/lit/ - Literature

Snape kills Dumbledore.

>>7181040
they don't stop the illuminati

>>7181040
>>>/reddit/

I want to participate but I feel like I'll totally get impatient and read ahead.

For Pinecone's sake, ok, let's do this. I've got my already-annotated-by-me copy ready.

It's the one that lacks a line in page ~100 though, the one with the very cool b&w cover. How can I sync with your pages?

>>7181069
Just stay in the general area. I imagine they line up pretty alright.

>>7181040

does it help to have read V. beforehand? or can one just jump straight into GR?

>>7181084
You'll be fine

Lucky me, I just began last night, how many pages a day should we be reading?

>>7181084
It does actually. A lot.

>>7181084
It's totally fine. Having V as context brings some interesting knowledge to the story. There are, I think, a few characters from V in Gravity's Rainbow, I can think of two at the least. But ultimately, GR is a standalone work. I don't think you have to 'prime' yourself with V before GR, but the connections are there, not the least of which thematically.

>>7181084
Seaman B, Mondaugen, and Her Eros? Sheer Or? All money on th' tableau, if ya ketch muh driffy poo. Prob woulda paved the way for some symbols/characters but it sounds like ya blew it again anon, get it to geth er

The vintage editions have 912 pages or something and not 700 so I guess people with those should read a couple or pages more each day and make it so as to finish each chapter on time...

So it begins...

>A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

>>7181231

i didn't know that actually, i meant more as a primer for pynchon's style

>>7181242
The blueprint cover penguin has the same pagecount as that chart.

>>7181040
so far I'm kinda annoyed at the loolso0rand0m american Reddit tier sense of humor so i find it hard take any of it seriously. I don't like his stonerish philosophising either.

Will the discussion threads be daily or weekly? And what time?

>>7181290
How far in are you? What kind of "stonerish philosophizing" are you talking about? His visual explorations of abstract concepts? That's how he writes. Writing it off as "stonerish" is ridiculous. It's from a long line of innovative prose poets.

And "loolso0rand0m american Reddit tier sense of humor"? Can you express what you dislike without resulting to empty internet phrases? Do you mean the absurdist humor? In the vein of something like Catch-22, or Monty Python? Or do you mean the cheeky Vonnegut-esuqe narrator and characters who talk like 1940's movie characters? I don't think of it should be called "random". It's not really "random."

>>7181336
There are a lot of silly things like Roger and Pointsman chasing that dog around with a flask of ether while Pointsman's foot is stuck in a toilet bowl, that whole "pass the talcum, Malcolm" scene, that chase scene with Marvy's men in the mine shaft, the aerial pie fight, etc.

I like stuff like that but I can see how it might annoy more douchey, pedantic readers.

>>7181353
I'm not unaware of the silliness. I don't see how it's somehow "loolso0rand0m american Reddit tier sense of humor"

>>7181353
Jeez I didn't even think the Malcolm X/bathroom scenes were that silly. Those other scenes are definitely just for laffs though.

>>7181375
He crawls down a toilet while the prospect of getting raped up the ass by black guys is played for comedic effect. I don't see how you can not find that absurd.

>>7181242
Can you post a link to that chart? I'd like a copy myself.

I was going to join you guys to re-read it but I realized my copy is in a different state than me right now.

I'll still drop in and join for the parts I remember better though. Enjoy, it's maybe the most fun I've ever had reading a book.

>>7181084
V. is better and will give you a better idea of what you're in for

is re-reading allowed chums i've been meaning to and this is just the catalyst i need

petition to speed things up though, reading this in 59 days will make people physically hold back and might ruin the experience

>>7181040
Tomorrow is today!
(have a bana-na)

Is the first chunk the breakfast or does it include the next chapter too?

>>7181727
>re-reading
I know I am, and not the only one to.
>59 days
People are going to skip ahead anyway, just spoiler tag what goes beyond the current section for now (not so much for spoilers - the usual hindhurt troll will be trying to shit up the place anyway - as for clarity)

>>7181841
sweet, you're on

Things make so much more sense on re-reads. Already seeing some crazy stuff in the early pages. Like, Hal-and-Gately-exhuming-the-skull-in-first-few-pages-crazy.

>not listening to the audiobook

Plebs

So did anyone - did everyone - get a this-couldn't-possibly-be-intentional chuckle at "pixilated"?

>>7181892
>I can't read but want a rough impression of the book so I can cite broad comedy scenes when I tell people on /lit/ why I don't like it

>>7181892

this is not the book to be quirky and white about

"Incoming mail". How does he know?

>>7181353
>I like that stuff but I had to bitch about LE REDDIT XDDDDD because I'm a thoughtless memetic retard

This board is such a shithole now

>>7182395
>reading comprehension
please don't post in these threads

>>7182341
I took it as a minor intuitive pre-cog, that later materialised into truth but it could have not. But in the light of his 'Condition', it could be seen as he's living someone else's fantasy as well, a fantasy in which people send mail via V-2s.

I skipped ahead and started my re-read one day before, but I'll re-read the first two chapters tonight with the rest.

I think the pace is appropriate! This amount per day allows you to poner each step of the book as you should. I discovered many things that didn't make sense the first time I read it. The Adenoid

>>7182465
FFF I messed up my spoiler tags. SKIP THIS POST.

>>7182467
>FFF I messed up my spoiler tags
? doesn't look like it, but you always have the option to remove within ~15mins or so (check to the left of the post, delete button bottom right of the page)

the butler did it

>>7182465
Can somebody explain the adenoid to me? I started reading GR last week and wasn't aware of this reading group because I've been avoiding 4chan. I'm only about 80 pages in but the panic of not knowing what was going on was over by page 60 but that adenoid scene still confuses the hell out of me. Great stuff so far. I think I'm going to reread TCoL49 after this. I think I'm addicted to Pynchon's writing.

>>7182517
it's like a metaphor

>>7182525
John Green no pls

>>7182517
I'm unsure what or whether to look for beyond the surface level: lord whatsisname being obnubilated by his growing adenoid(s), and Pirate's job being to take charge of his (day?)dreams - essentially keeping his mind off it so he could attend to war matters, until such a point as was desirable and convenient to the Long Runners - this with such tricks as cocaine diplomacy
Someone also once remarked (here?) that it was a possible reference or inspiration from Chaplin's movie where who but the Hitler caricature himself was named Adenoid Hinkel. (in this case, they would be keeping their powerful representative's mind off, or making him amenable to the growth of... Hitler? the cloth pickens)
Following perhaps also in the tracks of Pynecone's earlier nasalogic interests in V., though a different angle. Earlier yet see Gogol, Rabelais... (and later again: Bleeding Edge)

IF I KEEP SEEING THIS SHIT ON /lit/

I WILL SPOIL EVERY FUCKING THING IN THE BOOK

GO.BACK.TO.REDDIT.FAGGOTS.

