GR as Postmodern - Gravity's Rainbow #4

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The passage I read in the video is on page 427 in the Vintage 2013 edition of GR (previous editions will likely find it a few pages sooner):
He will spend twelve hours then, face-up on the desert, a prehistoric city greater than Babylon lying in stifled mineral sleep a kilometer below his back [...]
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READING PROJECT'S SCHEDULE
All of these breaks, when they are not marked by the end of one of the novel's four parts, correspond to the last line or first line of a sub-chapter, so it shouldn't be too hard to locate them.
The page number on which each section ends is given. The letters close to the number indicate different editions.
VN: 2013 Vintage edition with multicolor silhouettes of rockets on the cover and red spine.
This edition has the SAME page layout as the 2000 Vintage edition with all the tiny characters and items drawn on the cover over a white field.
O: 1995 Vintage edition with collage of pin-ups, rockets and explosions on the cover.
This edition has the SAME page layout as the original 1973 Viking edition of the novel.
PD: 2005 Penguin Deluxe edition, black and white cover with the silhouette of a rocket.
Thanks to Richard and Hunter for the help with the page numbers!
- September 6th: Introduction.
- September 20th: 1/8: Frontispiece to "Their footprints filled with ice, and a little later they were taken out to sea." Page: VN 109; O 92; PD 94.
- October 4th: 2/8: From "In silence, hidden from her" to the end of part 1. Page: VN 211; O 177; PD 181.
- October 18th: 3/8: The entire part 2, Un Perm' au Casino Herman Goering. Page: VN 331; O 278; PD 283.
- November 1st: 4/8: From the beginning of part 3 to "hovering coyly over the pit of death..." Page: VN 455; O 383; PD 389.
- November 15th: 5/8: From "A soft night" to "So somebody has to tell you." Page: VN 561; O 472; PD 480.
- November 29th: 6/8: From "Halfway up the ladder" to the end of part 3. Page: VN 730; O 616; PD 629.
- December 13th: 7/8: From the beginning of Part 4 to "Streets." Page: VN 821; O 692; PD 706.
- December 27th: 8/8: From "Streets" to end of the book. Page: VN 902; O 760; PD 776.

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31 окт 2018

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Комментарии : 38

@davidlean1060 5 лет назад

I prefer the more 'adult' version of the old saying you quoted, 'if my Auntie had balls, she'd be my Uncle'! ;)

@ItsVyy 5 лет назад

The novel begins to deconstruct itself in a way after Slothrop and Bianca are separated on the Anubis, after that the situations Slothrop finds himself in begin to make less and less sense and have less and less to do with the 00000.

@nicolerosito2357 5 лет назад

I have had some difficulties with this section, but I'm making it easier on myself by listening to the audiobook while following along with the text. This way my brain doesn't fizzle out after a few pages, and I can stay engaged with the narrative for longer spans of time. Also, the narration is pretty funny at times.

@hhhpiece 5 лет назад

In terms of the postmodernity of Gravity's Rainbow (and maybe even of Pynchon as a whole), I'm not as interested in how well GR snaps into a definition of postmodern literature as I am in how deep irony and perhaps even more deeply held hope (for what I guess you could call a post-Zone (or return to pre-Zone) state) clash. It's bundled very heavily into Slothrop questioning how free he is, or more importantly how free he can become (if at all) - because while the Zone appears to be a sort of anarchic playground, in many respects it has its dominant and dominating structures, which never disappear so much as they continually overlap and intrude ("A miracle is one world's intrusion into another" from Lot 49) upon each others' ontological spheres of influence. Which I think is where it becomes interesting. On the one hand, Slothrop still retains all the conditioning that They stuffed into him, but on the other, They clearly aren't as omniscient a presence over Slothrop once he enters the Zone, the place They need him to be in order to optimize Their gathering of data. So even if Slothrop still has that conditioning, if he goes in and out of Their awareness, might there be the smallest of spaces where perhaps no ontologies of the Zone overlap/intersect at all? Where Slothrop might find that freedom? Whether GR actually shows us those potential spaces is up for discussion (in my current readthrough I don't think I've found any), but I think that it certainly allows for their potential, or at minimum the hope for that potential. On p429 of my edition (VN), it says that "In the Zone, all will be moving under the Old Dispensation." This comes deep in the section where Pökler is having his many liasons with the many iterations of Ilse. The Old Dispensation I think can be seen as a sort of Neoromanticism, hope embodied in the desire for old but thoroughly deconstructed structures: such as the love between Roger and Jessica, or Slothrop attempting his freedom at all rather than merely giving in (despite this attempt being likely induced by Them), and other such escapes and resistances to the war ("Fuck the War" from Roger early on) and to the Zone's propensity for stripping people of their humanity.

