I've made many failed attempts to get through Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow, but this time around I'm a quarter of the way through and I have hopes of reaching the finish line. The novel won the National Book Award in 1974 (sharing it with Isaac Bashevis Singer for his A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories) and was selected to win The Pulitzer Prize by the Jury but got rejected by the Advisory Board for being "unreadable" and "obscene."
Pynchon remains something of a mysterious figure. While the idea of a "reclusive" seems to be a 20th century phenomenon, Pynchon's continued to uphold the tradition (if you would call it that). Now 83 years old, there's still only a few photos of him available to the public. Pynchon rarely gives interviews, although he did appear on The Simpsons in a voice role as himself in 2004 (also in two more episodes). He grew up in Glen Cove, Long Island, attended Cornell University, dropped out for a stint in the Navy, then returned to finish his degree in English. Novelist and songwriter Richard Farina (1937-1966) was an influence and close friend of Pynchon's at Cornell, Gravity's Rainbow would be dedicated to him. Vladimir Nabokov was one of Pynchon's professors, coincidentally Ruth Bader Ginsburg was also a student of Nabokov's around the same time.
I started reading Pynchon back to the mid-2000s. The first Pynchon novel I read was The Crying of Lot 49, published in 1965. For anyone interested in Pynchon, that's maybe the best place to begin. Set in phantasmagoric 1960s California, the novel follows Ophelia Mass as she discovers a vast web of conspiracy (the post office plays a big role). I was also assigned to read Lot 49 in graduate school for a course on Postmodern American Fiction, one of the best literature courses I was lucky enough to get into. Then I read his debut novel V published in 1963, a pre-psychedelic journey through the 20th Century.
Gravity's Rainbow takes place during the final months of the Second World War, alternating between London and Germany. The novel defies any attempt at a plot synopsis. Pynchon jumps around between points of view and time periods, sometimes between paragraphs. The famous opening passage describes a rocket descending upon a building, "A screaming comes across the sky," and we are off. The "A" mimicking a rocket about to be launched.
Many, many, characters are introduced throughout, some of which are real figures, but most are fictional. If there's a protagonist in the novel it would be Lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop, an American serving in London being kept under close scrutiny by various intelligence agencies and other interested parties. Other characters include rocket scientists, psychologists, neurologists, military officers, statisticians, diplomats, spies, nurses, psychics, and mediums. Pynchon's view of the war is that of an apocalyptic event, a dividing line in history with shades of the future embedded throughout (way more on this in further posts).
Gravity's Rainbow almost requires a supplemental reading list to go along with it. In addition to the onslaught of 1940s cultural references Pynchon throws at you, for the dedicated reader, primers in Pavlovian psychology, classic psychotherapy, rocket science, quantum physics, the occult, Calvinist theology, colonialism, statistics, strategic bombing, bananas, and a chronology of events in 1944-45 would also help. Written long before google, my guess is Pynchon had the Encyclopedia Britannica at his side as he wrote.
The novel throws so much at you in terms of imagery and plotting I find the best way is to just keep moving forward. Don't worry about understanding everything, you learn as you go along. I get the sense Pynchon set up the novel to steer away those who are not serious, one must get obsessive and let yourself into its world. You have to get familiar with the landscape!
Dedicated readers are rewarded with striking passages about life in wartime London and living under the constant dread of a rocket landing anytime, anywhere. Here's a passage from the opening pages:
Some wait alone, some share their invisible rooms with others. Invisible, yes, what do the furnishings matter, at this stage of things? Underfoot crunches the oldest of city dirt, last crystallizations of all the city had denied, threatened, lied to its children. Each day has been hearing a voice, one he thought was only talking to him, say, "You didn't really believe you'd be saved. Come, we all know who we are by now. No one was ever going to take the trouble to save you, old fellow . . . ." (4)
My strategy so far has been to read the book in small doses. Some may be able speed read through it in one gulp, but not me. Every sentence reads like it was thought out and constructed with the precision of an algebra equation. Digressions are common, but you get used to them. The book is full of graphic descriptions of certain acts we'd rather not know or even think about (especially on human digestion) and will put off many (as it did for the Pulitzer Jury). The book is dark, crude, sad, ugly, yet witty and often hilarious. In the chaos are stunning moments of humanity to counter the darkness.
As of now I'm on page 156 of the Penguin Classics version, closing in on the end of Part One (Beyond the Zero), the first of four. I started the book on August 9, so I've been reading in fits and starts. I usually try to read a fiction and non-fiction book at the same time, ideally a short novel I can knock out in a few sittings, not this one. Finishing before the end of 2020 is within the realm of possibility I suppose, we'll see. If not then, hopefully by Spring of 2021!