Also, Jessica leaves Roger.

Keep it up, cunts.

>>7182605
If you genuinely believe that spoilers can lessen the experience of reading a piece of literature then i think you're the one that needs to go back to reddit, friend

spoiler: man eat ladys poop

>>7182670
no, but irrelevant spam can make this look less like it's being offensively pleasant, which must be enough for the spammer. It will die down eventually, once people stop feeding replies.

From someone who read it for the first time this summer: just enjoy it, at least the first time through. You'll pick up on some of the important things Pinecone is doing, but don't bang your head against a wall trying to decypher every weird block of prose, at least for the first 150 pages.

...I'm already 120 pages in.... See ya'll in a couple days

>>7182822
Good point this anon here.

This is my second read, so I'll take advantage of the reading group to over-analyse everything and "get" it.

>mfw only now I learnt of Pirate's Condition
> mfw I finally understand why is it so 'clear' that the Evacuation was Pirate's dream
> mfw the Adenoid has actual sense
> mfw this changes the whole book

>>7183005
You lost me here, this is Grisha btw. I guess I'll have to wait until my second reading to understand what you mean.

>>7183050
not that anon and depends on what you're not getting, but it doesn't really "change the whole book"

HALP

Does anyone have a link to a full, correct epub/mobi version? I've started reading this just now, and already on page 5 there's a huge omission.

"Bloat is one of the co-tenants of the place, a maisonette erected last century, not far from the Chelsea Embankment, by Corydon Throsp, an acquaintance of the Rossettis' who wore hair smocks and liked to cultivate pharmaceutical plants up on the roof (a tradition"

It stops right there and cuts to the next paragraph. The version on Amazon has that paragraph in its entirety, but that one has its problems as well, apparently.

Anyone? I'm not against buying it, I just don't want to waste money on an incorrect edition.

>>7181907
Have you actually read this book? It is extremely quirky and white

>>7183588
If that's your version I don't have any better - retail Amazon one has the same mistakes as the Penguin (often to pens) unless it's been updated since.

>>7182341
I've always taken that as a piece of wry humor that turns out ironically, to be dead on.

>>7182517
A nightmare of a man with an enflamed adenoid. It manifests to Pirate in waking life as some sort of 40's b-movie. Rereading GR and knowing how Pynchon jumps in and out of cheeky pastiche it makes more sense, but I remember the first time reading through not knowing what the fuck to think. The whole thing rather reminds me of The Blob. There is also, as I think mentioned in this thread, the The Great Dictator connection, The Adenoid very possibly representing the spread of facism. Osmo being found dead by unknown hands, (though most likely just an enflamed Adenoid) suggests the victims of Totalitarianism live in danger of not only the state, the nazis, (the adenoid) but external forces as well, the allies. (the firm)

>>7183005
Care to share your thoughts on The Evacuation and The Adenoid?

>>7181895
What are you even meming about?

>>7183746
He seems to think Gravity's Rainbow was written before the term 'pixel' existed, I think.

I'm already 300 pages in (in a 1000 pp version) and want to follow these threads but I'm too worried about spoilerfags. I already read 2 in this thread only. I'm really enjoying this book and you are making me sound like a faggot, come on!

>>7183747
>http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pixilated

>>7181242
You should post the first sentence of the page after the last one, that way people will be able to keep up.

>>7183700
The Adenoid can represent one persons issue, the inflammation, or w/e, having disastrous effects on a city, etc. But it is someone's fantasy that he's keying into. Adenoids come up at the end of the book again. Palindrome or callback, couldn't keep it str8 m8.

https://archive.org/details/ThomasPynchonGravitysRainbow
This version is good to go, right?

>>7184254
claiming waifu

IDEA:
We could use common names so as to avoid spoilers or filter discussion depending on whether the person has read the book already or not; for example, first timers use "newbie" and the rereaders use "oldie".

What do you guys think?

>>7184313
claiming geli

i know, i know, thats not actually geli

>>7183700
Pretty much what's been said, but noting that having missed Pirate's Condition had made the start rather disconnected to me.

Re: the Evacuation, on first read I just thought I was a very cinematic way of starting the book and placing us in London at the onset of the V-2 (turns out is though). Only after finishing I read everywhere that it was definitely "Pirate's Dream". I could accept it was definitely interleaved with him awakening, but it wasn't clear to me what made it definitely a dream of his. -- This makes sense after his Condition is established and it is revealed that fantasies come to him mostly in his sleep.

Re: the Adenoid, since I had missed Pirate's Condition, it just didn't make much sense so I left it behind. Now I see that it's just an example (actually the first successful case at the service of The Firm) of Pirate managing someone else's fantasy so this person can remain sane. It's interesting that the narrator mentions that it was a time in which it was important that leaders remain sane -- Pirate keeps them sane by attending whatever's needed from the fantasies. I think the verb 'manage' is key.

>>7184360
were you using an audiobook? that its a dream is made plainly explicit when he wakes up. and his condition is discussed at multi-page length.

ive long wondered about whether the dream was pirate's own or an intercepted one though. maybe the shared dream of everyone in london.

JESSICA IS CHEATING ON ROGER AND LEAVES HIM

BLICERO (WEISSMANN) FUCKS ENZIAN

ENZIAN IS NOT KILLED BY HIS BROTHER, INSTEAD HIS BROTHER IS PUT IN A HYPNOTIC STATE BY A WITCH

GOTTFRIED IS WHAT IS LAUNCHED IN THE ROCKET

BIANCA IS MORE OR LESS KILLED BY HER PSYCHO CHILD KILLING MOTHER


MORE SPOILERS TO COME THE MORE I SEE THIS REDDIT SHIT ON MY /lit/

>>7184391
>JESSICA IS CHEATING ON ROGER AND LEAVES HIM

No. She's cheating on her fiance with Roger during the war then goes back to him when it winds down.

>>7184391

You can generally tell how good a book is by how nauseating its volunteer detractors are

>>7184391
Spoil Ulysses for us next. Hamlet. The Holy Bible. You're a moron.

While the sleuthing on a first read is a sort of puzzle-box fun, the real reading doesn't really start until you have a mental outline of events. You are, at worst, putting a ding in the book's surface level enjoyment for maybe half the thread who haven't read it before. If you think GR is a book that operates on its narrative tension you're a loon.

>>7184376
Reading from the book. However, I think I took some of the concepts in this chapter too figuratively. I guess it being so fantasy made me miss how literal it was -- i.e. "he gets other people's fantasies" v "he actually gets to experience them".

