Was going to give the book two stars simply because the work is so often feted as post modern and important.

The best thing I can say about this novel is that it’s good that a novel like this can be written. That said, I have no idea why anyone would bother to write such a book.

The story meanders, engages in a phantasmagoric deluge of gnostic associations, and generates confusion, bewilderment, and disgust in the reader.

Then there’s the sexual obsession, the coprophagia(lookitup), the pedophilia, and the incest.

“Kebulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent that announces, ‘“ The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally re-returning,’” is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that ‘“productivity”’ and ‘“earnings”’ keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity - most of the World, animal, vegetable, and mineral, is laid waste in the process. The System may or may not understand it’s only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to begin with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which sooner or later must crash to its death, when it’s addiction to energy has become more than the rest of the World can supply, dragging with it innocent souls all along the chain of life. Living inside the System is like riding across the country in a bus driven by a maniac bent on suicide…”

By far this was the most unique reading experience. There were moments of absolute brilliance (that paragraph above remains to be a favorite for me) sandwiched between a bunch of tedious moments. I found The Zone the hardest area personally. I also HATE all the over-sexualization of women in this book. Absolutely detestable and not needed like some people claim, in my opinion.

Edit:
I finished this book this Summer. Every once in a blue moon I’ll go back to a book to re-rate. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

I’m moving this up one star as I do continually think about it. As much pain as it was to read much of the book there we’re seriously some intensely wonderful bits I’ve been chewing on. Pynchon is truly wonderful. Dare I say I’m actually looking forward to reading this in the future?

I am considering giving myself five stars for finishing it. It has taken me forever, and I dropped it for other, less infuriating books over and over again. At some point, when I was over 500 pages into the story (if you can call it a story), I decided that I had to finish it, simply to have it off my to-read-shelf. I have struggled with books before: Ulysses is not easy, neither is Marcel Proust or Dante's Commedia. But this was different. I could not find enough valuable stuff in it to justify 900 pages of disruptive actions. I didn't mind the criticized sexual aspects of the plot so much (at least you understood what was happening then!), but I really missed any kind of ever so thin thread to follow to an ever so open conclusion. 300 pages of raging chaos at the end of World War Two would have been enough to start that da... rocket in the end! Gravity is working hard on that brick of a book.

From the vault of James O. Incandenza.

Plangent Cries of Unemployed Tragedian and the Autoerotic Asphyxiation of Necky Undulates. Year of the Dunning-Kreugar Personal Test Kit. Rotoscoped hands superimposed on complex interpretive sulcus skating on alternating images of wartime London & Germany, subliminally laced with third image which reads; Are you in the Zone? w/ narration by Machine Learning Reconstructed Mitch Hedberg; 35mm; interminably looping; ultraviolet w/ 4D pornographical substrate embedded with oscillophotography of lower dimensional genitalia; silent w/narration. Limited release contingent upon eating six peach seeds and surviving under intense supervision; By Distributed Idea Suppression Complex Ltd.

“Pynchon’s (Steve Buscemi) drug addled demiurge coalesces in deep grooves of cerebral tissue as disembodied phalanges. Text appears; ‘Insurgency of Fingers’. Animatronic, phallo-centric, bratwurst susurrus in background like meaty palm fronds. Digits worm through the seat of consciousness like an enormous wad of chewing gum birthing maggots. Kneading gobs thought-matter into various shapes of zoological interest. Pointsman, (Mike Tyson) at the sound of a bell, allows a pigeon to take flight from his gnarled hands. Picks up unidentified substance (actual hog brains) and carefully sculpts a giraffe of slimy sulcus (actual hog brains) and gangling ganglia (actual hog brains) from undifferentiated lump of actual hog brains. Narrator (Machine Learning Reconstructed Mitch Hedberg) nonchalantly expresses the following, with trademark idiosyncrasies of cadence and timing:

“Symbolizing the need to rise above the low hanging fruits of naked entertainment to reach, with glistening purple tongue, irregularly shaped vessels with vibrant skins stretched to bursting by non-Euclidean carbohydrates. Sweet flesh slowly accrued around a central irritant, like a pearl, a cloud, or peach stone. The story’s juicy chromosomal tartness, through digressive selection, codified in codons. Sequences of salivary delights now perfected in the pulpy exoskeleton worn by its true Art, its homunculus, an Enchiridion of Erections, an Obelisk of Obscenity, a Paean of Peckers.

