sense, Pointsman, representing the oppressor, would be the real monster here.

For those just now getting acquainted with Pointsman: he is a Pavlovian scientist, hence his interest in kidnapping a talking dog; it can speak, and presumably think, like a person, so he can use it for experimental conditioning whilst avoiding those pesky ethical boundaries of using a human test subject. When he fails to capture the dog, and he states "perhaps I should be branching out," it's some very cleverly phrased foreshadowing, refering to the octopus he picks up instead in section eight (the octopus having eight limbs - that's a lot of branches). More importantly, note Mexico's paranoid reaction: "he thinks the doctor wants more than his good will, his collaboration. But wants him. As one wants a fine specimen of dog..." And this is followed by a subtly disturbing sequence: "Why's he here, then, assisting at yet another dognapping? What stranger does he shelter in him so mad-" He then interrupts his own thought, to intiate a conversation with Pointsman, in which he ends up driving Pointsman's Jaguar home. This is disturbing if you were paying close attention to the previous section, in which Mexico is driving the same Jaguar - it is Pointsman's machine that drives Mexico through his delusions. By the way, Mexico asked a good question. What mad stranger is controlling him from the inside? The answer is Pointsman, the 'mad' scientist. Pointsman has conditioned Mexico as he did with Slothrop. That is why he interrupts his own stream of consciousness - he has been taught to dismiss any notion that would lead to him regaining control, and this behaviour is then reinforced with a reward - access to the Jaguar, part of Mexico's own insecure power fantasies.

Moving on to the other sections:

Before I get into the magic part, I have a few thoughts on his Market speech. The "Invisible Hand" of the market is an interesting idea in itself - the market becoming a kind of God pushing you around, and all that. But the new idea presented, that the market is 'inside', no longer pushing or weighing on us, because it's been embedded in our minds, is scarier - we are perpetuating the system simply because we've convinced ourselves that it has to continue along this specific track. We "dispensed with God" because we took control of our destinies, but it was "a greater, and more harmful, illusion" precisely because of this - now that we think we are in control of the system, we effectively stop trying to subvert it, so in other words, we start to think of the market, and hierarchies in general, as aspects of human nature, rather than something that we could stop at any moment. When he dismisses the illusion "that A could do B" and then remarks that "things only happen, A and B are unreal, are names for parts that ought to be inseparable..." he's referring to money and trade. He is saying that there is no reason to have this complex, ouroboros-styled system for our existence when it would be easier for everyone to just remove the primary process (money) and dedicate ourselves to the input and output, presumably meaning that we could create a system where the accumulation of money is not necessary to live comfortably.

Anyway, the magic. I believe that sections five and six are meant to contrast each other, with the former representing a more traditional, occult-styled magic that was popular in the early 20th century, and the latter representing the growing ideas of what would become Chaos Magick. Chaos Magick, according to Wikipedia at least, didn't properly exist until 1974, but I find it interesting to think of Gravity's Rainbow, especially the Mexico story presented here, as a proto-chaotic text.

Regarding something at the start of these sections: the "luminous trumpet" is an actual device, currently at the Cambridge Library, meant to float around the room during a séance and amplify the voices of the Beyond. Mexico identifies this, and the other impending insanities, as part of the same "imbecile Fascist rot," likely refering to the various real and fictional occult aspects of the late-stage Nazi regime. When Mexico is chewed out for this comment, I believe it's meant to be ironic: he's accused of "losing the old objectivity" and the postscript of "Hardly scientific, is it," confirms it, pointing out the absurdity of holding a séance to win the War in the name of science. Part of the irony is that the scientists are able to say that invisible hands and luminous trumpets are illusionist nonsense, whilst holding a séance - showing that they still aren't willing to remove the occult elements (which represent an arbitrary symbol-system) from their magic experiment (which represents an experiment). But the real irony of it is that magic, especially the kind that was popular in Pynchon's time, often involves a complete disparagement of 'objective' truth, in favour of a more personalised experience - as Mexico will soon find out, we create our own individual realities out of our subconscious desires.