Another factor: English not being my first language, and this was one of the first novellas I went for. It throws me off to see how little was I getting it...

IF ANYONE IS LOOKING FOR A 760 PAGE (AKA THE ORIGINAL) PAPERBACK

GO
TO
EBAY

VIKING AND PENGUIN 73-87 ~ PAPERBACKS THAT ARE 100% ACCURATE TO THE OG HARDBACK

They will run you anywhere from $20-30, but are well worth it. The print is great, easy to see, hold up well, and most importantly nothing is missing or wrong or too ridiculously compact and uncomfortably fat.

I have one, a Penguin one, 1987~ I believe. The first paperback printing by Penguin. It matches the hardback 100% and is perfect for reading and transporting.

I highly encourage it.

>>7184403
>If you think GR is a book that operates on its narrative tension you're a loon


confirmed for a dumb cunt

seriously, you should just go to /r9k/

>>7184444
The 1996 penguin (blueprint cover) has 760 pages too and is cheaper.

>>7184450

>blueprint cover

It's like people wake up everyday and choose to be tasteless.

>>7184457
this is the insightful literature discussion I come here for every day baby

>>7184457
>mfw when this cover is no wear to be found

>>7184462
This tbh

Has anybody adopted the pynchonean life style yet? Just ride the wave

>>7183747
I actually asked why and then 10 minutes later I re-read it and I thought it was kind of funny to see Guide Girls' pixilated pantie shots like how Japan pixilates their porn. Made me think of Pynchon foreseeing Japan's pornographic future like DFW with the internet.

>>7184494
Pynchon was in the military, went to an Ivy League school, earned an English Degree there and taught Creative Writing.

He became a dedicated writer and moved to places where he could be influenced. Get that?

He didn't just "ride the wave", he worked to make something out of his passion.

Stop insulting hardworking people with your lazy fucking bullshit.

>>7184513
The Pynchonian lifestyle is not that of being Thomas Pynchon. It's Benny Profane man. The schlemiel life. Yo-yo'ing up and down the coast. I wish I had the social skills to be a drifter with friends in every state.

>mfw someday you'ill run out of Pynchon stuff to read

>>7184531
>implying
I finished all of his books years ago. It's only on rereads the game really starts anyhow.

>>7181596
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N6wFKlpA3EHbS_tgH0l_geqYt1RdBxStPRcDzcPnWL8/edit?pli=1#gid=0

>>7184542
Okay, you didn't understand any of them though.

>>7184542
>>7184613
not that guy but I've read all of them except Against the Day and I understood every single word, reference, plot point, and allusion

>>7184501
see >>7183942 : that's not what "pixilated" means... hence the confusion (yours), probably

>>7183747
It was hardly in use at the time, and "pixelated" certainly wouldn't have had the meaning it got later, so yes, any pun coinci'dental (other than "pixie" related... and, checking, that's unsurprisingly where the word comes from)

>The word "pixel" was first published in 1965 by Frederic C. Billingsley of JPL, to describe the picture elements of video images from space probes to the Moon and Mars.[5] However, Billingsley did not coin the term himself. Instead, he got the word "pixel" from Keith E. McFarland, at the Link Division of General Precision in Palo Alto, who did not know where the word originated. McFarland said simply it was "in use at the time" (circa 1963).[6]
>thomas pynchon, the information mining, thesaurus eating, pamphlet plagiarising, slang slinging 190IQ engineer writing a book about rockets wouldn't know this term in 1973

hmm
maybe.

>>7184641

Against The Day is rad

https://youtu.be/TaLkw6kDIeA

So is it Day 2 already?

Bits of brain to clean up from the re-readers on that seance scene, too promptly dismissed the first time around?

>>7186431
It's been a while. Can't remember who Selena or Roland are, but Blicero sure jumped out at me.

The meditations on a self-perpetuating market, an invisible hand. All very abstract, but reminiscent of the Other Force Blicero gives himself to with The Rocket.

>>7181040
I'm gonna listen to the audiobook instead, this isn't a bad idea, right?

>>7186471
If you are using it as an aid with the text still in front of you it's fine, but disconnected from anything physical, the whole story and mess of information completely transient, I think it'll be way too hard to keep track of who's who, what's what, and what's going on.

Like unless you're listening really carefully on a reasonable speed, certain passages (Chapter 14 comes to mind) are going to seem like absolute gibberish.

If you're struggling with the long-winded sentences though, I think the audiobook could be a good aid providing the right manner of stress and articulation, keeping everything in good time.

>>7186498
Thanks for the advice Anon.

>>7186506
Of course, maybe you're a better audiobooker than I. I had Heart of Darkness assigned for the third time in College last year, a book I've read again and again and again, and decided just to audiobook to refresh myself for the class.

Heart of Darkness is not a very complex book, at least compared to Gravity's Rainbow. And time and time again I would find myself completely lost in the audiobook.

So it seems to me diving into uncharted territory of a psychedelic war ballad, full of ARFs, ACHTUNGs, SOEs, PWEs, Imipolex Gs, Blodgett Waxwings, Perlimpinpins and stream of consciousness flashbacks within flashbacks that bleed into other minds -- isn't the best of ideas.

Then again, by Audiobook you could probably keep relative track of the basic detective plotline. So if you only want a surface reading this time around, I suppose it could work.

>>7181040
Cocks & Rockets

Section 1
Castration Station

A thing precedes itself--weird huh? Well it's happened before--might happen again--and there sure as shit ain't nothin' to compare it to now.

Things go on, but mightn't as well. Things phase in and out, in immeasurable states too difficult to record except perhaps with parodies three levels of irony deep. Tourists ruined the holocaust.

this thread is going a lot slower than the IJ read along

>>7187003
/lit/ can' actually read anything tuff
I don't give a shit though, least I'm back to the book. All's I need is my present and past selves to discourse with

How does Pirate does that with the dreams/fantasies? is it magic or it has some logic?

>>7185253
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_xfouK5KRc

Hey, question: I was reading this book in the library a while back and I came across a passage about, like, somebody waking up in the morning, and maybe he had to piss, and it was still dark, but the sky developed like a photograph. That last part especially is what I remember, but I can't find the passage. Maybe one of you who's reading it right now can tell me where that part is, I'd like to read it again.

I just finished this novel.

I highly recommend "A Gravity's Rainbow Companion" by Steven C. Weisenburger.

It explains a ton of back story about various historical figures and elaborates detail about companies and place names that are relevant. Also helps a ton with the occult stuff (since I assume the average person isn't well versed in tarot.)

Also Google "some things that happen (more or less) in gravity's rainbow" and you'll get a university prof's paper detailing page by page what is happening plot wise.

