First off, I don’t want to make it sound like this is an easy text to read. It isn’t. That being said, I’ve read other “stream of consciousness” prose, Faulkner comes to mind (As I Lay Dying), and a tip I have, other than being frustrated, is this: Sit back and enjoy. Don’t read too […]
According to Wikipedia, “Tomaselli sees his paintings and their compendium of data as windows into a surreal, hallucinatory universe.” He once said of his work, “It is my ultimate aim to seduce and transport the viewer in to space of these pictures while simultaneously revealing the mechanics of that seduction.”
When Pynchon didn’t show up to pick up his National Book Award in 1973: This is a useful, yet not always accurate summary of the book – episode by episode: http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_grsumm.html Best visual illustration of the novel: http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/zak_smith/title.htm
Please read and comment. These texts will give us a sense of Pynchon’s influence — not only in terms of its literary achievement. For many people (and future writers) in the 1970s, this was a personal book, a sublime-mad book, a road to escape from Cold War’s every day madness. Does this book resonate, in […]
http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pynchon_Newbies
I’m going to come right out and say it- after reading over a hundred pages of Gravity’s Rainbow, I’m still just as lost as those who blogged before me. I found myself in utter frustration trying to understand how each part is related. In the back of my head, I assumed that if I keep […]
I think Simona really nails it in her post regarding the illogical, disconnected flow of the text. Forget one given paragraph, I found myself rereading single sentences over and over again in an attempt to piece together the so many different clauses and fragments of ideas together. Frustratingly, I usually leave the sentences without the […]
“He has become obsessed with the idea of a rocket with his name on it-if they’re really set on getting him (“They” embracing possibilities far far beyond Nazi Germany) that’s the surest way, doesn’t cost them a thing to paint his name on every one, right?” Amidst the confusion that Simona has already pointed out, […]
First and foremost, I have to admit that I am unsure as to how one is supposed to read Gravity’s Rainbow – do I try to break everything down and understand it piece by piece? That seems ridiculous, because there’s simply way too much going on in any given paragraph. And honestly, most of the […]