>So, anon, what's your favorite novel?
>Oh, definately Gravity's Rainbow
>Never heard of it, what's it about?
> ...
>tfw plebs will never understand why this is a masterpiece if they haven't read it themselves
>>7997545
>definately
Less time reading about magical dicks and more time on grammar, plebkun
>>7997545
>definately
pynchon fans, everyone
>>7997545
>definately
>>7997545
Irregardless, this is widely jejune.
>>7997545
>definately
>>7997545
Gravity's Rainbow is a cautionary tale about Pavlovian conditioning gone wrong.
Gravity's Rainbow is the story of WWII, told from the perspectives of people often left out of the traditional narrative, such as psychics, scientists, and lightbulbs.
Gravity's Rainbow is what happens when you take the furiously scribbled notes of a poet, a mathematician, a drug addict and a quantum physicist and shuffle them together.
Just tell that to the plebs
>>7997545
>Pynchon
>not pleb
>>7997589
Wonderful
>get asked this question by 60+ elephant woman
>tell her I really enjoyed Infinite Jest
>she's never heard of it
>starts to talk about the "classics," Dickens, Eliot etc
>makes up bullshit about how imagery doesn't exist in modern literature because "my generation" grew up with television
>>7997783
this triggered me
>>7997545
you're a faggot OP, GR is my favorite book and I have tons of ways of shorthand explaining it
>It's kind of a surrealist war satire, the whole thing is kicked off by a mixup where the main character's penis is thought to be directing V2 rocket strikes, it's pretty wild.
>>7997545
>it's a look-at-me-I-read-Gravity's-Rainbow-I'm-so-well-read-please-praise-my-superior-taste thread
Please leave. Reading one of the 20th century's most popular and acclaimed books doesn't make you special.
>>7997545
Terrible bait. Had a hearty chuckle though.
>>7997783
>>makes up bullshit about how imagery doesn't exist in modern literature because "my generation" grew up with television
If I've got her right, she makes sense. Most new bestsellers read just like scripts for trashy tv shows. The closest things to a masterpiece are just script versions for, say, "classy" HBO dramas. The art of the written word is now entirely infused with the language of visual media.
>>7997589
All three of these are awful, and would immediately oust you as a pseud to most people who have read it.
>>7997589
But these are wrong. Pavlovian conditioning is a relic of the past in GR, it's why Pointsman goes mad, it's why he has no influence at all by the end.
It's decidedly not the story of WW2. It eschews everything we've come to know of WW2, there is none of the WW2 mythology nor WW2 truths. It is a story of a war fought by remote bombing, by spies, by occultism. It says nothing of ground wars, of concentration camps, of Adolf Hitler. It also only spends about 1/3 of the book IN WW2. It is a book begging to be read as a Cold War novel, Cold War and onward.
This last explanation is just embarrassing.
This whole post is embarrassing, because nothing about Gravity's Rainbow is subtle.
>>7998802
bestsellers =! modern literature, let alone "masterpieces." is that the best you can do to prove that words are "infused with the language of visual media"?
pls get over yourself. I bet you haven't even read Bolano, let alone good contemporary poets like Cole or Gluck
Halfway through V right now and having trouble finding the motivation to finish it. Think I'll have better luck with Gravity's Rainbow or am I just fucked?
>>7999018
Cole and Gluck are both mediocre at best, desu
>mfw filthy plebs constantly around me talking about plebby things like GoT and other reddit topics
>mfw a 8/10 girl once tried talking to me about Enders Game and could barely contain my laughter. ended up telling her to read some actual literature instead of that reddit trash
>mfw im truly a patrician that only reads authentic and difficult literature and all the other plebs are inferior
>mfw plebs will always be plebs whilst us patricians eternally bathe in the glorious intellectual pursuits of serious literature
>>7999032
V is pynchon's novel most like GR in style/form but GR does have a greater sense of immediacy and pull - GR is like a preapocalyptic scifi, V is like a beat fiction novel with something evil lurking just out of reach - but if you're not liking V at all i don't see any reason to bother with GR
>>7997545
>tfw /lit/ will never understand that the world cringes every time you mention Gravity's Rainbow unironically
>>7997783
lol
You should have shown her that DFW interview.
>definately
>definately
>>7997545
Its about missiles, war, stuff like that.
>Someone sees me carrying V
>"oh is that fantasy"
>>7997545
During the Blitz, an American soldier stationed in London discovers that a map of all the girls he fucks is identical to a map of where German rockets fall. Gravity's Rainbow follows his zany adventures looking for answers across Europe as WWII comes to an end.
Was that so hard?
>>7999032
What trouble are you having with it? I found it a blast
>>7999523
>They just seem incredibly bleak with no real motivations.
Stencil has literally abandoned all aspects of a normal human life and identity in order to find V. How can you call him unmotivated?
And Benny, well, Benny has no end goal in mind, but you can't call him unmotivated. He's a schelmiel, but he works hard and never stays in one place too long. In a way he's searching just like Stencil is, he's searching for that which will make him whole again. I also don't see how you could call anyone 'Bleak', I've always thought of V. as Pynchon at his most youthful and fun. The Whole Sick Crew chapters are somewhere between a Kerouac novel and a Federico Fellini film, big bombastic parties and spontaneous action.
geee ... to not find anything fun in a Pynchon novel, I can't imagine how sordid life must be...