Cut to papier-mâché heart, resting atop a podium of gilded pubic hair, rhythmically piping Nitrous oxide onto the set through bong aorta.

—First level of magnification reveals the macro-pulp of excised text from Gravity’s Rainbow, consisting of approximately twenty seven pages of worty-dirds, chewed up by Slothrop (Garry Busey) with granola bars and toilet paper and spat into the waiting palms of Lyle Bland of Boston (Anthony Hopkins) reinforced with textiles, and bound by adhesives of black tar heroin, and spider silk. Ventricles evince shredded bits of memetic carriers: tits, clits, fuck, fucking, masturbate, buttocks, breasts, sperm, erect erections, cock, cunt, thigh, semen, and so on.

—Second level of magnification reveals network of plant fibers forming mosaic of Mitch Hedberg (Johnny Depp) channeling narrator (Machine Learning Reconstructed Mitch Hedberg) and his dulcet tones being carried aloft by continued bratwurst susurrus, in a violent physical analog: fighting the abstract force of manufactured jingoism with a rattan bo-staff (Emaciated Hulk Hogan) alongside stalwart ally; horror-movie devilfish name of Grigori (tentacles, starting from the top and proceeding clockwise: Shia LeBeouf, Keanu Reeves, a kneeling Dolph Lundgren, the ghost of Richard Pryor (Dave Chappell), Chow Yun-Fat, Jean Reno, and Captain Blicero disguised as Mads Mikkelsen (Mads Mikkelsen).

—Third level of magnification reveals images of charred cities sashaying through the hot refracted air of recently bombed environs with the serpentine manner of mirages. Pustules of molten skin belch their distended contents into stygian updrafts. Onomatopoeias of laughter dangle from wires and invite the viewers contemplation.

“Are you the giraffe or the Hyperboloid Honeydew? It is a matter of great symbolic (and scatalogical) interest that the consumer’s role in this symbiotic relationship is to find the sugars so irresistible that they can’t help but carry the seeds, to later defecate the beginnings of new growth. And you will choke on corrugated pit and want to violently wretch. But it will take exactly six of them to kill you.”

—Fourth level of magnification reveals Katje Borgesius having escaped the thrall of the evil Blicero, and exfiltrated to Goodreads to provide this review, against the almost uniform, but thankfully irregularity studded, cosmic microwave background radiation. She begins before she ends:

Have you ever, while colloquially (and irrevocably) ‘blown in the creek’ by fermented fruit sequestered in a prison toilet for an undisclosed amount of time, tried to erase your lexical framework and think thoughts without utilizing the conceptual prosthetics of language? I can personally assure you that penitentiary hooch is not sufficient, comrade. Try DMZ. Or, better yet, do not forsake the precious gift of abstraction. Instead, saturate your synapses with images of rockets and Uncle Reamus, juxtaposed with such brilliance that you’ll find yourself fully erect while wheezing. I’m not trying to be cocky here. Just pulsating the facts. You may shafta flog yourself until you’re satisfied you’ve shot it. Keep at it, you don’t have to be a Blue-Veined Aristocrat to understand it. It’s normal to feel like you’re not getting it, and you’ll peer at the remaining pages and think; “Boy, I’ve got a schlong way to go.” Is it a HARD book? Skin-flutely! It’s a bit of a Belly-Ruffian. But, as numerous people shaft said, the first Womb Broom is the most difficult. This one is massively front loaded. Thrust me. Don’t spindle too much time agonizing over the length, or how much is really penetrating. Try to prick up this book glans expectations and just enjoy the Membrum Virile. The spasms of psychological insight which can be teased out. The messy explosions of knowledge which can be cleaned from every page. If I ham-bone what I ham-bone now, I’d give myself this Clam Hammer as swell, again and again and again. But don’t chafe yourself, get on top of it and take control. No more autopilot. There are many resources you can use as lubricant. You may have to look up some German. Don’t approach it like The Bone Ranger. Get into it! Don’t just lay there all passive! Connect with others who have bred it. This is a unique piece of Jurassic Pork. It vacillates rapidly between passages that are easy to swallow and ones that rebuff your comprehension like scrambled images of cream filled doughnuts, but if you stay focused, eventually the disparate pieces will resolve into a Bull Dog Eating Mayonaise, and that, my friend, makes all the difference. Cum back to it. It’s worth it. Take ‘ol One Eye to the Optometrist. No matter how much you’ve gotta pound the punnani pavement to get there. Avoid, at all costs, crashing the custard truck prematurely. Let him get some stankie on the hang down. If he gets rowdy you might have to test the suspension right then and there. Open the gates of Mordor on the myopic bastard, and if he takes that as a sign to go knuckle deep in tuna town, smack the salmon, and tell him: “I’m not here to stir up skirt yogurt! It’s time to Smash Pissers and burp the worm in the mole hole!” That’ll get him fired up for some Chesterfield Rugby, by God. He’ll be doing squat thrusts in the cucumber patch.

