Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon Book Review in 2022 

Im glad to see a women review this book, I've only seen men review it and I've been really curious how this book feels from a feminine perspective. Started it two days ago I'm only 80 pages in but based on all I see I'm scared for the reading ahead of me

I really like Gravity’s Rainbow, and it is common to have an unpleasant experience on the first read. But I found your review to be unique, honest, and highly insightful. I Thank you.

I’m currently reading GR for the 3rd time in the last year and a half (clearly a fan). I understand the dislike but I will say in Pynchon’s defense - there are several instances of optimism I didn’t catch on the first read. Also on the 2nd/3rd read I am finding there are several characters I do care about. (Roger Mexico’s doomed love for Jessica is beautifully written.) It is one of those books (like Ulysses) that you get a lot more out of on the re-read.

Yours is one of the most interesting, thoughtful and honest takes on GR I've seen on youtube. Thank you. About the humor tho: I was, too, surprised how much not simply jokes but straight up buffoonery happens in this book. Characters not only recite poems and songs on the regular but many scenes morph into entire music numbers, with labrat cabaret shows and whatnot bursting out of the page at you. And... all of it feels JOYLESS. As if existing in constant fear with war and death everpresent in the background of everyday vacuums life out of Life itself making ghosts of us all.

GR is indeed a masterpiece of the comic and only semi-tragic collapse of all structures. I read it in 1974 and revisit it about every 10 years. Its themes are highly reminiscent of its true predecessor, Moby Dick, THE great novel of total deconstruction.

Honestly, this is one of the best reviews of GR I've come across on RU-vid that's engaging, critical, brutally sincere and accessible

Excellent review. Insightful.

Thank you for reviewing this book so honestly. for me Gravity's Rainbow describes our present condition in which we worship corporations and the military industrial complex. I do believe that there's a spirituality implicit in the book, but only implicit, as the world where it takes place is pure nihilism. Against the Day seems like Gravity's Rainbow's conjugate, and moreover a book written for the future, and here you'll find hope and characters with volition, despite the obvious evil in the world.

Maybe the best book review I've ever watched on RU-vid.

This book may not contain "likable characters" but you yourself are one. This is a mature, engaging and light-hearted review of a complex and divisive book that doesn't reduce it to, or pander to Lowest-Common-Denominator readings. And that's refreshing.

Love your honesty. Now I have to read this difficult book too. I will be woman #4.

Nice review. Unlike you I'm a fan of the book but I appreciated hearing your intelligent perspective. I agree with the commenter earlier who said Moby-Dick is more the spiritual forebear of this book than Ulysses, but I se the point about both. Thanks for this!

I've read plenty of Pynchon(including one of the hard ones: Mason and Dixon). But I have yet to tackle this beast. I am very much looking foward to, since Pynchon is one of my favorite writers, but this one has been on my shelf for a while. I've been a bit scared of it, honestly lol.

What a great review! I think you understood the book better than many “experts”, you really are an insightful and intelligent reader. You got yourself a new subscriber!

Great to hear your review! Although Gravity’s Rainbow is the undisputed world champion of boy books, one could argue that it’s actually a feminist satire which critiques the masculine drive to death inherent in the systems and institutions of control which dominate and divide our world while longing for a return to a pre-historical time when the sacred feminine principles of wholeness and fecundity immanent from the earth still governed societies and consciousness.

I will revisit this when I am done with the book. Threw my 2023 plans out the window and will make it a PYNCHON ONLY YEAR !!!!

