Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow
Also, it sucks.
I don’t mean sucks in the sense that mass-market paperback pablum like James Patterson or Janet Evanovich might suck. Gravity’s Rainbow isn’t cookie-cutter or cliched, it doesn’t lack imagination, it is in no way predictable, and it is incredibly ambitious. It is also one of the least enjoyable reading experiences I have ever had. It is difficult to the point of obtuseness, it is repulsive without meaning, it is largely unfunny despite a clear intent to be humorous, and parts of it are painfully misogynistic.
To the extent that Gravity’s Rainbow has a plot, here it is: It’s World War II and the Allies are trying to predict where the German V-2 rockets aimed at London are likely to land. They discover that American Tyrone Slothrop, conditioned from birth in a Pavlovian process similar to the Little Albert experiment, can predict the landing spot of the next rocket due to a peculiar case of hysteron proteron paraphilia: The rockets hit in places where he’s recently had sex. If it’s hard to fathom how that thread can turn into a 776-page opus, fear not, as Pynchon shows great capacity to craft new characters (and discard them just as quickly) and sent Slothrop and the other semi-central actors in the book on various wild goose chases across Europe, frequently involving explicit descriptions of sex, often on the deviant side of the ledger. What Pynchon really needed here was an editor, but in all likelihood, the editor knowledgeable enough to tackle this book didn’t exist.
If you’ve read, or are at least familiar with, Joyce’s Ulysses, imagine a book of that scope and with a similar multitude of allusions, but designed to express modern paranoia in all its forms, from fear of military (and soon nuclear) annihilation to fear of government intrusion to fear of mortality to fear that we lack free will for reasons metaphysical or genetic. It’s all in here, somewhere, if you can find it; I’d be shocked if Pynchon wasn’t a major inspiration for later paranoiac writers like Gibson (Neuromancer), Dick (Ubik) or Stephenson (Snow Crash), and perhaps even Jasper Fforde, who mines dystopian alternate realities for laughs in the Thursday Next series and in Shades of Grey. But unlike those books, accessible for all their erudition, Gravity’s Rainbow is work, work to follow his prose, work to follow the nonlinear plot, and work to follow the references. It’s no wonder most reviews I’ve found of the book, including Burt’s, refer to it as a book with a very high owned-to-finished ratio.
One of the Pulitzer committee’s main objections to Gravity’s Rainbow was its vulgarity, and the book is, in relative terms, pretty filthy, with unstinting descriptions of sado-masochism, incest, rape, coprophilia, and … well, there doesn’t really need to be anything beyond that. Pynchon’s obsession with the functions bodily accentuates the male-ness of the book and narrative but highlights the fact that women in this book are largely there to have sex with the men. There are only two female characters of any depth beyond a few lines. One is Katje, a triple-agent who’s there to seduce Slothrop. The other, Jessica Swanlake (Pynchon loves funny names, but usually just violates Ebert’s First Rule of Funny Names), is there to have sex with Roger Mexico even though he knows she will betray him in the end and return to her fiancee, making her faithless in two relationships. Even the prepubescent Bianca/Ilse character, who might be two different girls, is a temptress, sexually mature beyond her physical development, and available to the adult men in the book, without any indication of approbation from other characters or the omniscient narrator. The term misogyny is frequently used now simply to mean bias against women, or imbalanced treatment, but the word’s original sense, hatred of women, applies as strongly here as in any book I can remember.
If there’s something to praise in Gravity’s Rainbow, it’s in Pynchon’s subversion of the novel’s form. Circular or other nonlinear plots can be entertaining even before we consider their literary purpose. Confusing the reader a little is fine, often part of the pleasure of reading a complex book, as long as there’s some kind of payoff in the end. Pynchon’s ambition here seems unbounded, but boundaries can be as helpful as deadlines, because sometimes you just have to pull back a little to get the thing done. The book is ‘finished,’ in that Pynchon actually completed the manuscript and filed it, giving the book an actual Ending, but it feels incomplete, not least because so many plot strands wither and die without any kind of resolution.