I first read Gravity’s Rainbow back in 2000 but, like with all Pynchon novels, one read will not suffice. It does look like age does help and in the 20 year gap, I absorbed a ton more this time round. In order to let things sink in, I made sure to read 10/15 pages of the book a day. Yes, the process took 3 months but it worked.

Having read V last year, I now know early Pynchon’s M.O. : There is a wacky plot which is a cover for more serious topics. In this case the plot takes place during the last years of WWII Europe. A group of scientists discover that there’s a correlation between V2 rockets falling and the sexual activities of Tyrone Slothrop. Thus, as a deterrent the scientists send Slothrop on a mission to find out the components behind a super rocket that is going to be launched, which leads on to a clutch of people all following Slothrop’s quest. Think of Captain Ahab’s quest to find the white whale except with a lot more hanger ons . On his journey throughout Europe Slothrop undertakes a lot of side missions i.e. delivering a stash of drugs to a dealer. However, with each mission he discovers that his life is more intricately connected to the rocket than he thought.

Like Against the Day, Gravity’s Rainbow has a huge cast of characters, each with their own distinctive Pynchonian name, subplots and back stories : Roger Mexico the statistcian who fights with Pointsman the Pavlovian, Pokler who sees his daughter once a year in a German version of Disneyland, Prentice Pirate who can invade minds, Enzian who is part of a fake black army corps, Katje a spy etc etc. All are connected with Slothrop.

If you are a fan of Early Pynchon’s craziness, then Gravity’s Rainbow is Pynchon functioning on full turbo. This book redefines zany, within every page there are cartoonlike antics everywhere, which leads to some very funny scenes : Slothrop trying British sweets for the first time, the chase in the Mittlewerks , Slothrop having his clothes stolen after a nightly romp, Pointsman stepping into a toilet while on the lookout for dogs, the octopus encounter, the gross gourmet supper I can keep going on. Interspersed are many explicit (and shocking) passages.

I have been dwadling over the superficial aspects of Gravity’s Rainbow and not delved into what the book REALLY is about. As of 2020, I saw Gravity’s Rainbow about humankind’s predilection towards death, the futility of war, how something that is supposedly going to solve problems just leads to our society’s destruction. The book ends with the atom bomb dropping on Hiroshima, which just goes to prove that we are a nation of killers. There’s also a criticism about our baser instincts when in trouble, just as Hobbes stated. There’s lengthy passages about science versus feelings. I probably skimmed the surface but that’s what I got out of it.

As many critics have said, Gravity’s Rainbow is not an easy read. Despite all the funny parts I mentioned, there is Pynchon’s dense prose but in between pages of descriptions about aerodynamics there are passages of suffering and bleakness which verge on the poetic but are a harrowing read. Not to mention the meta ending only Pynchon could pull off.

I once said that Gravity’s Rainbow is the greatest novel ever ( I still haven’t read Ulysses) and I still hold that. The book, with it’s drug references and counter culture mentality is very much a product of it’s time : you’ll find similarities in books such as Naked Lunch, Catch-22 and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and yet it is timeless and looks towards the future of the human race that the above mentioned books do not do. Gravity’s Rainbow requires work but in the end it is definitely worth it.

First off, a song: this was supposedly influenced by Gravity's Raibow. HA!