I know it'll feel plebby but it'll honestly help you with comprehension and there's nothing to feel bad about. It's a challenging but rewarding read, especially of you understand it in full.

Was Pynchon the first major writer to so fully embrace the film style? Often nowadays we speak of writers "describing a movie" as a bad thing, and in general it is. But Pynchon has other devices, and when used together intelligently, his sequences that read something like a running commentary of film are incredibly enjoyable

>>7187084
He has the ability to live others fantasies. It's just his power. His secret agent nature.

Strange, yes. Interesting, yes. Symbolic? I'm not smart enough to know.

>>7187237
Just finished it Tuesday. Why is the Tarot stuff important? There didn't seem to be much that I haven't picked up from light exposure to it...

>>7187084
Projection maybe, if you have to take it so seriously. Like Stencil in V.

>>7182395
I have a theory that this board is shit because I'm here. I'm shit, and it's statistically likely that I exemplify others coming in at the same time

>>7187274
Pynchon reminds me a bit of the Pierrot le fou era Godard.

Filmed comic book.

>>7187335
i really liked belmondos outfit tbh

if anything he made stylish films

>>7187376
Apparently Pynchon was seriously considering doing a film review column for Esquire magazine after GR but I guess he decided not to.

Nothing like circlejerking over a 70s era, overwrought shitshow.

You absolute madmen.

>>7187417
It's magnificent but it isn't a literary discussion.

>>7187335
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YeWXAmpkUI

>>7184444
>tfw uni library has a hardcover 760 pg edition

Comfy as fuck

>>7182341
The companion anon recommended above >>7187237 notes that this is infantry slang. Not unlikely that pinecone then followed the idea through going from this.

>>7188590
does any one have a link for said GR companion on pdf epub or something?

Just curious, what do you guys think about that russian cover of Gravity's Rainbow?

>>7188938
Gives it an opera / history book look, the schematics in the background sort of a stage structure when not too focused on.

>>7188661
seconding this

>>7187445
Je vois ce que vous avez fait là.

>>7188938
Eentellektualny Byestsyeller

Good Job Russia

>>7189148
>>7188955
>>7188938
...and The Crying of Woodsworth's Lot 49.

>>7189246
Hey now, Oedipa wasn't this cute in my mind.

>>7188980
>>7188661

>>7187237
ugh no

Just use the wiki, it has more information and even points out errors in Weisenburger's book and you don't have to pay for it

Now Pointsman uses wild dogs let free in the drop zone to analyze how the survivors got to stay alive? Is that it?

>>7189307
I imagined her chubby af. Short, near sighted and duck footed too. Not waifu material.

>>7189526
>>7186547
Are these supposed to be things we've all read by now? As of the end of the page 43 in my Penguin Deluxe ed. I last saw Mexico and Jessica were holding a paranoia greater than any propaganda ever asked for to keep their secret place hidden. These posts make me feel like they're ahead, or I'm behind.

>>7189463
Wouldn't reading both be the best option?

>>7189534
i pictured lenore stonecipher beadsman

who /keepingup/ here

>>7189771
Here, man.
I thought it would be better, the discussion on lit, I mean. The book is great. It's a shame...

>>7189780
Yeah, me too.

I love the way he described the destruction in the latest bits. Though I didn't get that he was talking about their first meeting.

>>7189780
What do you want us to discuss? People have been cautioning others to just relax, let the Pynchon wash over you and what sticks sticks and what won't will be back in the next wave and then people like you saying we aren't discussing anything.

The pace that we're reading this book really doesn't leave much for discussion in the first week. So far POSSIBLE traces of plot have appeared, characters have definitely shown up but with only flashes of their personality being shown. This is fine, but there's nothing really to talk about outside of "Oh, Pynchon is such a wordsmith." which is cool, but if you've read Pynchon you should expect some pretty words and kind of take that as a given.

What would YOU like to discuss, O disappointed?

>>7189860
Can we discuss their lodging? I'm not sure I understood where they are / why... Pirate & friends.

>>7189860
What I'd like to really applaud is this idea of this man-made bomb that is almost as omnipresent as Death. Not knowing who holds the key to your certain demise, not knowing when it may appear, not knowing it even when it has arrived. Was that part with the medium suggesting that it also seems to disregard aeronautics completely as well? Completely omnipresent.

>>7189866
Is that place called the Snipe and Shaft? It sounded kind of like a hangout for these supernatural men, or at least the men employed by Them/The Firm.

>>7189866
Pirate's an Officer and rents a loft in London with some other SOE guys.

Snipe and Shaft is more of an average joe bar.
Snoxall's is The Firm's hangout.

>>7189246
oedipa is clearly blonde and kind of manic/disheveled

>>7189901
Ok yea that's what I thought. Glad you think that too. What an excellent discussion, my patrician lit palz!

>>7189924
Oedipa is latina...

>>7189935
Wouldn't she be Edipa then?

>>7189935
How does a wooden puppet get to be of a race?

>>7189940
Did you just not get a lot of the other names in that book too?

>>7189935
>>7189924
she's BLACK, RACISTS

>>7189949
Trees are people too, broþer.

>>7189955
I thought a couple were pretty in-your-face to be honest (tbh). I was just making an orthographic joke.

>>7189924
dutch/german surname. oedipa is white

>>7190015
>yfw her maiden name is borgesius
>yfw you realize she is slothrop's son by katje

>>7190015
That's not really how that works

>>7181040
sorry i just finished reading it for the second time a month or so ago. but ir eccomend everyone go ahead with reading it its truly a masterwork. and a ton of fun at that

>>7190105
Prove it. You can't, you lil wimpy baby boy! Ha! Ha-ha!

>>7189949
You're being oppressive, shitlord

>>7184517
this guy gets it, Pynchon did what he was good at but that doesnt mean he never wished he was someone else

>>7190056
mind = blown

Are /lit/ threads the best way to discuss this?

Should we make a google group or something?

>>7190862
This is the only wei. The wew wei.

>>7190862
Google group or something like that would be cool. Really cool.

>>7190862
>>7190872
>>7190878
Google group would result in less discussion and probably just turn into a group of three people reading. Doing it here is the best way. We'll get people who have already read it, and attract people to read and catch up.

Also, everyone automatically checks /lit/ daily so they'll see the discussion more.

Question. (I am a little ahead) Is Saint Veronica's part of WV? It's all very confusing. It will say someone is going to WV or works for WV then suddenly they're at St. V's. Is St. Veronica's like the non military part of WV or somewhere else entirely?

Also the foxes aren't foxes right? They're patients? And not test subjects?

>>7181242
>esuqe
Are we going by this schedule?

>>7190947
The WV is in St V.