I stumbled across your video because - while in the process of reading the novel for a third time - I had been looking around for relevant content. I do enjoy your perspective. And, of course, there's a few things I don't quite agree with. Sorry for the long read, I guess it must be those damn 1000+ pages... 1. One commentator mentioned that Pynchon's protagonists are not there to be liked. I totally agree with that, and I'd go even one step further: they're not there to be envied either. When concentrating on all the sexual content, on a very superficial level one could get to view Slothrop as something one wants to be him(!)self: sleeps with many women, and, Pynchon goes into length not to leave any doubt, satisfies all of them. Remembering that we're not talking about pornographic material one will probably notice that along the novel that this is really more of a parody. I don't think Pynchon made this up just for fun (although I can't help but think that he must have been stoned while writing at least parts of the novel). Slothrop is not in control of his life. He was sent into the "zone" while still being constantly observed. Just the same he is controlled by his sexuality. Hence, all his traits boil down to the same thing: he is a creature struggling for self-determination but always failing to achieve this. 2. Of course, Pynchon is a man. But, though being a man myself, I don't agree with your point of this being a very "male" novel. "Masculinity" is not what the novel is but rather what it is about (and that in a pretty critical way). The rocket as a phallus symbol is of course a choice that was made very deliberately (culminating brilliantly in the novel's end with Weissmann's lover shot into the sky in a gigantic penis). It symbolises male quest for dominance, both sexually and in society with technology being one of the tools employed in this. And yes, all these years and lots of sociologic-feminist papers later we may not find this particularly innovative anymore, but consider the time it was written. 3. Beside sexuality, atrocities are another main concept. In Gravity's Rainbow there are a few references to the genocide commited by Germans in their African colonies from "V". In "V" this is described from an observer's perspective (who, when looking closely is not that much an observer but rather an accomplice). The atrocities shown in "V" are described seemingly without any compassion (by the way, just like the episode on the "bad priest" dying trapped while being ripped apart by children). However, when reading more of Pynchon's novels we understand that compassion is actually one of his central themes. But activating one's moral compass remains up to the reader. Similar ideas can be found in Gravity's Rainbow, think of the Africans' collective suicide for example. To me this all seems rather consistent: look what our "civilisation" has done (and keeps doing). 4. Shock. People are forced to eat excrements, incest, etc. - the world has come to a point where all structure, all values are lost (hey, this is what your ambitions and your innovativeness have brought us, man!). 5. Finally, back to the novel's (alleged) "maleness". Of course, I have only my own perspective. Between the lines I seem to hear that you feel distant from what is described in the novel, probably even alienated. I am pretty sure that the same is the case for most readers. Could it be, that we tend to be alienated in different ways but pretty much end up at the same point anyway?

Nice review. To me,Gravity's rainbow is a masterpiece of modern literature,and it is written 50 years ago!I agreed with your epilogue just before listening to it.I may add that the characters are not there to be liked,or even judged,it is just that they are mainly pawns in chess.

On my fourth read (and one listen) since 1973. Love it as much as ever.

I think the book is funny, entertaining, historical, informative, philosophical and thoughtful and is one big fat invitation to start learning more about our world, whether that personal education be in math, physics, history, music, art, philosophy, spirituality or all of the above. Pynchon, especially GR, is all about connecting dots to try to discern patterns that, hopefully, form some kind of picture of reality. The more dots you have to connect, the clearer the picture that emerges. It encourages us to look beneath the surface of things, and challenges all of our assumptions, ...all of them, including the nature of our consciousness and the notion of free will. It's a mistake, I think, to read GR as some sort of artful, dreadful hallucination rather than as a kind of sober journalism reporting on the state of the world at the end of WWII and the state of Humanity in modern times. This is what we're up against, folks. And things haven't gotten better or easier over the 50 years since the publishing of this book. We're being forced to be born into a higher state of consciousness. We can be born kicking and screaming into this new world, resisting every inch of the way, or we can embrace the challenge of radically changing how we see and experience everything, losing ourselves to gain ourselves.

Fantastic review. I disagree a bit that the book has no soul. It can definitely be very grim a lot of the time. But the book 1) Is poetically vulgar and very funny (in my opinion), which doesn't suggest soul-lessness. 2) Is a beautiful defence and championing of the "preterite"

Keep it up

Thank you very much! Your review is helpful...and yet somewhat perplexing because you spend about 24 minutes explaining in detail why the book is "cringe" [well not only], and then one minute concluding the book is sublime. You're saying all the cringing will be worth it at the end and the cheese will be transubstantiated into gold? This year I read Blood Meridian which re-inspired me to read great books, but following the Blood Meridian thread they have been quite MALE, e.g. the Iliad; and male authors like Faulkner and Shakespeare. They have female characters but... Right now I'm trying to balance things out with Middlemarch and some Chaucer.