This one's for you Slothrop & Bodine (I had no idea that there actually were zoot suit riots! Everything I've learned, I've learned from reading books. Crappy public school education...)

Where to begin?!

Regarding the creation of this novel, it has been said, “ Pynchon sequestered himself in a room, writing the novel out by hand, filling sheet after sheet of graph paper with the precise script of an Engineer. Perched atop this stack of papers was his small offering to the Muse, a totem of invocative magic: a rocket formed from "a pencil type eraser (the kind from which you peel off the corkscrew wrapper) with a needle in its nose, and a re-formed paper clip serving as a launching pad." The working title of his draft was Mindless Pleasures…”

Mindless Pleasures. Well, that suits, doesn’t it? Despite the varied themes and fragmented plot lines, it all comes down to one thing: Slothrop’s magical penis. This man is so blessed that he is able to make women orgasm upon entry! Natürlich! Now that’s something. Who needs porn when you have Pynchon? However…

There comes a time when the ability to sincerely shock your reader reaches a threshold, after that, nothing you write will cause me to so much as raise an eyebrow. This point came for me about half-way through the novel (maybe a little further) with the whole incest bit. Pynchon threw in just about every taboo subject there is, and maybe even made up a few new ones. After awhile, it wasn’t so shocking or interesting anymore, it just became vulgar. Oh, Slothrop screwed another farm animal? Yawn… Okay, so I don’t think he actually screwed any farm animals, but he did just about everything else. Or did he? Hmmm… I think he must have a very vivid imagination. I mean, the guy is pretty tubby, and he’s traveling around Western Europe in pig suits and zoot suits and Rocketman suits. Where I come from, the ladies aren’t dying to drop trou for a guy like that. Yet women seem to be flocking to our friend Slothrop. But who am I to judge, there was a war going on! Oh yeah, there’s a war going on…

When sir Slothrop isn’t getting laid, some interesting ideas are presented. It’s easy to get caught up in all of the lascivious prose, but when you allow yourself to ignore all of that, what you are left with is brilliant BRILLIANT writing. Pynchon tackles the Big Issues without blinking an eye: the preterite vs. the elect, metaphysics, death,War; don’t forget about the war.

This was far and away THE FUNNIEST book I’ve ever read. I mean, come on, pie fights in hot air balloons, nasal erections, silly songs, a trained octopus, Byron the Bulb(?)... and hundreds of kazoos!

Pynchon likes to keep you on your toes. There’s no such thing as “casually reading” this book. You have to pay attention, otherwise you’ll end up in another country with a whole new cast of characters in another time period and have NO IDEA how you ended up there (he uses analepses early and often). Characters may change names without notice(as with von Goll/der Springer and Weissman/Capt. Blicero).

I will not make claims that this is a perfect novel. There were times when I felt like Pynchon was beating me over the head with a hammer, times when the vulgarity was too much to take, the slapstick humor way too over the top. But those moments paled in comparison to the joy I felt reading this novel.

But don’t take my word for it: the proof of the Pudding is in the eating. Uh, or something *wink.*

(I’m going to go now and drop some acid and read this thing again.)

***********************
Casting for the part of Slothrop:



Or:



Or finally:



**A note to those who wish to read this book: it should come with a warning label DO NOT READ WHILE EATING. Poor Major Marvy, I'm lookin' at you.

Well I suppose you could say "this is rocket science", but this is a very difficult book to summarise. On one hand you could see it as obscene, rambling and unfocused, but on the other full of humour, ideas and fantasy, pitching the reader into a learned disturbed picaresque dream story of rockets, chemistry, psychological experiments and conspiracy, set during the confusion at the end of World War II. I enjoyed parts of it and found it very intriguing, but found the whole somewhat confusing (which is probably intended).

POLONIUS: “What do you read, my lord?”
HAMLET: “Words, words, words.”

While reading Gravity’s Rainbow, I often felt like Hamlet. I am out of practice reading stream of consciousness narrative and had to struggle to find my footing.

The book alternately attracted and repelled me, which, as one of my reading friends pointed out, isn’t how gravity works at all. When I would get into the flow and get reading, whole evenings would disappear. But after I set down the book each evening, it was a struggle to pick it back up the next day.