>>7190970
ah, thank you

>just relax, let the Pynchon wash over you and what sticks sticks

Worst shit I've ever heard on /lit/ right here.

>>7191020
Not even the autor knows what the fuck was he writing about but you should now, right? Don't take this too serious.

>>7191029
>Not even the autor knows what the fuck was he writing about

Source?

>>7191029
Not true. You believe that article?

>>7191020
This

>>7191029
You're a fucking moron.
>>7191037
Here comes the fake quote people like passing around so much. An exemption from putting any effort into a reading or facing something difficult. "Yeah I've read it Bub. No I didn't get it. Not even Pynchon did. What? No, I don't remember that part. I read it a while ago."

You people actually make me sick. I can't see why someone would bother with works of this magnitude if they're not serious about the art. Is it really just for an image?

>>7191056
What level of thought would you say is required to appreciate something like GR? I'm not stressing myself trying to understand things, and most of the time it's just references that go over my head but between this (44~ pages in admittedly) and TCoL49 the themes weren't too deeply hidden or anything.

I did feel self conscious reading the accolades on the back of TCoL49 ALL saying how it was great satire of a number of things like it was something I was supposed to notice in every page .

>>7191056
Its a meme book. What were you expecting?

is there a reading schedule, if so, where

i have an old paperback of this around somewhere. any reason to get that or will a digital copy suffice. browsed the thread and saw some chatter about incomplete additions

>>7191112
take a look here >>7189771

ok. will be in, tho my paperback was appparently V

>They are in love. Fuck the war.

This is great tbh. Can't wait for the deeper discussion later on.

>>7189771
This is my second time around and I lent my copy to a friend so I'm listening to the audiobook version this time. I think I might be a fair bit ahead of schedule but with the audiobook it's hard to really tell.

This book is absorving my life. Do you know of any interesting stuff to watch/read related to the book? I already watch Pynchon's documentary but is there anything else? Gonna watch this now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TorVJ7HHac

>>7191067
It's not about 'references'. There is a great metaphysical tragedy underlying everything in the book. A coming together under war of all Pynchon's predecessors.

I think the most significant segments so far are the opening dream, Slothrop's paranoia of Their singling him out, and the hand of God reached out to his ancestors.

Pay attention to motifs of the Other world, the supernatural, fate, the animate and inanimate, consciousness, the synthetic and organic, the end points and the between, the old world and the fallen world, logic and knowledge, sex and death, the climax, and the giving of oneself to something greater, the sacrifice.

>>7191312
>Pay attention to motifs of the Other world, the supernatural, fate, the animate and inanimate, consciousness, the synthetic and organic, the end points and the between, the old world and the fallen world, logic and knowledge, sex and death, the climax, and the giving of oneself to something greater, the sacrifice.
This is why it pays to read V. before this book. You'll already be looking for those things if you read V. properly.

>>7191322
I disagree. I read GR before reading V and caught onto the supernatural elements fairly promptly. There is a seance within the first thirty pages. I suppose the first 40 pages might be a bit early for most of those motifs to be showing up, but well within Part 1 most of the book's major themes are laid out.

What should I listen to while reading Pynchon?

PART 1: V1, V2, oh I love-you: Day-to-day and Death from Above, OR: A New World

PART 2: 1944, and The Many siblings of Big Brother, OR: Industrial Society and Its Future

PART 3: Every Day is V Day: The War that Wouldn't End, OR: Pining for Victoria Wren

PART 4: The World They Had Created, OR: Descent: One more time with feeling--

>>7191332
The supernatural elements aren't hard to spot if you've had at least a passing interest in the occult growing up. But V. is practically Pinecone's thesis on the animate vs. the inanimate, among other things, and a majority of the ideas in Gravity's Rainbow can be traced back to it in one form or another.

You can technically read them out of order and still "get" it but it's a lot more satisfying seeing the progression from the ideas in V. to the ones in Gravity's Rainbow.

>>7191461
I never had any interest in the occult. It still jumps out at you. I think it's more fun to plunge into GR and just soak everything up though. Seeing the progression from V to GR is a slow climb, GR drops you onto unfamiliar ground the top and challenges you not to go tumbling down.

>>7191456
The end song from Dr. Strangelove
(or 60's rock)

this book is so good its constipating to read and know you cannot read it all at once and must take it in tiny little fragments

>>7191561
I'm finding it harder with each reading to keep with the schedule and not just go on till I fall asleep. Tommy's voice is leaking into the way I post also.

>>7191609
This. It sort of assumes the way you think for a short while. An afterglow of each reading.

So was Spectro really trying to palm off an octopus despite knowing Slothrop's case was auditory?

>>7191963
This discussion group is shit

do we even need one until part 3?

>>7191963
>>7192116
There's... just nothing to say about the octopus yet, really. As to why he insists on it, no idea.

>>7191259
nice link

>>7191963
Yes.

Though Pointsman's wrong and his case is actually olfactory.

Well they've got a new dance and it goes like this
(Bop shoo-op, a bop bop shoo-op)
Yeah the name of the dance is the Kenosha Kid
(Bop shoo-op, a bop bop shoo-op)
Well you like it like this, the Kenosha Kid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9VWKdUItrI

(5.1) They did snarl, and they did snark, but I gotta tell you, never did the Kenosha kid.

> It's a Negro dingleberry...

Seriously, Pynchon?

I forgot how relaxing Part 2 was after all the grimness and death of London

I like eating shit

>reading the songs lyrics on a translated version

>reading the songs lyrics on a translated version

>>7194455
You could service my asshole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIEVqFB4WUo&ab_channel=DEVOvision

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sykfqa3MKAg

>>7191037
Pynchon is quoted as saying he was so fucked up on acid or whatever he has a hard time remembering what he originally meant with certain parts of the book.

It's a dense book though, so that's really not that surprising.

My money's on that part with the talking melanin pigmants, jocyean levels of gibberish imo. On the whole though the book is actually very consistent and Pynchon is if anything guilty perhaps of trying to hammer is point home a little too hard at times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoMaS1pzOE

We're about a tenth in, how's everyone feeling? Don't say like shit.

>>7181040
I've been reading it for 3 months and I'm on page 73.

>>7195529
Does anyone find the reading schedule unevenly distributed?

The average number of pages a day is about 24 for Part 2, but only 11 pages for Part 3.

Question, in the third paragraph of Beyond the Zero, Pynchon uses the word "velveteen" and a couple of paragraphs before Pirate wakes up the term "velvet black" is used. What does it mean that at first he utilizes the term "velveteen darkness" and only a few paragraphs later, still in the dream, he uses "velvet"?

>>7195529
I don't get what is going on in the Kenosha kid section.

>Gravity's Reading
Please make this the subject for the next thread.