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

I like your take very much, and I definitely feel like the whole of Pynchon's fiction is concerned with zones of freedom, and how susceptible they are to control. (These zones being, at different times, post-war Germany, 18th Century America, the Internet, counter-culture California...). It's never so straightforward as "good people lose, bad guys win" (he's too good a writer for that) but the gist is there; there's a reflection deep in Part III of GR about how gaucho (symbol of independence and anarchic freedom) eventually sells out to control. As for hope in GR, I've picked up traces of it in the anarchists' submarine, and in the sort of small resistences you mention. But I definitely remember it as Pynchon's most pessimistic novel; I'll keep what you mention in mind as I progress.

@yahuahlove9447 5 лет назад

Pynchon Gravity’s Rainbow is a novel of complexities, yes, the reader is consumed to a degree of what going on, but close reading show Pynchon ‘s is cleverly outlining events with nonfiction stuff, some scenes applied fictional situations, yet it is written to amuse, and so details to keep up with , so the reader’s mind is bombarded with levels of history, music, movies, sex, culture, rockets, comics, cooking, fighting, languages, mathematics, space, surrealities, philosophy, paranoia, and on and on, so much stuff, with this in mind, reading the novel is a must, just for knowing the knowledge of Pynchon through his education and readings, quite a novel, just to mention Fernando del Paso written Palinuro of Mexico, I would recommend on the level of Pynchon, and of course Alexander Theroux of Darconville ‘s Cat, required a dictionary for both these novels. Moreover, Pynchon in his novels, all of them, tells the world, with a message that is full of conspiracies, corruption, anything goes, greediness, power hungry leaders, drugs control,influences from other leaders, on and on, yes, Pynchon relates a message to the readers, it is up to the readers to understand his writings, of course depending on the level education and experience of each reader. Pynchon knows and we as reader gets to know where he coming from. Read on.

@yahuahlove9447 5 лет назад

Thanks Bookchemist, you are doing a great task in explaining Pynchon ‘s Gravity ‘s Rainbow, yes, I can say, the novel is full of meanings, a treasure of knowledge, vast research, and of Pynchon ‘s years of reading and writing, no doubt Pynchon is an enigma, a man of puzzle, figuring out him is a great challenge, that why his novel is difficult to break down, his meaning is real and sometimes unreal, reading it is fun and demanding. His limericks keep the reader going and shows Pynchon comic side, and of course the Rocket is the main force of destruction, “A screaming comes across the Sky”, old Pynchon knows what goes up must come down, Gravity Rainbow, color up, color down so to speak. Ja,ja. By the way, by color I mean Fire consists of rainbow 🌈 color 🔥🔥.....

@oneEquals 5 лет назад

Finally finished this section. Other than the section on Enzian I found it fairly easy to read. Slothrop wandering around as "rocket man" on a mission to retrieve a load of hash was really cool, kinda reminded me of a music festival. The initial description of Tchitcherine was awesome, made me think of Darth Vader stomping around looking for rockets. Hope we see more of him!