It is densely written text. There is very little white space on the page and very few breaks in the text, so when I set myself a goal of reading 90-100 pages per evening, I had no idea what kind of commitment I was making. It can be done, but it leaves no time for other books (an unacceptable proposition in my life). I am accustomed to polishing off 200-300 pages in an evening so this was a shock to my system. I couldn’t have the radio on either—I had to keep my attention sharply focused on the page (although I did find Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach to be acceptable as background music). A lesson in humility—with Gravity’s Rainbow telling me, “Look what easy stuff you usually read. You really need to stretch yourself a bit more.” When I realized that I would never finish before the book was due back at the Public Library (and that some other brave soul had a hold on it), I turned that copy in and retrieved a copy from the University Library where I work. There was no way that I was willing to pay overdue fees on this one.

Things that I liked: there were some beautiful descriptions—storm clouds the colour of wet cement sticks in my mind—I’ve seen those and it’s a perfect match. I was rather fond of the octopus that Slothrop eventually discouraged by bashing it with a wine bottle. [In fact, this scene from Rainbow was referenced in the non-fiction book on squid that I recently read, causing me to squee with delight]. Additionally, I loved how many characters wandered in, out, and through the work—that sudden jolt of realization that I’d read about them earlier and then settling in to see what they’d do next.

I think I will have to mull over the whole worship of war & rockets aspect of the book, the fetishizing of the rocket. Absolutely no doubt that Gravity’s Rainbow gives the reader a lot to ponder.

Am I glad that I read it? I think the answer is yes. Mostly I am just grateful to be finished and to have more time to go back to reading some fluff for the summer. In retrospect, June/July was not the ideal time of year to attempt such a work.

A few weeks ago, a guy at work asked me to look up the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and what I read scared the shit out of me. There's a chapter in my neighbourhood. But how much can you really know about a hermetic order? This guy is constantly name-dropping places I've just been, and circling around my life in a way that is altogether uncanny. I've overheard him say that I work for the FBI. Who's paranoid now? Who's watching who? I've caught myself listening to him across crowded rooms.

This afternoon, he casually mentioned (three times) that he was headed to the library. Well, shit. That was my plan too. Did he know? I can't let him control my life, can I? But when I saw him stalk through the entrance, fists clenched as ever, I fled between the stacks. Good work, agent. Don't mess up.

□□□□□□□

There, in the last pages of Gravity's Rainbow, the Order of the Golden Dawn surfaces. I paled. You can run but you cannot hide.

(What if he finds this review?)

I think Pynchon is starting to get to me.

I have no idea where to start or finish discussing this book. It’s too complex, surreal, sometimes hits you with sadness, sometimes it’s bizarre and random, and sometimes it’s barely comprehensible. Yet it’s truly unique and ambitious, full of ideas, encyclopedic knowledge and paranoia.

I think I’ll be brief. This is my second Pynchon after Mason & Dixon. M&D is funnier, with a huge heart and big emotions. This book is haunting and it's bigger. It’s huge and my brain is a little bit fried by the time I finished part 4. I know it’s hokey to say but this book is a singular experience, a very rare one in my reading life. With the book that big you'll definitely be more interested in some storylines more than the others. Sorry about vagueness. Ok, let's say the western subplot that was happening in the Zone somewhere in Europe with Enzian and Tchitcherine and its resolution is just chef's kiss.

Btw, this book turned 50 while I was reading it.

And sometimes I dream of discovering the edge of the World. Finding that there is an end. My mountain gentian always knew. But it has cost me so much.

‘America was the edge of the World. A message for Europe, continent-sized, inescapable. Europe had found the site for its Kingdom of Death, that special Death the West had invented. Savages had their waste regions, Kalaharis, lakes so misty they could not see the other side. But Europe had gone deeper–into obsession, addiction, away from all the savage innocences. America was a gift from the invisible powers, a way of returning. But Europe refused it. It wasn’t Europe’s Original Sin–the latest name for that is Modern Analysis–but it happens that Subsequent Sin is harder to atone for.

