/GR/ General

[Anonymous No.10130693]

Questions, discussion and favorite parts?

I just finished it yesterday and i have ton of questions.

In one of the last parts, Orpheus puts down the harp, a director or owner of an L.A. Theatre is speaking, yet at the start the rocket is landing on a theatre in London. Why the link with the theatre in LA?

Also : what happens to the 00001? Where will they fire it? Will it also have the imipolex room? And allthough Enzian rants about it a few times: fucking WHY?

In the book it's stated that the firing direction of the 00000 is true North and that the Rocket is fired from a heath in Germany. Does this mean the rocket landing in the first scene is in fact not the 00000?

These are all pretty 'practical' plotwise questions, but i'm struggleing to see the 'perfect' circular structure some reviews are speaking of which is an important aspect of the meaning of the book. So i'm trying to get there by clarefying things for myself instead of asking "what did it all means you guysss"

A-and what the fuck was the Kirghiz light? Google is giving me nothing but references to GR and i don't think it's ever explained what Tchitcherine exactly saw in the steppes of central Asia.

[Anonymous No.10130700]

>>10130693
Oh and favorite part numero uno (quote really):

“They are approaching now a lengthy brick improvisation, a Victorian paraphrase of what once, long ago, resulted in Gothic cathedrals—but which, in its own time, arose not from any need to climb through the fashioning of suitable confusions toward any apical God, but more in a derangement of aim, a doubt as to the God’s actual locus (or, in some, as to its very existence), out of a cruel network of sensuous moments that could not be transcended and so bent the intentions of the builders not on any zenith, but back to fright, to simple escape, in whatever direction, from what the industrial smoke, street excrement, windowless warrens, shrugging leather forests of drive belts, flowing and patient shadow states of the rats and flies, were saying about the chances for mercy that year.”

Just.. fuck.. How does one write a sentence like that. Not judging on wether it's good or bad or purple or 'genius', just.. how the fuck did he do it. Gass wrote like this in The Tunnel but it took him 28 fucking years.

[Anonymous No.10131360]

>>10130693
I feel bad for people who think this book is anything but a capricious, nearly empty 'fuck you' to literature and its readers.

[Anonymous No.10131430]

>>10131360
I feel bad for you anon.

What would you say GR's point about paranoia and the post-modern sublime was?

Why do you feel like the story of slothrop had nothing interesting to say on identity?

Why didn't you like it's 'portrayal' of the military-industrial complex?

If you're going to critize it as being "nearly empty" i'd at least like to hear some decent argument.

[Anonymous No.10131493]

>>10131360
Why wouldn't the book be one big "Fuck you"? It's the only spell Pynchon knows, and a pretty good all-purpose one at that

[Anonymous No.10131525]

Finnegans Wake is circular
Gravity's Rainbow is more of a sphere

[Anonymous No.10131595]

>>10130693
I don't remember the LA theatre rocket being defined as Gottfried's, it could be the 00001
>'practical' plotwise questions
Some things just don't make sense outside of their moment. You can tell this isn't a practical narrative
>'perfect' circular structure some reviews are speaking of which is an important aspect of the meaning of the book.
I'd disregard the formalist wank on the parabola desu but I can't get an overall picture of the book either

[Anonymous No.10131616]

Funny I'm seeing this now as I just got to the last chapter after reading it for quite for some time. Probably the most I've ever spent on one book, with a big month pause before I started counter force. I plan on re-reading it later without any large gaps between my reading of chapters to heighten the experience. And anyone who's read it already what did you think about Slothrop being scattered through The Zone? I've read V. and CoL49 so I was bracing for a bit of an anti-climax with him but I actually liked his fate, going from a legend in The Zone(Rocket Man) to a spirit. Tough but well worth the read, it's incredible how much Pynchon fits in taking the book's length into account.

[Anonymous No.10131643]

>>10131595
Somewhere in Counterforce he uses a line somewhat like : "for those of you who still looking for cause and effect..."

He got me there. In Beyond the Zero Pointsman litterally goes rambling about the inversion of cause-and-effect and i felt like Pynchon was doing a wink towards readers who are still looking for reasonable causality after 800 pages of Raketemensch, nasal sex, PLECHAZUNGAAAA, Ursula the lemming and Byron the bulb.