>>7195744

I think it just means the obvious: throughout the dream, there's the smothering, deathly soft presence of darkness.

>>7195770
I get that. But, why "velveteen" at first, which can be defined as imitation velvet. Then soon after the use of "velvet", why the change from imitation to real velvet? Am I just reading those two words too much, or does it imply that some things are real and some are not, or that Pirate is about to wake up? Idk man the use of those words just got me fucked, someone help pls

>>7195782

Oh, nah, I don't think there's a reason for the word change beyond the fact that having "velveteen" twice in such quick succession would be repetitious and perhaps verbose, and I think Pynchon made the right call in switching it up. I think that the idea that there's much going on beyond that is quite a stretch.

Is it normal that I am taking twice as long to read this compared to Infinite Jest?

>>7195310
I don't know, that part seems pretty clear to me. It's a Plato's cave kind of thing where the cells are seeing life on the epidermal layer the way humans see death. It's right after a part of people discussing The Other world too. The talking cells are a joke, I'd say.

I also don't believe that quote, and he doesn't strike me as an acid eater at all. If anything it was plain jane Mary Jane.

>>7191242
>>7191242
All their scenes are incredible.

The description of them being awoken by a V2 (assumed) and all Roger does is roll over and say, "fucking madness."

Goddamn the first part of GR could have been a standalone. It was put together so damn well. Great atmosphere, as orange, and black, and hazy as the cover itself.

>>7181383
Because it actually means something and is based on visceral feelings many men experience, as opposed to the pie fight and the dog chase which are just silly.

>>7195808
He's probably taken acid, but it's unlikely that he was on psychs with great frequency while writing GR. It's worth remembering that he spent quite a lot of time in Mexico while he was writing this, and the country is basically made of psychedelics. Mushrooms in the mountains and peyote in the desert, and you know he sampled the local vegetation.

From what his acquaintances have spilled about him it definitely sounds like he was a major-league stoner most of the time.

>>7195867
I don't remember a dog chase...

For all the talk of GR's craziness, it's actually kind of disappointing when you finally wrangle it down and see how simple it is

>>7188938
>>7189246
All Russian covers are butt ugly.

>>7195756
There's a picture somewhere that has the Kenosha Kid on the cover of some pulp western themed magazine, that's about all anyone's ever dug up. As for what's happening in the book: drugs

>>7195756
They're injecting Slothrop, test subject, with some whatsitcalled, sodium something. So yeah, what anon said.

>>7196099
I agree, after all the hype surrounding the book's difficulty I'm pretty disappointed that I've been able to follow what's going on without too much trouble

>>7196099
>>7196781
Yeah, I guess it mainly has that reputation from people who don't normally read very challenging literature, then pick this up because it's omghardestbookever and struggle with it. Having said that it is long, complex and not exactly easy.

>>7195898
Mexico and Pointsman chase a dog around in a bombed out house while one of them has his foot stuck in a toilet bowl. It's pretty early on.

>>7196859
Fourth day's section I think.
(anon may have been looking for a dog chasing a dog? Like how a car chase doesn't typically refer to people chasing a car on foot)

>>7196857
>>7196781

Yeah, it was kinda disappointing, for a couple of seconds. There is a world of things that I've never seen discussed here about the book that I'm finding out and freaking loving.

Why did I just read an entire chapter about Slothrop pulling a harmonica out of a fucking toilet.

Why did the black people want to shove their fingers up his ass.

I just don't get the point.

Who the fuck is the Kenosha kid.

>>7197098
fuck you

Was the Adenoid monster part a dream or reality?

>>7197098
because Slothrop's a racist

>>7197105
My sarcasm broke :^(

>>7197098
He loses his harmonica and the black guys wanna rape whitey but then he 'disapears' down the toilet and the Kenosha Kid is revisted at the end of the novel, as is the harmonica... Spoilers!

Throughout the first section there is the mention of a spiral staircase, alluding to the structure of the DNA molecule. The wiki mentions that the novel is written in a fashion that follows the fractal of DNA, could someone expound on this subject and the style of writing that Pynchon follows? It's my first time reading GR, I'm sure I will find the sense in is as I traverse along the novel, but I don't mind spoilers. It helps me better understand the ocurrences ocurring in the ocurring.

I can't help but see the influence that this fractal writing template had on DFW in IJ, as he mentioned that IJ was designed atop the Sierpinski triangle fractal.

The spiral staircase really caught my eye, thanks in advance to whomever this post reaches out to.

>>7197098
You never did the Kenosha, kid?

>>7197151
>the fractal of DNA
The what now? (do you mean "structure"? if so that's not what fractal means)
Don't get obsessed with the idea btw. When you encounter it again it will likely be as the theme this is but a projection of.

>>7197105
Explicitly a dream of sorts, just not Pirate's own - see some posts earlier in the thread if you're still confused.

>>7197098
It's a drug-prompted recollection. Slothrop is silly racist and he's also being, I think I'm not spoiling anything by using the word because you must've heard it used before with Pynchon, quite paranoid.
Also, doesn't the name "Malcolm", referring to a Negro, remind you of anyone?
It still works as a stupid fun chapter though, doesn't it.

>>7196874
On the other hand, a wild goose chase doesn't involve a goose chasing a goose. And on that same hand's other hand, it also doesn't involve anyone chasing a goose.

>>7197338
Is the 'Malcolm' a reference to Malcolm X doing some borderline gay shit for money that in his his autobiography he tried to pretend wasn't him?

The Autobiography was published in 65. By the time GR was published he had probably heard about this.

captcha was bananas

>>7197374
Also, if I remember correctly, the stuff had to do with Malcolm wearing diapers for some old guy... I think.

Which would tie-in with the infant Tyrone... (this section was really fucked up but I laughed every time I read "infant Tyrone")

Fuck me guys I either just found out who Thomas Pynchon is/are or some guy pretending to be him or I'm just going insane

>>7197374
"Red" certainly fits as well. Don't know how Pynchon could have known he'd been a working boy, though.

Seeing how P isn't above free-transitioning on idea association and coming from the foot-stuck-in-toilet scene, I figure Slothrop may well have gotten himself actually stuck in it, and here's the maybe not entirely gratuitous talcum? (isn't it a shit lubricant when wet, though)

>>7197445
Mandala and dna pattern is crucial to GR

>>7197458
Continued, the previous pic has a william blake quote. William blake can be found in pynchon's writings.
This image speaks about tarots and shit which are part of pynchon's mentality

>>7197462
And this shit, look at the address. Someone call and email these dudes. I'm (we're) up to something here...

>>7197458
>>7197462
Dude, you ever heard of hippie culture? Those ideas aren't Pynchon exclusives, and even if he may have influenced them a bit it's rather the other way around.

