Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
I’ve been wanting to pick up an old copy of this for years and finally settled on this one, a 1975 UK Picador.
u/JudgeLionelNutmeg — 4 days ago
r/ThomasPynchon
▲ 267 r/ThomasPynchon
1 year anniversary gift from my wife. Time to lock in.
Starting the Pynchon journey thanks to my wife.
Big PTA fan, so he sort of led me here. Also, had to flex the new Sterling Cooper & Partners mug lol!
u/Fluffy-Complaint-977 — 4 days ago
▲ 12 r/ThomasPynchon
A Quote that Grabbed Me
Just wanted to share a great few lines from the St. Helena section of Mason and Dixon (Ch. 11) that captured my imagination:
“… for Commerce without Slavery is unthinkable, whilst Slavery must ever include, as an essential Term, the Gallows, — Slavery without the Gallows being as hollow and Waste a Proceeding, as a Crusade without the Cross.”
u/To_Helen — 4 days ago
▲ 18 r/ThomasPynchon
Do you ever try to add music to the songs?
So yeah, I was wondering as I am plugging along in Gravity’s Rainbow if other people add music in their head or hum along to the songs?
u/guy_incognito42069 — 12 days ago
▲ 28 r/ThomasPynchon
I’m doin it (Part 2)
So a bit ago I posted that I was gonna do it and I started Gravity’s Rainbow while riding that high of Infinite Jest thinking I could take on anything. First of all for some reason I said I wasn’t much of a reader when that wasn’t really true, I think I was just intimidated and thought little of my reading abilities when up against mammoth works like these.
Second of all, it took me a weirdly long time for Gravity’s Rainbow to click, but when it did it felt damn great. I followed the important parts of the plot of Beyond the Zero/ Pt 1 but I was lost and kinda zoned out for a lot and the Casino part/ Part 2 was when each sentence starting seeming coherent to me and maybe that’s cause the prose was more accessible and easy to grasp here or maybe I’m actually getting it finally.
It’s safe to say Infinite Jest did not prepare me for this literary venture. I do think though that that is Pynchon’s most captivating quality that no other works or authors can make reading his books any less daunting (Maybe Joyce but I haven’t read him yet). I’m so glad I actually starting reading this book and my life got really busy over the last week so it hasn’t been read in a while but I can’t wait to get back into it cause now I know it’s actually possible to laugh out loud when reading something (I thought people were just being hyperbolic). It’s also weird too that Pynchon’s writing can make other authors seem kinda boring and I’m wondering if other people share that observation.
I plan on making my final GR post when I finish this book and there I’ll actually talk about the plot and what I thought of it. Till then!
u/ComprehensiveJob1497 — 12 days ago
▲ 21 r/ThomasPynchon
Kidnapping of Eliza Fields, M&D-inspired drawing; chapter53; work in progress
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Chapter 53: ...the further they took her through the forest away from home and name the safer she began to feel...They did not bind or abuse or, unless they must, speak to her.
Inspiration: photo by Victor J. Blue (Bloomberg News); Rape of the Sabrine Women, painting by Luca Giordano
u/Easy_Albatross_3538 — 12 days ago
▲ 3 r/ThomasPynchon
Night Moves (1975) V reference?
Was watching Night Moves (1975) and there is a scene in which they reference the passing fad in NYC in which small alligators were bought as pets and subsequently disposed of by flushing them down the toilet — filling the NYC sewers with blind alligators. I did the Leo pointing meme upon hearing this. There are also some obvious parallels with Inherent Vice i.e., Los Angeles PI entangled in a web of crime. Anyone ever pick on this before? I wonder if this was a reference to V or just a coincidental nod to the gator urban legend
u/maengdaddy — 11 days ago