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Rating: 
Summary: What goes up...
Review: Based on all the positive reviews and well-meaning advice I decided to read Gravity's Rainbow (GR), while having this companion within close range. Let's start with the good news. Weissenburger goes to great length to elaborate on GR's structure and to give the reader a good sense of how meticulously Pynchon put this book together. Especially in the earlier stages of the book, when I had not yet been able to fully tap into the rhythm of Pynchon's kaleidoscopic prose, I often relied on this companion to follow the endlessly shifting narrative. After having finished the book, I do think that GR can be read without this companion. I don't think that Pynchon wrote his book with the intention of overwhelming his readership with his erudition and virtuosity. These are just means to an ultimate goal. With a book as complex as GR, Weissenburger cannot be blamed for often choosing his "hints" at random. In that respect, this book could be considered as a useful box of band-aids instead of a true security blanket. Yet, I do have two points of truly negative criticism. The index.
It is terribly incomplete. I hope that a potential new edition produced in the era of the word processor may lead to improvement. Weissenburger and the wonderful worlds of math/physics/chemistry.
At times I wondered whether Weissenburger was actually a "nom de plume" for Pynchon, because the writer's success in both portraying and inducing paranoia, made me wonder whether there might be an evil genius behind what appeared as the "real" Weissenburger's ignorance in the sciences. One other reader has already pointed at scientific errors in this companion. Let there be no doubt. Weissenburger is frightfully inadequate to get any aspect of science right. Whether it as simple a thing as the derivative in math, or the fact that proteins are poly-amides in stead of poly-imides, his scientific references can be best described as a maniacal demolition derby. As such, many of the so often beautifully inventive observations and deformations that Pynchon provides to the average high school graduate, become pearls wasted on the white one (I still think that it is too much of a coincidence: "White visitation, Blicero, Weissenburger). But, let's finish on a positive note. Weissenburger put an awful lot of work in this companion and does his part in extending ones appreciation for Pynchon's masterpiece.
Rating: 
Summary: Invaluable Handbook with an eclectic Bibliography
Review: I agree with the previous review that this book is not as comprehensive as Gifford and Seidman "Ulysses Annotated" (see my review), but it is better than Douglas Fowler's "A Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow", the only other usable sourcebook to "Gravity's Rainbow" I am aware of. This book has a most helpful introduction in which the scope and instructions for use are discussed. The section "For Further Study" contains some insightful information regarding the patterns of Pynchon's borrowings, the chronology of the novel and its structure as a "Bildungsroman", which is according to Weisenburger as follows: "(1) the disclosure of the hero's miraculous gifts (2) his education (3) his testing during a course of travels, and (4) the confirmation of his powers, a revelation." (p.7) I wish this subject would have been developed further. It certainly offers another avenue for reading the novel and analyzing its structure. The "Companion" Section itself gives helpful intoductions to each episode and somewhat brief descriptions of the many allusions and references. The vast majority seem to be included, though further information about them, will in many cases require the reader to do some work. At the time I read this novel, I was conducting research at the Library of Congress, so I decided to check around fifty of the references listed in the Bibliography. I checked verything from the "History of South-West Aftrica" to "Ballistics of the Future", and Stendhal's "Life of Rossini" to Pavlov's "Conditioned Reflexes", and found that both Pynchon and Wiesenburger did the their work well. If you really want to understand the allusons in this novel, you may want to check some of these out. The Book ends with a helpful, but not comprehensive Index. I think this book is a most usable and reliable guide to the Novel. The Novel can be read without it, as has been pointed out, but half the fun is, at least to me, checking on the allusions, and coming across their often hidden and surprising meanings. Interested readers should buy this book. It is not only well-done as a Guide, but the Bibliography contains a mixture of references that can be found nowhere else.