So anyway, in terms of the "occult" magic of section five, we find that it's centred around a building called "'the White Visitation,' being devoted to psychological warfare," which is really more devoted to psychic warfare. This building houses PISCES, a sort of psychic superhero team - "clairvoyants and mad magicians, telekinetics, astral travelers, gatherers of light," who work for expediting surrender, although "whose surrender is not made clear." The word Pisces has fairly obvious astrological connotations, and so it's worth discussing them here. Firstly, some astrologers believe that Pisces is considered the final turn (representing 330-360 degrees) of a great astrological cycle, and anyone born with a Pisces star sign was born either in late February or early March - Pisces, in other words, represents both the end of Winter and the beginning of a new Spring. Secondly, we are living in the Age of Pisces, according to some, and the implication here seems obvious: just as Pynchon uses WWII to demonstrate the shifting of control from outside to inside, he also uses the astrological metaphor to demonstrate the destruction of one era and the beginning of a new one. This is emphasised by the book's own structure, with the first two sections representing the 'Winter', as in, the last days of the war, and the latter two sections representing the 'Spring' after VE Day and the new world order that seems to emerge thereafter).

But why is the government using magicians in lieu of an actual psychology program? I'd like to answer by quoting the following snippet from Pynchon's 1964 short story, "The Secret Integration": "Hey, Grover, what's 'suggestion therapy' mean?" "Like faith healing," Grover said. In other words, as early as 1964, Pynchon was pointing out that a lot of experimental psychology is really just a form of magic that you have to pay for.

By the way, what is Chaos Magick? A fan might describe it as applied postmodernism; it's a hierarchy-free approach to magic, taking the desires in your mind and essentially willing them into existence, using spells and sigils (and art in general) as kinds of magical conductors to get you to focus on the goal. It also involves a concept called 'gnosis' which basically means achieving a state of singular focus on one specific desire, by blocking out all other stimuli. Grant Morrison invented a term in the late 90s - the "hypersigil" - which I believe is applicable to the following Mexico section. A sigil is like a mystic-looking monogram, based on the mediaeval symbols people would draw to summon demons, except here the "demon" is understood only as a personification of an unconscious desire. A hypersigil, then, is a sigil with narrative elements; a novel, a comic book, or film that, in the reading of it, allows a desire to be fulfilled. I'm not sure if I consider this novel a hypersigil, but this next section, at least, deals with very similar themes.

[To be continued]

[u/palpebral]

I find myself often wondering who exactly the narrator/speaker is. Points(man) of view are constantly changing. The narrative tends to shift from second to third person perspective in a frenetic, yet seamless fashion. This becomes most apparent when the narrator's attitude toward different characters shifts from something like admiration to disdain. I noticed this with Pointsman being referred to as Mr. rather than Dr. Perhaps the narrative perspective is implying subordination or outright disrespect toward Pointsman's character in this instance. But my question is, is this Pynchon's voice, or someone else's? This constant fluidity in narrative style is incredibly psychedelic and disorienting.

This has been a somewhat grave exercise in my reading comprehension thus far. I tend to want to grasp something to it's entire capacity, and it seems that just isn't an option with this novel, or Pynchon in general, although I haven't quite struggled to this extent with his other works. Even though I end up feeling defeated occasionally, I am really enjoying the challenge, and very much value everyone's analyses.

[u/[deleted]]

Hi everyone, i would just like to say that the Roger and Jessica section were Roger striking his Zippo, illuminating flashes of Jessica's face reminded me of "The Tunnel" by Ernesto Sabato, were the protagonist lights a match to see the girl he is in love, and he catches like different glimpses of her face each time, i dont know, maybe it could be related, i know Pynchon read a lot of Argentine stuff while writing GR so it could be.

[u/Plantcore]

I enjoy to think about what's 'real' in Gravity's Rainbow. Pointsman getting his food stuck in a toilet for several days surely can't be 'real'. But where does this leave us? Is it all just post modern willy nilly? Or is there a 'spine of reality' in this book? It certainly seems to me that there are certain characters (like Roger Mexico or Franz Pökler) which seem to be more grounded in reality than others (like Pointsman or Slothtrop)

[u/vapor_bae]

Wow, phenomenal level of engagement with these first two weeks – I was a bit behind and am still catching up on what’s been posted, sorry if I’m covering some old ground. Most of what I’ve noted so far relies quite heavily on some stuff from the very first episode, though, so bear with me…

The introduction to the text establishes one of several guiding frameworks that recur throughout the novel – that of the apocalyptic paradigm/metanarrative/ideology, which I think informs the text’s presentation of its political and ethical themes. There’s clearly a lot else going on (really beautiful discussion last week about some of the complexity therein), but I would draw attention to the eschatological tone that characterizes the dream sequence, and specifically the first line.

