If you really want to feel and understand Thomas Pynchon Gravity Rainbow novel, you'll need this companion as you need air.
It was very though for me while I was reading it but, fortunately, I've found the Companion and everything was getting clearer.
You may read the novel without any help and you would not need help if you are an encyclopedic person, but if you are not and you have gaps in your knowledge, like me, for example (sic!) and you find very hard to understand the links occurring in Pynchon head, then this Companion is a true friend and savior.
I found lots of people who brag about reading the Gravity Rainbow but they don't say a word about the issues they've met when the text it's getting entangled and I am very sure that this readers don't have not even a small idea about the richness the novel hide.
Don't try/look smart and follow my advice: keep close to you this companion when you read Gravity Rainbow and you will have the time of your life! I guarantee you this.

Perfect companion if you need one. I struggled a bit too much using it, but I blame that on my self-diagnosed adhd lol. Unlocks the emotional core of the book, and that is worth the effort alone.

Paired with Pynchon's main text- a necessity for close reading in my opinion.

Indispensable scholarship

Lyrical brilliance which carries you along into weird wonderful and worrying places.

Ein sehr hilfreiches Buch als Begleitlektüre zu Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow / Die Enden der Parabel.

Wer, wie zu großen Teilen auch ich, keine oder kaum Ahnung hat(te) von z.B. Grimms "Deutsche Mythologie", V-Waffenprogramm oder Militärsprech der US-Army, der findet in diesem Buch eine Unmenge diesbezüglicher Informationen, alles kapitelweise und schön mit Referenzen zu Seiten und Zeilen der verbreitesten englischen Printausgaben. Außerdem ist eine reichhaltige Bibliographie zu Unmengen im Buch verwendeten Quellen und ein vollständiger Index vorhanden. Damit ist auch die Möglichkeit zur weitergehenden Beschäftigung mit Pynchon's Werk gegeben. Ein Traum für Pynchon-Aficionados

i know people like to go into books RAW, and i do, too, but nah this book was too much for me, bruh. so i checked this out and it really helped me. definitely recommend

a really wonderful sourcebook, on par with Ulysses Annotated and a good bit better than Elegant Complexity. loses a star due to muddled mathematical exposition (to be expected, sigh). i was irritated by the absence of cites in a great many annotations; it is explained at the end that uncited notes reference the Times of 1944--1945, but this remains unsatisfying. whence, for instance, explanation of "crystal ship" as iv drug use? i never gathered that from the first Doors album. anyway, a joy to read, a great jumping-off point for budding postmodernists, and a fine guide to GR.

bonus funny story: i was reading penrose's epic The Road to Reality, put it down admidst some footnotes regarding QFT renormalization, did some bullshit and picked up the *Companion*. "this is an odd and frankly unfocused digression regarding *Bladerunner* by ol' Sir Roger; i wonder where he's going with this...oh, argh augh, nicholas you are stupid indeed." and just went ahead and finished the Companion.

I've read Gravity's Rainbow twice now - once without this guide, and once with. The first time was a mind rape, the second was actually fun. If you ever plan on taking the journey, consider this your seat belt, and for the love of a nonexistent God, please use it.

I got a lot out of this book, while reading GR for the second time. I found the synopses to be the weak link. For all the detailed minutiae in the line analysis, there could have been a more elaborate section summary, as well as a character map.

So, I spent the summer of 1992 in bars in Boston, with Gravity's Rainbow and this book. It put little training wheels on Gravity's Rainbow so that I could ride it into a social life in Iowa City, where knowing about Thomas Pynchon actually has some social utility.

abandoned roughly halfway through the novel, thinking I could follow the story well enough. I will admit tho that I should have stuck with this one, because I did start to lose my grasp on wtf was happening in GR.