One coincidence that made my reading of Gravity’s Rainbow a little better: I had never heard of the genocide of the Herero people in what is now Namibia by the Germans in 1904-06 before reading about it in the book I read right before this, King Leopold’s Ghost. The Hereros figure prominently here as well, as some Hereros who fought with the Germans against their own people ended up fighting again for the Germans in World War II, with one character, Oberst Enzian (his name a slight pun on gentian), earning a fair amount of screen time. Pynchon alludes to the irony of the members of a tribe nearly wiped out by the Germans fighting for that country in its attempt to wipe out another people in a much broader, more efficient attempt at genocide.
If you’d like a similar take on the book, but with more f-bombs, the Uncyclopedia entry on Gravity’s Rainbow echoes many of my thoughts on the book, including the three-bullet summary at the top. If hating it brings me in for criticism from “pretentious, elitist snobs,” so be it.
Next up: The University of Chicago Press was kind enough to send me a copy of Richard Stark’s Parker
I love how even your negative review is so thorough and thought-out. I’m curious if you’ve ever been drawn to read a more contemporary of the (in)famous nonlinear postmodern novels, House of Leaves. I’ve never been drawn to this kind of literature but that’s the one I’ve heard the most about, and unexpectedly have found a lot of passion for it.
I appreciate your explication of the misogyny in the book. Have you ever read any Kundera? He’s another who’s genuinely misogynistic. I have read a few of his books (one for a class, and a couple more later) and they were all such a tortuous experience; I was drawn in by the tremendous quality of writing and storytelling, and kept hoping beyond hope he might redeem himself and stop loathing his female characters so much. After the third try I finally gave up, even as much as I liked his words.
Like many people, I tried to read this. Got about 100 pages in before I had to stop for a few days to focus on something else, and then there was no going back. I didn’t hate it, but it was immensely difficult work. I enjoyed “The Crying of Lot 49” and even read (and kind of liked) “Mason & Dixon”, but I doubt I’ll ever give “Gravity’s Rainbow” another chance. At this point, the only reason to read it is to be able to say that I read it, and I’d rather do something else with my time.
I give you a ton of credit for finishing. I think I’ve tried to read this book 5-10 times over the last decade, and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten beyond pg. 70. And I was a comp lit major with a writing minor. You can’t even get through the first scene without shouting “we get it, phallic symbols!” and throwing the book down.
I’ve finished the book and, like you, was turned off by how obstruse (and often it felt intentionally obstruse) it was. Also agreed on many of the more surreal and somewhat obnoxiously offensive scenes (not just sex but gore and violence at points), with your point about misogyny taken (though I largely missed that, I can see it now). I finished it on a bus in San Francisco and one fellow, incredulously, asked me if I’d just finished Gravity’s Rainbow. I said that I thought so and left it on the bus for the next hardy soul.
Though I do hope that your distaste for Gravity’s Rainbow deters you from work influenced by it (primarily Infinite Jest, but I suppose also Delillo and maybe even Franzen), as many of those works are actually comprehensible, and drop many of the hyberbolic absurdists elements for something that’s quite a bit more resonant.
Infinite Jest still has a lot of absurdism (and cribs Pynchon’s method of naming characters), but I’d recommend Delillo’s Underworld for something that I thought was pretty powerful.
I’ve not considered reading this – but am curious. Joyce sucks to read but one can easily see the author is much smarter than the reader and the book can be appreciated as such. Is Pynchon a newer version of the same – a slight FU I’m an author who is smarter than my reader and this will be counted as brilliant based on that idea alone.
I think Joyce, who may have acknowledged this, is a bit of a jerk for creating the brilliant but ugly novel and setting the standard. Why waste such talent on something unreadable?