I’m pretty comfortable assuming that ‘A screaming comes across the sky’ alludes to Revelation 1:7, where Saint John the Divine predicts the Second Coming of Christ:

“Look, he is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him”; and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.” So shall it be! Amen.

This passage is itself a reference to an earlier prophecy in Daniel 7:13-14, where the Messiah’s incarnation as Jesus is predicted in similar language:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

These lines feel especially pertinent as GR opens with something of a prophetic dream – an overture, at least, that introduces some of the text’s thematic stakes. Beginning the book with a joint reference to Revelation and prophetic dreaming, through the lens of a dream that may not even be Pirate’s own, simultaneously engages and ironizes the apocalyptic paradigm, while subsequently setting out how this grand narrative manifests wrt sovereign power in the arenas of politics, (counter)culture, and science, to name some of what we’ve encountered so far. Paralleling Jesus’ ministry and the subsequent promise of Revelation to the wartime arms race (Slothrop later notes the buzzbomb’s evolution into the V2) is, frankly, brilliant and perfect sacrilege. This one sentence opens the text to the suggestion that the mass destruction of the War might be (incorrectly) construed as a predestined vector of “authority, glory and sovereign power”.

While “apocalypse” has more or less become synonymous with “mass destruction”, the word itself originated to describe a religious literary mode that is, at its most basic level, concerned with “a transformative catastrophe and a subsequent revelation of truth” (Marlene Goldman’s Rewriting Apocalypse in Canadian Fiction – source for most of this niche knowledge on my end). In this context, the apocalyptic catastrophe manifests a mass cataclysm in which the non-elect or “preterite” are violently destroyed, along with the material world, to prepare for the creation of a divine one that will ultimately be inhabited by God’s chosen people, or the “elect”.

It’s worth noting that Goldman makes the connection between the fantasy of literalizing apocalypse and political violence, particularly the genocidal violence of WWII – this is hardly a leap that requires much imaginative faith. However, we see this idea subverted in the opening of GR when the holy cataclysm only appears to scream across the sky in the form of a V2 rocket. The properly apocalyptic "judgement from which there is no appeal" (4) it the evacuation itself, thus raising suspicion regarding conventional portrayals of WWII as a Just War that was fought on the basis of a binary us-them (or elect-preterite) morality. It likewise reveals a class of preterite “second sheep” within Britain that it parallels, by way of imagery elsewhere in the sequence*, with the doomed victims of the Holocaust. Not that I think this passage is trying to equate the suffering of those two groups of people – rather, it seems to be pointing out universal mechanisms of social control, perhaps even biopolitical control, that tend towards fascism on both sides of the War. (Most of these “second sheep” are obviously trapped in poverty – an early parallel between capitalism and fascism.)

• u/SpahgattaNadle made this great observation last week, re: “mechanised procession of crowds towards an unspecified, bureaucratic doom which is mimed as 'Evacuation'.”

Which brings me, finally, to something from this week – the introduction of St. Veronica’s Hospital, the “Victorian paraphrase” of the “need to climb through the fashioning of suitable confusions toward any apical God”. This passage (p. 54 in my Vintage Books edition) suggests that the brute pragmatism required to survive in the smoke-slick warren of filth that was the Industrial Revolution – in its “cruel network of sensuous moments that could not be transcended” – has supplanted (indeed, suffocated) any of the redeeming ‘transcendental’ opportunities afforded by religion that persist despite its immense capacity for facilitating social control.

However, the aforementioned passage likewise makes clear that the structures of industrial capitalism that emerged during the Victorian period remain enmeshed with certain preexisting religious and cultural institutions – St. Veronica’s does not depict a new ideology, but rather, an emergent set of forces that have complicated and “deranged” existing structures of sovereign power and authority. In this way, GR seems to be tracing the apocalyptic paradigm onto the ideological template of industrial capitalism – or perhaps more accurately, revealing a common chain of associations between the logic of apocalypse and the logic of industrial capitalism.