Rating:
Summary: Invaluable Handbook with an eclectic Bibliography
Review: I agree with the previous review that this book is not as comprehensive as Gifford and Seidman "Ulysses Annotated" (see my review), but it is better than Douglas Fowler's "A Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow", the only other usable sourcebook to "Gravity's Rainbow" I am aware of. This book has a most helpful introduction in which the scope and instructions for use are discussed. The section "For Further Study" contains some insightful information regarding the patterns of Pynchon's borrowings, the chronology of the novel and its structure as a "Bildungsroman", which is according to Weisenburger as follows: "(1) the disclosure of the hero's miraculous gifts (2) his education (3) his testing during a course of travels, and (4) the confirmation of his powers, a revelation." (p.7) I wish this subject would have been developed further. It certainly offers another avenue for reading the novel and analyzing its structure. The "Companion" Section itself gives helpful intoductions to each episode and somewhat brief descriptions of the many allusions and references. The vast majority seem to be included, though further information about them, will in many cases require the reader to do some work. At the time I read this novel, I was conducting research at the Library of Congress, so I decided to check around fifty of the references listed in the Bibliography. I checked verything from the "History of South-West Aftrica" to "Ballistics of the Future", and Stendhal's "Life of Rossini" to Pavlov's "Conditioned Reflexes", and found that both Pynchon and Wiesenburger did the their work well. If you really want to understand the allusons in this novel, you may want to check some of these out. The Book ends with a helpful, but not comprehensive Index. I think this book is a most usable and reliable guide to the Novel. The Novel can be read without it, as has been pointed out, but half the fun is, at least to me, checking on the allusions, and coming across their often hidden and surprising meanings. Interested readers should buy this book. It is not only well-done as a Guide, but the Bibliography contains a mixture of references that can be found nowhere else.
Rating:
Summary: Don't leave home without it
Review: Indispensable. I plowed through GR in my mid twenties without the Companion. Large portions of Pynchon's encyclopedic epic were totally baffling to me. However, I've always been intrigued by GR. So, some fifteen years later, I undertook to read it again, this time with the help of the Companion. Not only did it aid in my understanding of the novel, but I actually enjoyed reading GR this time around. Now perhaps I'll tackle Mason & Dixon.
Rating:
Summary: Don't leave home without it
Review: Indispensable. I plowed through GR in my mid twenties without the Companion. Large portions of Pynchon's encyclopedic epic were totally baffling to me. However, I've always been intrigued by GR. So, some fifteen years later, I undertook to read it again, this time with the help of the Companion. Not only did it aid in my understanding of the novel, but I actually enjoyed reading GR this time around. Now perhaps I'll tackle Mason & Dixon.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Helpful Don't Read GR Without It
Review: Seriously they should package the two books together. If you're going to try to read Gravity's Rainbow get this book too, it will make the process alot more pleasant.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Helpful Don't Read GR Without It
Review: Seriously they should package the two books together. If you're going to try to read Gravity's Rainbow get this book too, it will make the process alot more pleasant.
Rating:
Summary: Indispensable insights
Review: This is an invaluable companion to a reading of Gravity's Rainbow. Without it, not only would a goodly portion of the novel be incomprehensible (especially, I might add, to those of us under the age of 40- there are a ton of references that those of us in this age bracket will not relate to or even comprehend), but the mastery of Pynchon's work would be less than fully grasped. For sheer research and grasp of subject matter I can't conceive of a companion volume that would best this one. In short, without this companion I would have recognized Pynchon's novel as creative if a bit befuddling. With this companion I learned to recognize it as brilliant and much more comprehensible (to the extent that any of it was meant to be comprehended in the first place). One final point, I take a different view than some of the other reviewers. I read 1/2 of the novel before I learned of and bought the companion volume. Reading the novel with the companion the first time was much more rewarding for me than struggling through the novel without the companion for the first time.
Rating:
Summary: Indispensable insights
Review: This is an invaluable companion to a reading of Gravity's Rainbow. Without it, not only would a goodly portion of the novel be incomprehensible (especially, I might add, to those of us under the age of 40- there are a ton of references that those of us in this age bracket will not relate to or even comprehend), but the mastery of Pynchon's work would be less than fully grasped. For sheer research and grasp of subject matter I can't conceive of a companion volume that would best this one. In short, without this companion I would have recognized Pynchon's novel as creative if a bit befuddling. With this companion I learned to recognize it as brilliant and much more comprehensible (to the extent that any of it was meant to be comprehended in the first place). One final point, I take a different view than some of the other reviewers. I read 1/2 of the novel before I learned of and bought the companion volume. Reading the novel with the companion the first time was much more rewarding for me than struggling through the novel without the companion for the first time.
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