‘In Africa, Asia, Amerindia, Oceania, Europe came and established its order of Analysis and Death. What it could not use, it killed or altered. In time the death-colonies grew strong enough to break away. But the impulse to empire, the mission to propagate death, the structure of it, kept on. Now we are in the last phase. American Death has come to occupy Europe. It has learned empire from its old metropolis. But now we have only the structure left us, none of the great rainbow plumes, no fittings of gold, no epic marches over alkali seas. The savages of other continents, corrupted but still resisting in the name of life, have gone on despite everything. . . while Death and Europe are separate as ever, their love still unconsummated. Death only rules here. It has never, in love, become one with...

There is no doubt that Pynchon is a brilliant writer. His ability to expound in detail on diverse and difficult topics is incredible (especially for the pre-Internet era), as is the intricacy of the plot: full of interconnecting references, allusions, metaphors on top of metaphors - Gravity’s Rainbow is truly a virtuoso performance. To read it is to be swept away on a wild ride through Pynchon’s imagination, unbridled by form or convention. The entire enterprise seems to defy the rational laws of physics – such a thing cannot maintain cohesion, and yet somehow it does, improbably, and against all expectations.

n  n    HOWEVER... n  n

Firstly, there is the seemingly endless obsession with penises and penis-related activities. I’ve compiled for your amusement a report of the number of times certain words appear in the text (please try to suppress your natural impulse to giggle uncontrollably):

Breasts – 33
Buttocks – 23
Clit/Clitoris – 25
Cock – 81
Cunt – 26
Erect/Erection – 45
Fuck/Fucking – 108
Hardon – 28
Masturbate – 14
Penis – 40
Semen – 27
Sperm – 14
Thigh – 53
Tits – 10

The point here is not to admonish Pynchon for his use of profanity (which I don’t have a problem with), but to demonstrate just how fixated the book is on the subject. By comparison, in a novel which is ostensibly about the Second World War, the word Nazi appears only 40 times (admittedly, the word rocket does appear 404 times, though I suspect several of these may be sly references to Slothrop’s own personal "rocket"). Each of these words (and these are just the most obvious examples: not included in the analysis are the multitude of more obscure and sometimes snicker-inducing slang terms – quim, jissom - which occur with less frequency individually, but are significant in aggregate) represents yet another entire passage of text devoted to the fascinating subject of Erections: How To Spot ’Em and Where To Stick ’Em. What begins as a series of amusing and risqué little sketches becomes exceedingly tedious around the time we are informed of Slothrop’s 115th Throbbing Hardon, brought to you by the fleeting presence of yet another (probably underage) young lady, who is in possession of breasts, buttocks, thighs or other features in a combination that is no doubt exceptional and noteworthy in its own uniquely individual way. I’m no prude about these things, but enough is enough. I mean, what the hell is this book actually about, anyway?

What begins quite promisingly in the early part of the novel, has utterly degenerated by the time we are thrust into The Zone. The novel loses all grip on reality and devolves into a obsessive fever dream of sex, drugs and paranoia. What are we to make of the tortuous paranoid conspiracy theories, the weird maritime pedophiliac orgies, the fantastic intercourse of every variety from the commonplace to the impossible, the seemingly random diversions that occur without rhyme or reason? Is this really anything more than titillation and cheap thrills? These absurd antics persist through most of the novel, but Pynchon - brilliant writer that he is - can be trusted to extricate himself from this quagmire, and he does so satisfactorily if somewhat anticlimactically in the final section, but he neglects to take the reader with him, leaving them to wallow in the shelled-out muck of The Zone, confused, maybe slightly aroused, and feeling like the party has gone off somewhere without them.

I do not question Pynchon’s talent, or his courage, and I do not question the magnitude of this achievement. But despite its virtuosity, despite its verbosity, I simply don’t feel like Gravity’s Rainbow has anything meaningful to say, or at least, I don't think there is enough here to justify its reputation. Where is the substance? Where is the humanity? Yes, there are genuine moments, but these appear in stark contrast with (or are perhaps inserted to justify) the rest of the novel, which is dominated by cartoonish characters in farcical situations, lacking all but the most tenuous link to the real world. Only by analysing and drawing connections between metaphors and symbols do we locate something approaching an underlying meaning (whether or not this is what the author intended). But in each case the execution appears more impressive than the substance. Sure, the novel says some things about life, and death, and war, but it says little that is really surprising or profound, and it spends vastly more time being childish, silly, and indulgent.