The *scoff* after the quote about this being the most masculine book the reviewer has read (8:29) made me literally laugh out loud. Good review! Nice to hear a woman review this one - I’ve only heard dudes review

Have you read Vineland?

This is on our book club list and I am 50 pages in. Your summary, and listening to others speak on it, makes me feel like putting it down. Instead I can pick up great Buddhists texts and stories. I get this book is genius. But is reading it going to help me? I have recently read Milton's Paradise Lost, The Invisible Man and Hamlet twice . But what I want is hope. Ulysses, War and Peace, TBK offer hope. Other books too. I thought reading the greatest literary works solidly for two years would be more rewarding. But recently I have felt there is a lack of positivity in too many books. We are conditioned, so to couteract that we need conditioning that encourages positive free will choices and world views. Your right about the characters in GR. They all appear flat and devoid of spirit as spirit has to include love an empathy. Should I carry on? There is more enlightning stuff to read. As the bombs pound Gaza the machine is allowing this to continue. Time for the Machine to Stop (EM Forster).

Great chat about a very unhinged novel

Relistened to your book review. Very informative. Thanks 📚

I love this review. The first one I saw that explained the disgusting stuff.

I think people need to remember that Pynchon was only in his twenties, and early thirties, when he wrote GR. I think that is why it is so gross and juvenile. When a typical male is in his twenties, his "inputs" are testosterone, strip clubs, alcohol, testosterone, drugs, testosterone, and one-night-stands. His "outputs" are empty beer bottles and vomit. With a genius like Pynchon, his "output" was GR. You should read Mason & Dixon and Against The Day (if you have not) to see the mature author. The man is shockingly smart. I think it's better to refer to him as "maximalist" rather than "post-modern" because he just knows so much about so much. If you are a "geek" who wants to know everything, and see the English language at its apex, you will like his "encyclopedic" novels. Also, check out Wisenburger's Companion to GR. It's excellent. It's hard to believe a 20-something year old knew so much. James Joyce, William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon, China Mieville, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Powers, David Foster Wallace. Yup.

Thank you! I tried and I think I'm getting sick of nihilism, dystopia, I dislike saying it...but feels like a lost guys book... I think I would like to be third in your book club...except I couldn't force my way through 🙄😒

You look like a real life pynchon character

Gravity's rainbow is the world we live in. You gotta find your own optimism. It's mostly built up layers of shit.

Have you read Blood Meridian? If you haven't, I recommend not reading it.

This wasn't on my list... and now it won't be lol that is the craziest plot line I've ever heard.

I understand, I also can’t tolerate “girl” books, jokes about fashion sense, the looks of their boyfriends, and the banality of their menstrual cycle. Seems like a very superficial reading and a bit of a weird takeaway to call this book “hyper-masculine”.

It's an objectively bad book, but people insist on hyping it up. There's a great video of 2 guys comparing it to Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, and they expose how poorly written and lacking GR is in comparison. What I find fascinating is why everyone feels the need to be in the club of those who "like" this sludge pile. I think there's something psychologically interesting there, in the cult mentality and how people bullshit their way through reviews of it. Like, as far as the characters, your point is a good one, but this just shows how reductive and lacking in any depth Pynchon was. He didn't understand people at all. He didn't understand society. Even if you have a kernel of truth (which was already explored by John Steinbeck with far more nuance decades earlier), to have such a flat, 1 dimensional world with such flat, 1 dimensional characters is bad writing.

So life isn't full enough of sad and desperate complexities that we need to spend our days reading books like this one? I, for one, will not. I guess some people have called this an "important" book. Leave out the "r" in that description and I will agree.

400

"Boy-book"? "Hyper-masculine"? Is it possible you're missing that the author is satirizing those things? And the humor is "gross-sex fart-joke silly limericky humor"? Some. But there are moments -- passages -- of gentle, delicate, and hilarious humor too, as when he describes eating horrible-tasting British wartime candy with his girlfriend and her landlord. And at other times, there is simply beautiful writing, which arrives in such an offhand manner that you almost miss it, like the description of a view of a city at dawn: "Crystals growing in the morning's beaker." You missed so much. Too bad.