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

In hindsight, this was probably my very favorite section ;)

@bighardbooks770 5 лет назад

12:50 "If my aunt had balls she'd be a pool table!" I admit I'm two weeks behind, but I've got this weekend to catch up. I've not read Against the Day, alas. What about the equation on p 242 (PQ) Mix of real mathatics w the occult? 3 In the Zone you can start with the 0/Fool Tarot key and follow on up to 21/The World ... Or so Ive heard.

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

I've heard about the tarots' role on GR and I'd love to read something about that! I'm fascinated by these types of unconventional modes of writing/composition.

@susanmargolis4438 Год назад

The idea of the great game of international relations was a topic that Pynchon addressed in one of his short stories. It was published in Slow Learner.

@ericgrabowski3896 5 лет назад

I'm not reading this along with you but from listening it seems like one of Pynchon's ideas is that even when we think we have control or have a good idea about ourselves - who we are, and the ways of the world - we're wrong. We don't know ourselves or the world around us at all. Compartmentalization. I've only read Crying of lot 49 and I liked it but I know reading GR is an undertaking. I've been reading a lot of novellas and short stories I'm not sure I could take the leap. Read s great short story in The Harvard review recently called " scrimshaw" by Ben Shattuck.

@peterprablo1331 5 лет назад

About Tchicherine laying face up: maybe that does have something to do with Shambahla because when he has characters have these little experiences laying on their back, it has something to do with God or a religious experience. I am thinking of near the beginning of Mason and Dixon when Mason is running around the Vroom household and falls off the balcony to end up laying on his back in the rain. When that happens Pynchon starts talking about some beetle that has flown from the desert and is experiencing rain for the first time and he says maybe that the bug thinks it is God or something like that. There is something going on there that I am not fully picking up on and maybe it is the same with the Tchicherine scene?

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

Great insight, thanks! I'll keep an eye out for more characters lying on their back :) there's definitely something there; I have always perceived Pynchon as a deeply spiritual writer.

@superokapi5950 5 лет назад

There is this quote by Pynchon, stating something along the lines that “I was so fucked up when writing GR”. I wouldn’t rule out that a fair amount of the novel might have been written under the influence of various substances.

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

For sure!!

@uniquechannelnames 4 года назад

Where is the source for this quote? I don't know of many verified Pynchon quotes. I heard there is a letter to one of his professors at Cornell stating that GR was coming from "somewhere above", as in he didn't really feel like he was writing it himself. But not specifically mentioning any drug or alcohol.

@benshore5344 5 лет назад

I really enjoyed this part if felt a bit more in the vain of Inherent Vice to me. I read up to page 580 but got burnt out lol One thing you mentioned about grand narratives in history or news reminded me something i notice with depictions of Black people in the novel where in the beginning where most of the cast is white they are more depicted as overtly sexual as with the dream rape scene with Slothrop or other ways characters refer to them. However in this part where we meet the Hetero tribe and the Schwarzkommando we see that they are more focused on survival or dealing with the death of their people. besides the sex scene between Enzian and Tchitcherine, which has an obvious power imbalance, we don't really see another sex scenes with black characters. Maybe Pynchon does this to make a point how white people in that time and the 60's sexualizes being black persons(Delaney makes the same point in Dhalgren) and how different their actual reality and goals are. Also the scene with the light confused me but I thought maybe it was like that light weapon that scared the mobster(?) so much and the Again student took to study(and we never see again!!). Maybe it showed Tchitcherine his inner most self/reality and it scared him? Also reading ahead I noticed a lot of references to horses, the letter S and G.

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

I like your reading of African characters a lot. I feel part of it comes from Pynchon's obvious carefulness, as a white writer, with avoiding unjust stereotypes, but I definitely agree that the way English and western characters in general are over-sexualized follows a certain purpose; to me, showing the hidden pulses and currents in a society that, instead, tried very hard to mask them and ignore them. (As such, as you mention, this is very much a novel of the 60s and of the countercultural movement).