Agree with previous poster about “Crying of Lot 49” very clever and enjoyable. Gravity’s Rainbow seems to have become a literary Emperor’s New Clothes.
ejg
I’ll second Daphne’s point about House of Leaves. It feels like work at times, but I’ve never read anything else like it.
I liked Gravity’s Rainbow, but I could never read it again unless I was being offered a dollar a page. I can see why it puts some people off, but I genuinely enjoyed most of. I would definitely prefer Gravity’s Rainbow over anything by Joyce and most of Faulkner’s works.
I’m sorry but this post was rude. Sizzling Sixteen was reminiscent of Chandler at his best.
now that you are nearing the end of the top 100, its probably time you write your own book. Part biography, part recipe book, part evisceration of the BBWAA. With lots of pictures like Nigel Slater’s tender.
Id buy it. Im sure most of the people on this site would too. And im certain you can fit writing the great american novel in between everything else. Dont be lazy now.
Gravity’s Rainbow is one of my favorite books, and I’m disappointed that you didn’t like it (at all), but at least you gave it a shot.
As far as endings go, it’s difficult to say that there’s a satisfying ending in terms of closure in Pynchon’s novels (with the possible exception of Mason & Dixon). I think that Slothrop’s end is a perfect ‘ending’ in this book, though it doesn’t ‘end’ the novel. Closure is overrated.
Keith, I had a pretty similar reaction to this book (maybe even stronger). I read it in college and was pestered by a number of classmates and peers to read it. The above had me thinking of your review of Oscar Hijuelos’ Mambo Kings, which I also thought was incredibly vulgar and misogynistic, and not very good. Also, Kundera was mentioned above . . . Kundera’s view of women, while specifically male-centered, is certainly more positive than the other authors mentioned here. In “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, for example, Tomas is a womanizer but he loves women- he separates love and sex. He, Tomas, and Kundera, the author, simply believe this is acceptable behavior for a man.
About a month ago, I abandoned Gravity’s Rainbow at about page 300 for the third time.
Thank you for writing the only practically useful review of it I’ve ever read.
I like this recap of Gravity’s Rainbow:
http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/pynchon.rainbow.shtml
Thanks, Keith for affirming my negativity in relation to Gravity’s Rainbow. The incest scene made me cry bitter tears—which is what one might say literature is all about—but there was no moral or ethical balance. One who is aware of the pain of incest, particularly involving vulnerable little girls—or boys—could not bear the implications of Pynchon that it’s just part of life to be dealt with cavalierly, if not positively.
And the excremental garbage in the toilet—why spend so much text on filth, just to revolt? Is that the purpose of literature?
I have flipped through the pages now to find some justification for all the blathering complexities and of course feel like an ignoramus for reviling what is supposed to be a great classic. Yes, it is complex and reveals a background of esoteric knowledge that is remarkable and might be enviable if it were not the purpose to which this pastiche of knowledge is put—to inspire repugnance for humanity and to put the spotlight on ugliness.
GR is also supposed to be wildly humorous. Huh? Why?
THANK YOU.
I am so glad I found this; I’ve been thinking I was just dumb for the past few weeks and didn’t pick up on the total subtleties of the novel’s humor and characterization.
I was terribly excited to read this because everyone on Goodreads worshipped it. Promised me I’d laugh and cry and feel. I have yet to laugh, yet to feel, and I only want to cry because I still have 180 pages of “Slothrop getting laid” through which to slog. I am tired of the sex. I really, REALLY am. I don’t find the bodily functions jokes amusing. I’m just sick of the FILTH–this is honestly the most disgusting novel I have ever read. It is not, however, disgusting in a realistic, poignant way; it’s just nasty in a “hurr-hurr let’s do it again’ sort of fashion. It is like an episode of South Park to the millionth power–but South Park at least has a plot and occasions of extreme hilarity.
Also, LOVED your comment about him needing an editor; I’ve been damning Fate that no one introduced Pynchon to the period. Or the semicolon. But man, he and the comma are TIGHT. Anyway, brilliant article. Really enjoyed it!