Okay, so this has been bothering me for awhile. Googling has turned up nothing. What is exactly is "The Zone"? It seems to include a variety of areas. I'm 557 pages in, did I miss an explicit explanation somewhere?
>babby has never read a book where details are deliberately omitted before, to pique the reader's interest
god fucking help you if you ever touch Dhalgren
>>7489134
I just finished Dhalgren and can say with 100% objectivity that its less confusing than any part in GR
>>7489120
Listen to "Niggas in Paris" by Kanye West and Jay Z. Pynchon was inspired by that song when he wrote Gravity's Rainbow.
>>7489134
I was considering the possibility that it was simply another omitted detail, like Them, but it just seemed to be painted in a light that implied otherwise. That's why I asked. Chill out.
>>7489120
>What is exactly is "The Zone"? It seems to include a variety of areas.
War torn post-WWII mainland Northern Europe i.e. France and Germany...and I can't remember where the Casino was. There too.
Don't be a retard. Actually fucking read.
>>7489145
Holy shit...
>>7489120
Allied occupied Germany.
>>7489148
I asked "What is The Zone" not "Where is The Zone". I'm aware of what areas have been referred to as The Zone. Maybe I should have asked "Why is the Zone?"
>>7489148
Might be a literary trend - something that readers at the time just knew.
It's used in Celine's 'journey to the end of the night', and is synonymous with the "night". It's a nihilistic, unknown, and most of all avoided part of humanity.
My memory on the term is weak, but I'd compare the "zone" to what Nietzsche called the "abyss". I haven't read GR, but I hope that helps.
The area between the top of a woman's panties and the start of her pubes.
>>7489163
This is a better explanation. What i was getting at was that I don't understand why there is a specific term that refers to all these places.
>>7489162
>I asked "What is The Zone"
I answered, you dumb fucking cunt.
>war torn post-WWII mainland Northern Europe
>Maybe I should have asked "Why is the Zone?"
Answered this too, you stupid fucking cunt.
>war torn, WWII
>>7489168
>I don't understand why there is a specific term that refers to all these places.
Because Germany was divided into occupation zones at the end of the war before the goverment/boundaries were reformed.
Hence the term "the zone".
>>7489134
Please don't comment if you haven't read Gravity's Rainbow. It's not Ready Player One.
>>7489120
OP I'm only fuzzy because it's been so long since I read it but I thought the Zone was the area of Europe that the Nazis had formerly occupied and (at the time in the novel) currently lost, like a post-apocalyptic WW2 zone. It was for post-war black marketing, zoning, etc. Like the chaotic, post-war mess of destruction and anarchy because the Nazis had collapsed. The vacuum from lack-of-governance due to the third reich's collapse.
I'm like 99% sure that's what it literally was in the novel, I don't know about all this metaphorical shit about "the abyss". The amount of replies that either admit they haven't read it or are clearly people pretending to have read it are shocking.
Hopefully though someone who has read it more recently than I can clarify I'm right or not. I just remember this part of the book being about post-war anarchy and black-marketeering and post-war Allies zoning territories.
The Zone is a time, not a place.
In a literal sense, the badlands of post-war Europe. Germany and surrounding fallen nations.
But Pynchon writes it as something much more abstract, a sort of metaphysical realm of nightmare and allegory. A playing field for the post-war nations with a quick change artist around every corner. I feel like it took a lot from Burroughs' own 'Interzone'.
Desolation Row
Not to hijack this thread but is there any great critic on Gravity's Rainbow. I just want to know someone's thoughts on the Christmas Day pastorial