@dylanclymer1145 5 лет назад

What do you guys think of the rocket in this section? I've noticed that the Rocket has become a mythical or religious icon Here are some passages from the Penguin 1995 ed: "North is death's region. There may be no gods, but there is a pattern: names by themselves may have no magic, but the act of naming, the physical utterance obeys the pattern. The history of the Hereros is one of lost messages. It began in mythical times, when the sly rabbit who nests in the moon brought death among men instead of the moon's true message. The true message has never come. Perhaps the rocket is meant to take us there someday, and then the moon will tell us its truth at last. There are those down in the Erdschedweinhöhle, younger ones who've only known white autumn-prone Europe. Europe who believe that the moon is their destiny. But older ones can remember that Moon, like Ndjambi Karunga is both the bringer of evil and it's avenger." Is the rocket some kind of "Tower of Babel" device that is meant to bridge the gap between man and the moon (God) and demand that it tell it's secret true message? Is that message annihilation? Also, what is the relation of the rocket to manhood? on pg 324, Enzian states that "the rocket was an entire system won, away from the feminine darkness, held against the entropies of lovable but scatterbrained Mother Nature [...] [Enzian] was led to believe that by understanding the Rocket he would come to understand truly his manhood" (324). With Enzian as the lover disciple of Dominus Blicero,n I'm getting a Rocket Cult vibe here. Considering all of this, I'm beginning to wonder how much of our personal narratives have been formed from death and destruction. If there is some kind of force out there with some semblance of control over us, then perhaps it is that.

@davidlean1060 5 лет назад

I can't say whether that is true for all man kind, but think about this. The Surrealists emerged after the end of WW2. I remember a train journey as a child. We passed a block of apartments that had suffered a gas explosion only days before. One side of the building had been blown away, exposing the interiors of the apartments inside and I vividly remember thinking how strange it was to see what wall paper someone's living room had from the view I had. Something that should be inside was now outside. It was 'topsy turvy', surreal. Now, imagine a city destroyed by bombs. You would see that sort of thing on a daily basis. It is no wonder the Surrealists saw the world as they did, they had actually grown up looking at surreal situations their whole lives! So, artistic narratives can be influenced by death and destruction, if not out own personal journeys. Ps I heard this theory in an interview with British Jazz musician George Melly. Pardon me for going off topic, but I thought it might interest you.

@dylanclymer1145 5 лет назад

@@davidlean1060 Nah it's cool, this was very interesting. Not saying that this is true for all man, just one of the thing I noticed in the book. This is fascinating though. One of my earliest memories is 9/11. From then on I remember growing up in an intensely paranoid age. To make matters worse, where I live there is a high concentration of military personnel and there was a point in time where we had to deal with nuclear missile strike threats. This has had an immense effect on my personal narrative, the work I produce, and the kind of material that I find enticing and entertaining.

@davidlean1060 5 лет назад

@@dylanclymer1145 It is true that people look to art to 'explain' the world too, so perhaps you're on to something. Someone who has not had death or destruction make a first hand impression on them may relate to art that was inspired by it, so by extension, death and destruction has played a part in how they see the world. I mentioned the Surrealists because they would of been somewhat of a pre cursor to the post modernists. Also, the image of bombed out places was in my mind, given the events in GR.

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

Great stuff here, thank you guys - I especially like the image of the rocket as a Tower of Babel. That would give it a thoroughly negative connotation, and in truth one of the points I'm unsure about GR is whether the rocket is presented as both destructive (for obvious reasons) and salvific (for its potential and connection to space travel), or whether it is wholly destructive. So far I lean more toward the latter option. Case in point, Dylan's reference to (his) page 324. I definitely see GR as discussing the self-destructive and violent tendencies that shape the whole of history, and society (and, with its take on anarchism and the Zone's potential, as also offering possible escapes from these traps).

