Very helpful. A bit obsessed at pointing out errors made in various editions of Pynchon's masterpiece, but worth using.

About the genocide of the Herero's

300 pages of third-party annotations for a 750 page book. Needed more annotations.

I really don't know how I would have read GR without this book...

Essential to take along on your trip through "The Zone". To paraphrase American Express, "If reading Gravity's Rainbow, don't leave home without it." It's a pain in the ass to lug both books around, but you'll be glad you did.

Weisenburger's effort has to be saluted, especially due to the year of publication - nowadays the many little deatils and facts can be verified in seconds, whereas then it was probably much more difficult. So we can pardon the omissions or errors (the Phoebus cartel was indeed real) and let this companion be what it really is - the basis for a lot of Gravity's Rainbow research, such as the GR page on Pynchonwiki, which is based on this book with significant work by Don Larsson and other fan or scholarly oriented writing. The second edition probably takes care of the many errors and inaccuracies, I can't recommend the companion to any first time reader, the second reading is actually quite illuminating with this book.

يستحيل قراءة رواية بينشون بدون هذا الكتاب.

A great companion to have while reading the text of GR. You learn so much more and gain alot with this handy book. It made reading GR actually fun :)

Probably wouldn't have finished it (and definitely wouldn't have appreciated it as much) without Weisenburger's help. You were a fanastic Sherpa for Mt. Pynchon Weisenburger.

Necessary to read if you plan, are planning to, or have already read Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.

This companion is an essential guide to understanding to endless references and allusions in Gravity's Rainbow. No matter how smart or well-read any reader is, there is no way anyone will understand every detail in that amazing book.

Weisenburger deals masterfully with the endless cultural, religious, psychological, mythological, Tarot, and other non-technical details in GR. However, with the scientific and engineering theories and methods, it is much less successful and there are many errors or misalignments with what Pynchon intended.

But with the mathematical content? Forget it. Almost all such references in this companion are at least misleading, and many are simply wrong. Weisenburger is often confused between parabolas and circles, thus embarrassingly misunderstands these two primary symbols in GR. Regarding the elementary calculus Pynchon includes, the companion is worthless, providing only a few words which will comfort, but mislead, the reader.

I used the companion during my second read of GR, the first was deliberately done cold turkey to see how I could manage it, and I certainly missed a great deal of understanding. With my second reading, I read the companion's entry prior to or immediately after each individual episode. That was usually followed by another reading of the GR episode itself. This was entirely effective, resolving almost all of the details, leaving only the larger interpretation to me, as befits my status as a cognitive human. (I really wish I could get the specter of AI out of my mind!)

Fortunately, even with the companion's errors, it is unlikely that a reader of GR will care: the wrongs will simply dissolve into the churning substance of its text.

Circling back for a second lap of GR...we'll see if this illuminates things a bit!

I would definitely recommend this as an aid to comprehension of GR. It provides vast detail on the sources and background for references a casual reader would probably gloss right over. In fact, it made me appreciate just how rich and dense Gravity's Rainbow really is. (Everybody knows it's a monster, but I wonder how many are aware of its real depth.) Companion is especially helpful with the chronology of events, and in understanding the basic narrative. There are other online sources that can help keep characters, etc. straight, but I found it really nice to have a physical book at hand to refer to.

None of which is to say that Companion will provide the key to true understanding of GR, but it is a big help in understanding what the heck is going on.