I can only imagine the novel’s fresh and uninhibited style found some sort of resonance in the early 1970s zeitgeist, but I don’t perceive that freshness reading it today. For a book that is widely considered one of the greatest of the last century, I was left unimpressed. Or rather: Gravity’s Rainbow impressed me, but it failed to move me. The three stars represent an ambivalent response, not an apathetic one. Never before have I read a novel that is simultaneously and in equal magnitude a work of genius, and a piece of shit.

I've always been told that Gravity's Rainbow is one of most unfilmable books ever, but, seeing as others have somehow ended up on the big screen to my surprise, I just thought - this is before reading it mind you - that I bet it isn't as complex as people say, and could yet still end up being made.

Nope. It's completely unfilmable. I'd put my life on it. I know its been thought about in the past, but even if it did have a straightforward narrative - which it absolutely doesn't - there is just no way.

Firstly, by the end of this doorstopper of a novel, I had a pretty good idea - or at least my own interpretation of - just what the hell it all adds up to. But, I'd be lying if I said everything made sense and all the dots were joined. There came a moment where certain pieces of the multi-complex plotline started to come together, but of course, to get there, I had to get through a really tough first third or so. It was tough I can tell you, but, unlike V, it didn't infuriate the bejesus out of me, as I always had a feeling that if I stuck with it the rewards will come.

Secondly, I'd say for the writing alone, it's the best of the five Pynchon novels I've read. And whilst I did find it very funny in places - for me, Vineland is still the most fun, and the most character driven of the five - it is the darkest, most dense, most paranoid, most unsettling, most dazzling, most tragic, and most poetic. A journey into a fearful twilight zone of semi consciousness is how I'd put it. It literally felt like I was neither awake nor asleep for most of it's 900 pages. Can't think of any other book that has taken me out of my comfort space in the way this did. Some of the scenes where breathtakingly spectacular, outrageous, utterly revolting, and completely off the chart - that would be the chart of insanity - and I'm no doubt taking them to the grave. But, although I did find the whole experience great, it is problematic in terms of not being able to take everything in - I even thought about back tracking, and reading say, the last 20 to 30 pages again each time I picked it up, but in the end dismissed this idea.

For one thing, people who aren't even in the novel get more of a story than some of the actual characters that are. And that brings me on to the places. One minute we're here, then we're there, then we're .... where are we? .... er .... how on earth did we end up here? .... hang on .... wait .... where is here? .... What! .... who on earth are you? .... but we're in the Zone right? .... aren't we?
And how does an international light-bulb cartel that are having trouble in the amazon jungle trying to locate a missing light bulb from a military outpost, tie in with a polish undertaker trying to get struck by lightning in the Baltic sea? It is either very very clever or it's just plain quackers! But then again, from what I can put together, is it not both? The plot, in fact, is so clever, that I now have to label Pynchon an all out genius as well as a mad man. I bet on second reading even more of the narrative will click into place too. And that brings me to the point, like others have said, It probably needs two, maybe even three reads, to fully grasp this monumental beast. But that doesn't mean to say you can't enjoy it the first time, because I know I did.

A record breaking post-modern orgy of references, flashbacks, cultural historical facts; and fictions, scientific terminology, philosophical musings, sperm induced blather, disguises - got to love um! - ha! ha!, insulating plastic, technicians, phallic mania, African expatriates, drug dealers - Ah, so that's what Pig Bodine (V) got up to in the war, pet lemmings, heroic uprisings, daring escapes, leather clad piss and shit perversions, sado-masochistic orgasms, double triple agents, Rilke's poetry, Nazi propaganda films, rituals, schemers, espionage, narcotic fantasies, mephistophelian research, seduction - femme fatale style, pop songs, chorus girls, black market dealers, chimpanzees, streams of consciousness - brilliantly done, light bulbs - still can't quite believe that!, a fetish for death & annihilation - if one had to some up the novel in a few words then it's probably that, and one of the funniest dinner party scenes I've ever come across, amongst so much more.

Oh, and buried in there somewhere is World War II Europe, a V-2 rocket, and a guy who definitely does NOT have erectile dysfunctional issues.