@dylanclymer1145 5 лет назад

@@TheBookchemist I believe that the rocket in this section did have an overtly negative connotation. Not because the Rocket itself is inherently "evil," only that is being used by evil men for evil purposes(?). After revisiting this passage I've come to think that perhaps Pynchon is also trying to say something about the space race and the how both the United States and the former USSR had competed to launch men into space. This started with USSR cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin when his spacecraft Vostok completed on successful orbit around the Earth in 1961 with the US following up with the Apollo missions and the Moon landing. If Pynchon is indeed using this to comment on the real-life construction of rockets during the Space Race perhaps Pynchon is saying that the rocket's true purpose is not necessarily annihilation. But whatever that message is, it has been lost to man who have repurposed the rocket for as a weapon of mass destruction. On a side note, this talk of the rocket's potential space travel and it's potential vaguely reminds me of how Alex and company from Burgess's A Clockwork Orange spoke about the moon and space travel. Perhaps there is something here to further looked into.

@DimitrisLian 5 лет назад

I'm sooo behind and it's sad but I'll try catching up with you up till the December 13 video for sure. I finished this part a few days ago. It's really difficult for me but I'm hanging in there. What I can say so far is that I understand little but I'm loving his writing so much that it doesn't bother me. Does this make any sense? :)))

@joaopires51 5 лет назад

I am also behind, just finish this part last night. If I remember correctly the two next section are not that hard to read so it may be possible to catch the rest of the group. Anyway, I am still trying to get this done by the end of the year, but it starts to look difficult to achieve that. Regarding the not understanding everything or even a little part, its normal. It is a difficult book and probably not even the author has a full understanding of the book. Keep reading for the pleasure of some of the prose and the funny situations that mainly Slothrop finds himself. There is a Portuguese saying that is really appropriated to this book. A roughly translation would be "First you find it strange. Then you can't get enough of it" Keep going :)

@DimitrisLian 5 лет назад

Thank you so much and much love to beautiful Portugal!

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

I agree with Joao, it's absolutely normal ;)

@jackgreendal8814 5 лет назад

have you read Sabbath's Theater?

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

No, but I'd love to! I'd love to read all of Roth really.

@personanongrata987 Год назад

I have. Excellent book. How does it relate to "Gravity's Rainbow"? --

@timkjazz 5 лет назад

'Gravity's Rainbow' is a masterpiece of literature on the highest level, akin to 'Ulysses', 'The Magic Mountain', 'Anna Karenina', 'Blood Meridian', 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', and a few others. What matter be it Post-Modern or Science Fiction? Labels for literature are ludicrous.

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

High modernist, high modernist, realist/family saga, western, postmodern ^^ I absolutely agree with you that a novel's genre per se should not influence our perception or opinion of it, but I see nothing wrong with discussing it. On a basic level, because I love talking about beautiful things, I think it's a noble pursuit and that it enriches our understanding of them. Semiotically speaking, beacuse any text is read in the context of all other texts, with genre being a main key of interpretation; being genre-blind is theoretically impossible, and less fruitful than may first seem.

@timkjazz 5 лет назад

Agreed, and I love a great discussion with my guys about SF, Post-Modernism, Cyber Punk, Magic Realism, etc., I just think we sometimes get so bogged down in trying to classify things we end up losing the point of the book itself. How in the world do you classify 'Lanark' by Alasdair Gray or 'The Third Policeman' by Flann O'Brien? Just read and re-read and enjoy the hell out of them. But thanks for the post, as always, love 'em all! Oh, and if you want to read something short that's a mind-bending masterpiece of prose try 'Jesus' Son' by the late Denis Johnson, a great poet turned great novelist.

@TheBookchemist 5 лет назад

Absolutely, I see your point. And thanks for the suggestion - I know very little about Johnson but I know he's considered a genius!

@timkjazz 5 лет назад

Truly great writer, 'Angels', 'Fiskadoro', 'Train Dreams' and Jesus' Son' and you can't go wrong. And by the way, awesome, truly stupendous site, my friend, love every post.