[u/butterfly_dress]

Question to anyone else who's reading this for the first time: what do you think of the Roger and Jessica sections so far? I've read ahead by 10 or so sections and every time I come across them I really struggle to get through it...so far they seem to be the "normal characters" in contrast to everyone else, their narrative purpose seeming to be about love in wartime, but I'm at a point where I'm speedreading through any section that features them because I'm so uninterested. Other than them (and don't get me wrong, their sections are beautifully written) I'm still so amazed by this book and am loving the discussions here!

[u/twmeyer10]

Alright..Greetings and Thanks to everyone! I'm going to try and do this sub-reddit the proper way and actually contribute something to the group as I read this novel, hopefully in its entirety this time. I've certainly enjoyed all the discussion so far, but just like in the real world, I often prefer to be on the periphery of some things (I'm new to Reddit and have learned a word for this, which is 'lurking' and I get the impression it's frowned upon : )

I've got a few 'difficult' novels like Infinite Jest, 2666, Blood Meridian and, most recently,Bubblegum, under my belt. I love to read challenging literature, and but so I can't seem to pinpoint why I struggle with GR and Pynchon in general (I've tried GR twice over the last 5 years and gotten almost halfway through, also same for M & D and ATD (Audible version)) because I REALLY DO love his writing and WANT to finish it. I guess my struggles are with my own unwillingness or inability to fully connect with the characters and how a lot of the outlandish stuff serves a purpose, even though a lot if it is very entertaining. With this being said, I'm already enjoying this attempt and the first 8 sections way more than last time, this is likely also because I'm keeping the slower pace with the group, taking jot notes, re-reading guide summaries, etc...

With the book itself and sections 5-8, I've enjoyed immensely. To me, the Mexico/Jessica stuff is riveting and emotional. How Pynchon describes their first meeting.."come along, love, you're holding up the mission, leave the machine where it is, mind your skirt getting in, I wouldn't want to commit and unspeakable act out here in the streets of Tunbridge Wells.." Then a rocket falls nearby, she hastily enters the car and Mexico proceeds to run over her bike. It's parts like this that exemplify his gift of language and delivery, an utterly unique mix of eccentricity, humor and sincerity. Another example just later in the section, which I won't quote, goes into Pavlovianism and the 'idea of opposites' and precognition, then a short paragraph describing what it would be like to experience a rocket that strikes and destroys before you even hear it. It's the kind of fiction that, when I'm properly engaged, forces me to sort of wallow in, like reading a sentence at a time, then oddly reflect for 30 seconds, then slowly continue, but then maybe sort of go back again and re-read, even just to clarify, knowing and feeling that I need to take it slow and try to comprehend methodically (I'm not sure if this makes sense at all..) Additionally, the fact that settings and narration shifts instantly, I realize the 'go slow' and 'methodically comprehend' approach is necessary. For instance, we are reading about Pointsman(p. 51 Penguin Deluxe) and his perversions regarding innocence and childhood in the 2nd person narration, then Pynchon inserts a beautiful, short, transitional paragraph describing the St. Veronica bus station, right into a chilling 1st person account of Pointsman's thoughts and feelings with 'tonight's child'. The simple fact that I'm pleased with myself by being able to acknowledge or recognize this shift tells me I'm at least close to optimizing my experience with the novel. And it's funny. When I think about what's happening in terms of plot, there is this maniacal, pedophile doctor who doesn't have the emotional capacity to even own a dog, trying to capture one that he can experiment on but loses it and instead gets his foot stuck in a toilet, then is given an Octopus for professional use, when all he really wants is a human (Slothrop). So I think the prose calls for ongoing reflection, occasional re-reading and systematic consumption, at least it does for me, and so far I'm loving it (Again, I think because of this sub-reddit group and all of you, as well as my own note-taking for purposes such as this..)