>>7197466
Guys, I'm scared.

Anon who posted about the dna structure and mandal here, just falled the publishing company. I will speak with the author via email, I'll get back to yall

>>7197510
Ask him who the Kenosha kid is, and whether he ever did him

>>7197466
[noids subvocally]

Bump

>>7197098
>And Black Wing has even found an American, a Lieutenant Slothrop, willing to go under light narcosis to help illuminate racial problems in his own country. An invaluable extra dimension.

There we go

>>7197462
>>7197466
>>7197458
okay...

>>7198511
We deciphered GR :-)

>>7197458
>>7197462
>>7197466
Don't turn these threads into a troll fest.

>>7198752
Not trying to troll, I really believe a connection exists. I think it might be that the essay I posted was inspired by GR. I engaged with the author via email, I'll quit posting anything relating to this for now. At least until I speak with the essayist.

>mfw I realize Tommy is telling us about getting your heart broken by a married woman from first hand experience

Got my copy today, plan on catching up tomorrow. I hope this thread is still alive. :-)

>>7199419
Great cover.

>>7199419
it's so pretty. a virgin copy. spine still uncracked. mine looks like a used piece of toilet paper.

How many pages can you read in an hour? Mine is like 5. God damn how am I going to finish Edith Hamilton's mythology at this rate? Fuck.

Any tips on reading faster or more efficently? Thanks, girls.

>my first time reading pynchon
>started on oct. 1st planning to follow schedule
>already on PART 3, just past the chase scene in Mittelwerke
>mfw its actually as good as they said
>mfw I will be coming up on PART 4 this weekend

>>7199592
Same thing happened to me with Lot 49. I wanna follow the schedule though, since I'm aiming to set a reading routine and don't have time to read all at once, but once I have some free time? I think I'm going to read the rest of his books in like a week.

What are the odds Pynchon was not aware of this guys' work?

>Wernher von Braun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDEsGZLbio
>Who's Next (Who's Got The Bomb?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw
>So Long Mom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDFqoReof6A
>Pollution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPrAuF2f_oI
>Send the Marines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvxqQTh3m4
>The Masochism Tango
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TytGOeiW0aE
>We Will All Go Together When We Go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs

>>7199916
Pynchon wrote the liner notes to a Spike Jones album, I think it's safe to say that he was extremely familiar with Tom Lehrer and almost certainly a big fan.

>>7197466

>>7199592
>tfw WANT TO READ BUT DON'T HAVE ENOUGH FUCKING TIME.

FUCK THIS FEEL.

>>7199577
practice reading without saying the words in your mind

>>7199916
He was a mathematician to

>>7201445
to whom?

>>7201057
i know this sucks

>What more do they want? She asks this seriously, as if there’s a real conversion factor between information and lives. Well, strange to say, there is. Written down in the Manual, on file at the War Department. Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled “black” by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hershey bars. Jews also carry an element of guilt, of future blackmail, which operates, natch, in favor of the professionals.
Damnit Tommy, stop being so scaringly insightly, you're too good at it!

Also that part with the dodoes? no way that wasn't inspired by drugs.

Great chapters today.

>>7201057
>tfw with the schedule you've managed to stop procrasting but at the expense of your mental stamina and you still feel like you should be reading more

>>7202856
>Also that part with the dodoes? no way that wasn't inspired by drugs.

I don't get that vibe at all. It was inspired by history. A darkly comic way to underscore the genocides of the 20th century.

So that whole long sequence was just a set up for another Kenosha Kid wordplay?

has anyone heard Pynchon fake book? they sung most of the book's songs and put them to music

their rendition of The Last Song almost moved me to tears... Banana Song is great too

some others are iffy

When is the next read-along? I completely missed this one but I've been postposing reading GR for about 5-6 years now. I really want to get it over with this year.

>>7203258

postponing*

Guys so can you tell me just how bad the penguin deluxe ed is? cause that's the one I have. Should I just get another one or can you get past the errata?

>>7203312
It's a dumb running joke. There is ONE confirmed error. Page 137 of that edition,

Penguin Classics, 1995 Edition
>Your task, in these dreams, is often to cross— under the trees, through the shadows— before something happens.

Penguin Classics Deluxe, 2006 Edition
>Your task, in these dreams, is often to pens.

No other claims of error have been confirmed, but as far as the rumors go they're minor. Changes to spelling of words left intentionally misspelled, is what I hear. Pretty sure it's BS. Also wouldn't be surprised if newer editions of the Penguin Deluxe weren't fixed. Check your page 137.

>>7203160
Of course

SPOILERS, some of the spoiler tags might not have worked, you're warned

been trying to sort out the plot threads on my reread and im jumping forward and back a little

question for enlightened rereaders

page 615 scammony and mossmoon are discussing slothrop and scammony says they let slothrop loose in the zone to destroy the blacks. does this make any sense? or does pynchon not really care about specifics of plot.
here's my breakdown of the slothropian conspiracy files.

1. jamf conditions infant tyrone to imipolex g, IG farben surveys him for rest of life
2. pointsman is convinced srop's penis is conditioned to predict missiles and sends him to herman goreing for surveillance. katje is there to keep him from wanting to leave. the octopus is to orchestrate a 'cute meet'. dodson truck putting slothrop onto the v2 blueprints is to take notes on his sexual reaction to rockets. eventually pointsman lets slothrop escape and decides to have him followed but loses him quickly. way later, pointsman gone mad with failure, settles for snipping srop's dick off (but gets marvey)

3. dr. roskolgslyk under pwe takes slothrop into WV for sodium amytal and studying of his reactions to blakc people

so what is the british conspiracy being mentioned on page 615? slothrop is after the 00000 on his own devices right? and he's friendly with the schwarz. when did he get put onto 'destroying the blakcs'? is this an extension of pwe? was he supposed to get in tight with the schwarz and then he'd be used as a patsy or something?should I care?does pynchon?

>>7203258
We only just started a few days ago. You can easily catch up.

>>7203258
We just started a few days ago. You can easily catch up.

>>7203433

I guess I will, I just have to get back home on the weekend and grab my copy. Incidentally, have there ever been any lit reading circles of M&D?

>>7203440
Maybe long before my time. There have been on and off attempts at /lit/ book clubs, but this kind of read-along thing only started recently with Infinite Jest last summer. I doubt it will become a board staple or anything though. We're less than a week into GR and the group seems to be dying already. Even the ultra-popular Infinite Jest sort of fell off at a point. And I don't see M&D going better than GR

Would someone be so kind as to let me know which edition of GR l should get? :3

>>7203559

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gravitys-Rainbow-Thomas-Pynchon-1st-Print-1st-Edition-Viking-Hardcover-/272001918248?hash=item3f5493e528

>A-and
What is this? Even the wiki does this.