I've just started reading, ~150 pages in, and is seems to me like it's about cause/effect being one and the same.
Well, more like the concept of oneness in general. Especially in relationship to death, the several references to the War as "a" thing, and of course sexual union.
There's other stuff too like God and statistical/mathematical/mechanical determinism.
Good stuff desu, loving it so far. I'm laughing loads.I was reading it at work during that scene where Gottlieb is getting DPd by Cpt Blicero and the Italian with Katje tied up watching, and why but I was fully erect and farting at my desk the whole time
>>7999558
I've always read it as cause and effect being an antiquity in the modern apolitical war governed by technology and math.
>>7999558
Oh fuck, and of course the "ultraparadoxical" phase of classical conditioning. The theme of cause/effect being fuckity could not be more clear, especially Rodger and Pointsman's conversation about it explicitly
>>7999562
Human systems of cause and effect that is, people like Brigadier Pudding are utterly lost in a world where action is dictated by the decimal points statisticians are parsing from huge banks of data.
I think the modern war is summarized best in Pokler's chapter, where he is to stand right where the rocket is aiming because science dictates it will not hit directly its target, also Enzian's chapters which liken the numbers to a conspiracy.
"this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, (...) secretly it was being dictated instead by the needs of technology ... by a conspiracy between human beings and techniques (...)" p521
>>7997545
What a piece of shit meme book to love
>>7998955
>It says nothing of ground wars, of concentration camps, of Adolf Hitler.
uh
um
>>7999523
>I guess I just haven't found any of the characters very compelling so far.
lol. Nobody reads Pynchon for the characters. kek
just readout the first page
>>7999776
I liked his characters
>>7999769
The only ground war mentioned in Gravity's Rainbow is in WW1. The Nazi camps in Gravity's Rainbow are used by the Naizs to imprison their own people, there is no Jewish holocaust in GR. The only anti-semitism explored is pre-war. The mentions of Hitler are all off-handed, he is neither a character nor an important figure of history. He is a name usually at the butt end of a joke.
Gravity's Rainbow is about war in the abstract, WW2 is almost incidental, it could have been any war. It isn't divorcing history - Hitler - from the war itself, but it isn't concerned with him. It proposes a war unmotivated by politics, it proposes a War
that doesn't end, where labels like WW1 and WW2 are essentially useless. The novel's themes apply better to those of the then-contemporary "Cold War" as they call it, but really just the modern landscape of international war fought in the board rooms, the war of V2's, of nuclear arms, of drones, - of economics, of technology.
>>7999789
I do too.
>>7999810
Battle of the Bulge and the chapter where the Nazi official gets mixed in with DPs come to mind... maybe you just didn't make it that far. And there is certainly oblique references to the holocaust throughout the book.
One of the themes of GW is how WW2 changed the nature of war
>>7997783
she hasn't yet proven to be wrong about the generation thing. What modern writer born post-1980 has had more than adequate prose
>>7999829
The Battle of The Bulge segment is form the perspective of the airforce, and exists to recount the sighting of an angel.
>where the Nazi official gets mixed in with DPs come to mind
Could you be more specific? Also what are you suggesting this part is an example of?
>One of the themes of GW is how WW2 changed the nature of war
It is certainly about the changing nature of war, but following technology, the V2, not Adolf Hitler. What we know as WW2 is a consequence of this new war, and not the other way around.
>>7999039
what's funny is that you're probably channeling your inner bloom at this very moment
i bet you suck geoffrey hill's dick
>>7999265
>>7999888
check'd
>>7999045
9/10
>>7999039
nah, you're wrong.
999999
>>7999558
I just wanna say that I think this was a really good reply and I'm sad it didn't get more (You)s
In this thread there are literally people claiming GR is not about war.
And they even get serious replies.
neo-/lit/, ladies and gentlemen
>>8001689
Which claims are these? If you're referring to my posts saying it's not about WW2 you're misunderstanding.
>>7999045
I know this is bait but you would be an idiot for turning down an 8/10 girl for liking a Reddit book.
>>8001689
No. That guy said it's not about the holocaust. The holocaust =/= WWII.
>>7997562
As a Pynchon fan myself, I must confirm that OP's inability to function mentally is not representative of Pynchon enthusiasts as a whole.
>>7999556
>making Benny whole again
Did I miss something? I was under the impression he was never whole, and never will be.
>>7997545
>definately
Have you ever heard of spellcheck?
>>7997589
Gravity's Rainbow is about a man with a magic dick. There's poop sex.
Try something that'll get their interest.
>>7999917
Post a good poem by either one. Or do you want me to start by posting one that isn't good?
>pleb sees I'm reading V
>"remember, remember the fifth of November! Did you get to that part yet?"
>mfw
>>7997545
>Anon what are you reading
>GR
>oh whats it about?
>can't give a concise answer, hand him the book to read the synopsis
>....
>"is it a true story"?
>mfw
>>8002430
well, is it?
>>8002430
>he doesn't know
>>8003046
Yes it was based on all real people
>>8003165
cool