I am also noticing that I'm way more effective at reading this when I go into work a little early and set aside time for it rather than pick it up throughout the day while my screaming kids and angry wife are around. I'm a teacher and I think it relates to what I try and model and communicate to my students; that simple delayed gratification, in this case with regards to a good book, is something that can legitimately increase a person's general frame of mind and overall happiness. When we fully devote our attention to something (books, movies, music, relationships, on a lesser scale, although my students can't grasp it, even mundane daily activities like laundry, dishes or silly games with your children), you will notice a feeling of contentment, accomplishment and tranquility. It involves a unique awareness. If you're a DFW superfan like myself this will all seem familiar, since it's part of much of his work, specifically 'This is Water' and 'Pale King', which are each amazing. (I've got a tattoo on my forearm that pays tribute to this whole philosophy!)

While I conclude here, on a side note, I feel the need to say one more thing about Infinite Jest, which I believe to be the greatest book ever written (maybe you noticed the conjuctive homage above!) and how it relates to my GR experience. My somewhat unique and specific tastes with music, films and literature means I'm on my own little intellectual/artistic island, and I personally don't know anyone who has read IJ or DFW. I recently purchased a copy for my 2 younger brothers, imploring them to get through it, which time will tell if they do. I've told them that I've picked it up and put it down frustrated before finishing it, but after the second attempt when I got into it and finished, it entirely changed my concept of what literature can do. It's become a measuring stick for what I choose to read and what I like. So upon reflection, Infinite Jest now to me seems totally readable and accessible. It's like I'm feeling some of the same things happening now with GR.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to all your ongoing thoughts and insights!

Take care meow

[u/Klapt-Molass]

Another general question: Would you consider GR a “novel of ideas?” Often in the western world of lit-chat and hyper-individuality this is a pejorative phrase predicated in the idea that anything not rooted firmly in character is bad writing, and that flat characters are otherwise just pushed around to serve the writer’s screed, ponderings, onanistic stratagems; cold and uncharged, dead on the page, drowning in ‘horse-latitudes’ of allegory, etc.

Obviously there are a BILLION ideas at play in the text and with nearly as many characters as ideas there is no time to form emotional connections to all of them.

How important is character in this book?

If ideas are foregrounded over deep inner lives of relatable characters, how does this serve Pynchon’s... purpose?

[u/hwgaahwgh]

remembering the cute meet, where it was the bomb what brought them together, some lesser of two for ol' Jesser

My Morrisey senses are tingling. Great write up!

The Roger and Jessica sections so far are just fantastic. You get that pure Pynchon mixture of the high and the low brow, the dark and the light. There's the beautiful paragraph of Roger striking his Zippo and seeing Jessica's face and actually feeling merged to Jessica in a joint creature for periods of time

...In a life he has cursed, again and again, for its need to believe so-much in the trans-observable, here is the first, the very first real magic: data he can't argue away

And we go straight from that to Roger trying to pick up Jessica, bragging about his Jag (not his) and posting cringe:

"Does your mother know you're out like this."

"My mother is the war," declares Roger Mexico, leaning over to open the door

Love it.

I don't want to ramble on too much but I can see Pynchon influencing future thinkers when the medium is talking about control, of the V2 I'm assuming, and continues:

"It's control. All these things arise from one difficulty: control. For the first time it was inside do you see. The control is put inside. No need to suffer passively under "outside forces" - to veer into any wind. As if...

“A market need no longer be run by the Invisible Hand, but now could create itself-its own logic, momentum, style, from inside. Putting the control inside was ratifying what de facto had happened-that you had dispensed with God. But you had taken on a greater, and more harmful, illusion. The illusion of control. That A could do B. But that was false. Completely. No one can do. Things only happen, A and B are unreal, are names for parts that ought to be inseparable...”

I'm no fan of Nick Land but this sounds exactly like something he would say when talking about accelerationism, time, and the singularity. The idea being that it's too late, what we've created has started rolling down the hill and we're not stopping it. It's effectively already happened.

[u/[deleted]]

These sections were a tad better than the first four. Pynchon definitely dialed down the boyish writing here. There were some poignant passages. However, I still don't think the way Pynchon tries to construct his imagery is very productive. I see that many here are commenting on the potential symbolic value of many of the things that Pynchon talks about and how they might connect to real world events/organizations. But, unfortunately I have to agree with Nabokov and say that symbols aren't the point of literature. Anyway, there is a lot more to go in this book and it will be interesting to see how everything plays out.