>>7203619
Gave me pause too, doesn't seem in-tone, doesn't look like a typo either...

>>7203559
Vintage Pynchon I guess is the one that's usually recommended..It doesn't have the corrections that everybody seems to hate and it's got a cool cover, unlike the basic "vintage one...

>>7203575
based as FUCK

>>7203730
Yeah it happens a few times during the Kenosha Kid part, if I remember.

>>7203160
You never did the Kenosha Kid?

>>7203619
It's a stutter. It's best to think of the narrator and characters as fast talking 1930's screwball comedy heros

>>7204674
I started to think of it as "uh-and"

>>7203191
I liked the idea of it but the execution was lacking to say the least. They pulled off like 3 or 4 of the songs and botched the others they attempted.

>>7204813
George Guidall's audiobook reads it as "Ay, and"

>>7204851
different peeps on all the songs

>>7189737
don't worry i read the book ages ago. just havin a laff

This was mentioned fairly early on, but "Transmarginal" is kind of confusing to me. The idea (of Pointsman's, among other thing) is to see if other humans can have the same "precognition" that Slothrop's been conditioned (unintentionally) to experience when he himself becomes ~transmarginal~?

Entering a transmarginal state is to go where there are no opposites, there are no polarities and so the assumption that things have a sequential order is either reversed or certainly mixed up? Becoming transmarginal allows Slothrop to sense (as of yet it doesn't seem to be a conscious effort) where the bombs drop and a rough idea of when they will because he can experience these situations outside of the normal current of events? I'm not looking for answers, but speculation or clarification is appreciated.

>>7206594
The V2's and Slothrop's sexual encounters share a random distribution throughout the city. With the amount of items on each map, Slothrop's sexual encounters NOT finding themselves in the same sector as where a Rocket falls within the next 1-3 days is more unlikely. Pointsman can not come to grips with the unpredictable nature of the V2's (and WW2 in general) and so looks to any possibility of cause and effect, no matter how absurd it is. He must put a series of 1s and 0s to something existing entirely in between.

Is my take on it.

>>7206691
I finished the whole book and that thought never occurred to me... what the fuck. Did I just no read very closely, or is that mostly baseless in the text.

I know jack about maths so a lot of those elements went way over my head, including probability like this.

Wait, isn't a direct connection between fucking and the bombs established when he bangs the girl that one time?

>>7203191
the songs are made deliberately difficult to imagine or play, so it's a fools errand.

The meter is often fucked, the description of instruments and songwriting flares are routinely as ridiculous.

>>7195794
it took X4 as long for me, it was real hard to dedicate a long amount of time to GR. Much as I like DFW, his style is really just hot air, but Pynchon's prose is much more dense and hard to wrangle.

>>7206734
It pretty explicitly states that's Roger's take on it somewhere in Chapter 1. It's also revealed Slothrop was conditioned to Jamf to Imipolex G, not the V2's or loud sounds. (confirmed by Tamara's tank firing at the party and evoking nothing from Slothrop) Keep also in mind the 00000 is the only Rocket to have the S-Gerat, and so the only one to have Imipolex G.
It never outright calls it, but if you then take Slothrop to be somehow conditioned to the Rocket launches, you would have to see it as completely outside of Jamf's conditioning ie; unexplained.
I'm unaware of the direct link you mean, though. If you mean Darlene, the Rocket falls during sex. If you take Spectro's death to be a result of Slothrop fucking Darlene I guess that's on you.
1-3 days is a broad scale, and the inability to adapt to modern war and the modern world is prevalent theme throughout the book, but who knows, Pirate intercepts dreams, anything is possible.

Why the Blicero - Hansel&Gretel parallel has always confused me.

(bump limit hit?)

Does anyone have download link or torrent for the book itself?

>>7206594
I like it.

>>7208387
What is it you like?

>>7207949
Well keep in mind, it's Blicero's own parallel before Pynchon's, so I wouldn't read too much into it. It's a story of a Witch and two captives. It fits Blicero's narrative. What I get from that segment is Blicero as a sick fuck, and the conflict between his sense of duty to life and his death wish.

>>7208019
Will join if given .epub file. ty

i found a PDF to Gravity's Rainbow on a google search... is it okay to post PDFs on the lit. 4chan?

>>7209093
Why would you use a pdf for a fiction book? Epub is more convenient for fiction, and pdf is better for textbooks.

>>7209044
>>7208019
http://en.bookfi.org/book/1028670
i guess that'll work...Does anyone know any other sites for books except bookfi..

So what was that long, solid wall of text at the end of today's page #'s that went on for something like 4 pages for? Thinking back on reading it I totally forgot all I've read, going to reread it when I get home.

>>7209265
The Church, a choir, the choir's Jamaican and a brief look into his life, Jessica on Roger, Roger in the crowd of the Church, then moving outward, surrounding area, the machinery of war pulling in everything it touches, even tubes of toothpaste, the distance of modern war, its self driving nature, a sense of consciousness in the events at hand, a sole identity, transitioning into the man at the White Visitation who believes himself to be the second world war, his body channelling its energies, a "child-surrogate" who will die while the true king lives on in the Winter sky, Winter, Christmas fast approaching, carols unable to protect from the looming hand of V2's, instant death, Christmas in wartime, compromised festivities, compromised day-to-day, the war needs power, the clocks spin madly in reverse drained of power, spinning down to The Nativity, the much needed escapism, pretending things are alright as the V2's hang measureless above, the falling V2— a Christmas Star, the loss of individuality in wartime, returning to the choir, no attempts at pretending things are alright, a song of desperation, and finally, the way home, which everyone must walk alone towards another day for there is no sanctuary here.

>tl;dr
Wartime life, the War as an entity,

>>7209973
That was beautiful. Thank you for clarifying. On a side note, maybe someone can help explain to me the role of Jessica. As in she is fucking roger and slothrop? What is her relevance? A previous anon mentioned that the reversal or the bombs movement is actually not what triggers his hardon's? This is my first read, and my first read of something this difficult, but I'm really enjoying it, even if it is going over my head.

>>7210076
You might be looking for too much connection. Jessica is just as she seems. Jessica. She's not fucking Slothrop, while you might assume Jeremy, or "Beaver" is a fake name used by Slothrop, Jessica thinks of him as the 'safe' option, and maintains a long term relationship with him, which is completely opposite to how a relationship with Slothrop would play out.

Her relevance is entirely to Roger's arc, and an exploration of love during war, love as an escapism from war, and Roger's only anchor he sees slowly beginning to drift away.

Do I make a new thread?

New Thread:
>>7210349