Gravity's Rainbow (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

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Summary: The best novel of the last half of this century
Review: There is simply no better writer of fiction than Thomas Pynchon in the twentieth century. This novel exemplifies everything about his genius. It is easy for the typical reader with a "literary" background to be scared off by some of the technical, scientific, or mathematical imagery which Pynchon uses frequently, but to be scared off would mean missing the incredible story of Franz Pokler, the Nabokovian turns of phrase, the final secret of rocket 00000, which hits so viscerally after six hundred pages of foreshadowing that you want to throw up.

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Summary: the recepient of 50s and 60s literature
Review: A gothic, surreal Catch-22. Could have been written only after Heller, and after Borges and Burroughs. Would be terribly boring if not for the dark, gothic, anxious language. And the language wouldn't work if we didn't have the epic battle of Good vs. Evil that we rightly associate with World War II. The modern writer's creed: "If you put WWII in it, they will come." Pynch lucked out. The subject matter has blinded most to what is a very unoriginal book.

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Summary: Eat with a runcible spoon...
Review: Look, if it's too demanding, go watch "The X-Files" or some other tripe that makes your paranoia warm and fuzzy. GR is one of my favorite books (others include Haruki Murakami's *The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles*, Jack O'Connell's *The Skin Palace*, and Jim Dodge's *Stone Junction*. You will find this book when the time is right for you, and when you're ready, it will open to you. It's funny, reading all these reviews, because it never occurred to me to find GR pretentious; it rolls in the gutter (or rather, the sewer, viz. Slothrop's lost harmonica), doesn't flinch at copraphilia, and stoops to describe, movingly--to me--the light coming through a philodendron and striking a woman's patent-leather shoe. I never cared much for *Lot 49* or *Vineland,* but *V* was also terrific. As for the (often unfavorable) comparisons to Neal Stephenson: I love Stephenson's work, but that's candy, kids. This here's the main course.

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Summary: A great companion
Review: I read this book over the course of two months. It lived in my backpack and is now dog eared, coffee ringed, smudged, and generally *digested*. That seems to be the point of this work to me. I could have read it in a sitting or two and I probably would have felt of it like many of the other reviews posted here do. Uneven, scattered, at times inscrutable and at other times sickeningly revealing. This book got me thinking about how I relate to the world I live in. It gently traces those attitudes using a fairly simple metaphoric language and leads to some fairly hair raising implications. Read it yourself if you crave details. Part of the beauty of this book is that you will get out of it what you put into it and that seems to me to be the mark of a "great" novel.

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Summary: Joyce and Eco wish they were this capable and (c)atholic
Review: Although this book demands more than one reading to make sense of its byzantine structure (and the seperately-published readers' guide doesn't hurt), Pynchon's novel stands as both a hilarious drugged-out stumble through WWII europe and a savagely angry indictment of American (english... german...) obsessions with technology, race, and war in the name of abstract "truth." All of Pynchon's novels pit semi-oblivious average joes or janes against the giant cabals that run his literary world. In this case, Tyrone Slothrop proves to be literally the product of the conspiracy (capital "C" on that)and the person indirectly responsible for the end of the world (or at least the novel), but also a "fool" in the tarot sense, having a blast all the time and always one step away from the precipice. But that's all academic doubletalk. Really, this is one of the smartest, funniest, most intellectually demanding and rewarding books the American canon has produced. Pynchon's modernism is the direct heir of Joyce, without that author's Gaelic incomprehensibility. His grasp not only of the good, bad, and ugly of American popular culture but of the conspiritorial potential that lies behind every smiling government lackey forms both a celebration and condemnation of the Great Idea of America that is Pynchon's theme in all his novels. Not much makes sense on first reading, but incredibly entertaining nonetheless. Stands up to the hype of "novel of the century," and how often can you say that? The drugs and sex are just icing on the cake.

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Summary: Yuck
Review: Very overblown, hard to read and all over the place. The attempts at humor fall flat, and the overall tone, style and pace are jerky and inconsistent. In a word, I think this novel is unreadable. If you like this style and want to see how it should really be done, try Philip K. Dick's VALIS or A SCANNER DARKLY. Those two books make Gravity's Rainbow look like the convoluted rantings of a rank amateur.

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Summary: Some people take themselves too seriously
Review: Just read it for the language and the funny passages. That's what kept me going during the more obscure, "mathematical" sections -- I knew there'd be some whacked-out scene soon enough. Or, even better, one of those songs. I didn't really pay attention to the action or characters or even the overall idea, but focused on the small stuff and had a great time. Tell you what, though, as works of literature, _Lot 49_ and _Mason and Dixon_ are better.

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Summary: My #1 of all time.
Review: It is. It's the only book in the last 25 years I finished and then immediately turned back to p1 and reread. Wish I had time to read it again. Sure the first 150 pages or so are tough, but personally I was completely hooked by then. Of course i didn't understand all of it, but I did enjoy reading it--a lot!

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Summary: The Finest Novel Ever Written in American Literature!!!
Review: Thomas Pynchon's mindblowing masterpiece is easily the finest achievement in American literature. Someone referred to this as America's "Ulysses". That it is. I know this can be a frustrating book to get through, it is insanely difficult reading at times, but just go with the flow and trust Pynchon. It's funny to see that others had to give this a few tries before they made it through all the way. I admit it, it took me three times until I finally got into the book. It IS extremely disorienting and chaotic at first, but, like someone posted earlier, embrace chaos. In fact, throw out all preconceptions you have in regards to mere traditional fiction. I'm talking character development, linear narritive, and yes, even plot. Pynchon masterfully thwarts all convictions and has created a unique and utterly original work of art. So what is it about? It's about many things: Paranoia, sex/death, rockets, World War II, nasty British candies, immortal light bulbs, pigs, sexual perversity, ect, ect...It's about our modern world and whose really in charge. It's a weird sort of LSD flashback, it's.....Just read it.

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Summary: Pynchon uses incorrect grammar in this bloated nonsense
Review: Any author who uses "further" for "farther" (as Pynchon does, among many other errors) should never make anyone's "best novelist" list. This novel might appeal to the many readers out there whose brains have been so modified by years of pot smoking that paranoiac plots of Titanic proportions are as readily accepted (and cherished) as that tattered Grateful Dead poster still hanging their bedroom wall. For the rest of us, who can see clearly through the thick marijuana fumes that others have so extravagantly exhaled for two generations, "Gravity's Rainbow" seems childish. To this reader, Pynchon sounds like the unabomber with a better thesaurus. Tedious. One of those books that professors are constantly forcing students to read because the novelist can't attract a following on his own merits and ability to entertain. This is one of those "university novels" (as opposed to "popular" novels that people actually read and love) that "you have to work hard at to appreciate". In other words, expect to be bored and puzzled and left with the feeling that you have wasted your time and money.