Nothing feels screwier about "Gravity's Rainbow" than known that its author Thomas Pynchon is one of the most notoriously reclusive authors. If a text ever demanded every last paragraph and ellipses to be explained, it was this one. The story infamously was so confusing upon release that while it qualified for The Pulitzer Prize, it was rejected for being at times too unreadable. The book is an enigma, a masterpiece of post-modernism that holds all of life's answers in passages that are sometimes too juvenile and gross to be taken seriously. It's a novel of precise details and dirty limericks, asking the question: what is this all worth? Many have read interpretations of World War II that have been abstract and entertaining ("Slaughterhouse-Five," "Catch-22"), but they can't compare to the massive experience of Pynchon's world. It doesn't make sense, and maybe that's the point? Who knows.
The story, despite a massive cast, focuses on U.S. Army Lt. Tyrone Slothrop as he navigates the globe in the time following WWII. The opening chapters are a chaotic bunch, detailing a city falling apart in a screaming blaze of fire as ceilings collapse and people rush for safety. It's in such detail that one expects this to be a downright nihilistic book where everyone dies. In some respects it is. The final chapter is nothing but the mundanity of everyday life about to be bombarded by a V2 missile. However, there's Slothrop at the center of everything who, over the course of a four-part story, has quite a bizarre trajectory. As a child, he was tested for inappropriate use of his body. As an adult, his sexual encounters have been suggested to correlate to upcoming V2 missile launches. In some ways, it comes across as comedic, but then it ends with such a dark and depressing payoff.
It would be one thing if any of this was treated with tonal consistency. Instead, Slothrop's journey is that of a wacky comedy not unlike raunchy frat house films that pushed the boundaries of depravity beyond their reason. Many passages will repulse the reader, as the sexual activity explores kinks that are crazy to witness as Pynchon dedicates a half-dozen pages to acts of intercourse, forcing the reader to be stuck in Slothrop's passionate love with every taboo being broken. He tours the globe and in the process addresses aspects of WWII that have become important notes: prisoners of war, African colonization, and even American naivety. While these would all be profound statements, Pynchon is obsessed with sidetracking with literal toilet humor at times and extensive knowledge of Golden Age cinema (Shirley Temple and Groucho Marx especially) and the mechanisms of making bombs. This is an all-encompassing world that is so detailed that the reader has no choice but to be overwhelmed and shocked while being entertained. There has not been a book about WWII this cryptic and foul as well as curiously exciting at the same time.
The one aspect that makes throw many readers off is the fact that Pynchon is so detailed that those not paying attention will forget the plot's purpose on any page. The overwhelming amount of detail often describes set pieces within a scene, but overlooks simple acts such as walking across a room or that it mutes the motives of a character. There is so much to unpack in any one paragraph that there are guides almost as long as "Gravity's Rainbow" to help the reader. The fact that underneath all of these magnificent details is a mundane act only plays into Pynchon's desire to pain war as something with so much deeper meaning, but is inherently confusing and mundane at its core. The length is also a challenging aspect, especially for those not willing to enjoy his ribald humor that pops up with defiant, juvenile glee. Even then, it helps to paint a picture of war that is indicative of post-modern texts in general: what is the meaning of the monotony? Does it have any meaning? Maybe it's somewhere in between.
For those wanting a challenge in reading, "Gravity's Rainbow" is one of the densest, most frustrating texts that one could find. While he has written more accessible texts, this absurd novel constantly outdoes itself and finds ways to engage the audience, confusing them as they feel rewarded by knowing half of the details. It's the kind of middle school humor that only an academic could appreciate, though why would someone like that laugh at limericks about sexual proclivities during a serious war? It asks a lot of the reader, and to understand it would require far more commitment than one is likely to give a book that overly details somebody getting their head stuck in a dirty toilet. It's entertaining but also frustrating. Who knows if it would help, but had Pynchon been available for interviews this might have been a far less exciting read possibly for some, taking out the slivers of ambiguity that leave thoughts in the reader's mind long after they finish. Still, one wants to know how he came up with it, and why nobody has come close to making a novel this indecipherable and deranged yet also a masterpiece of the English language's dexterity.
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