It felt like being confronted with my own desire for a logical narrative, to be able to connect the dots, however obscure. Instead of concluding GR just isn't written that way i automatically started thinking i didn't get it because a lot went over my head (which it did ofcourse, but even then..)

[Anonymous No.10131669]

>>10131616
I dug the remarks about Slothrop losing his sense of 'present' and plucking out his self like and albatros plucking out feathers. Allthough i enjoyed the image of a man's identity desintegrating when he's confronted with the sublime, with the ensueing paranoia and the many absurd incidents in the Zone, it still felt kinda off for me. I don't know how to explain really, because i didn't dislike it for it's (obvious) lack of realism.

Agreed on how much he fits in tho. Everyone memes it to death, but this guys range is amazing. Sometimes i just wish he'd spend more time on one side of his range.

[Anonymous No.10131670]

>>10131430
>What would you say GR's point about paranoia and the post-modern sublime was?
>Why do you feel like the story of slothrop had nothing interesting to say on identity?
>Why didn't you like it's 'portrayal' of the military-industrial complex?
this is one of the most un-self-aware posts ive ever seen on /lit/

[Anonymous No.10131686]

>>10131670
go back regardless

[Anonymous No.10131704]

>>10131686
what did he mean by this

[Anonymous No.10131707]

read the book about a year ago, really loved it, but the last 150 pages were such a clusterfuck I had no idea what the fuck was going on. what happened to slothrop? did he die? wasn't there something about a robot family in a car or did I imagine that? i understood the very ending but everything leading up to it was just confusing as fuck

[Anonymous No.10131735]

>>10131707
There was a part about slothrop in a team with a robot and another where they hook up to a robot as some form of drugs, was it one of those two?

Anyway, yeah Counterforce was possibly even more confusing than the rest of it, especially because you expect to find the clues to puzzle the rest of the book togheter there. I guess you kind of do (The S-gerät is revealed, the almost-end for enzian is revealed etc..) but for the most part i felt horribly in the dark, trying to make sense of it all during Counterforce.

Slothrop the man didn't die, at least not explicitly or obviously implied. But his sense of identity and time sure got fucked up in the proces.

[Anonymous No.10131746]

>>10131735
yeah I think it was the scene with slothrop and the robots I was thinking about. really need to read the book again there was so much stuff I missed, feel like I could have read it 100 times and still not fully understood everything

[Anonymous No.10131990]

>>10131670
I don't agree. You seem to be the psued around here, dude.

[Anonymous No.10132213]

>>10131360
Dude, the prose is, dare I say it, prosaic.

[Anonymous No.10132225]

>>10131735
There's nothing to get. Everybody is the cause of their own problems and humanity is on an industrial fueled road to its own destruction so you may as well fuck with some farmers while you're here.

[Anonymous No.10132231]

>>10131360
This is easily countered by the fact that a lot of the bits, while disconnected, are entertaining, and clearly took talent to write.

How can you read the quote from >>10130700 and think the book was entirely meant to be a "fuck you?"

If anything IJ is a big "fuck you" to the idea of entertainment, but even that is pulled off with clear talent.

[Anonymous No.10132326]

>>10132231
>clear talent
discern it for me?

[Anonymous No.10132346]

Why did slothrop say he broke the speed of sound? What was he talking about?

[Anonymous No.10132807]

>>10131990
>psued

[Anonymous No.10132978]

>>10132807
why you posturing bro?
but thanks for pointing out my error.

[Anonymous No.10133037]

>>10132213
Ah yes, the prose. The prooooooose. the PROOOOOOOSE. There's a reason why the pseuds on this website are always so willing to talk about "the prose" of a book when discussing its merits or flaws. Why attempt to analyze the merits and effects of the literary devices used to add to the development of characters, why attempt to understand the interplay of the perspectives of different characters and the emphasis this places on different themes, the spectrum of ironies used throughout the novel, the historical significance of the novel and the influence it has spawned in literary tradition or the influences seen throughout the work, the specific structure and literary underpinnings of the novel and the way it influences the tone, the author's relationship to the characters and the theme, the presentation of the novel itself to the audience and thus the relationship between reader and text --- why do any of this, when you could talk about "the prose?" You know that you have such a deep understanding of the book, don't you, when you talk about "the prose," the "musicality of it," the "sparseness." What a great artistic touch you have, don't you! Such a highly refined poetic sense! And you feel like such a true reader of literature when you are able to compare these styles: "I am partial to the lyricism of Joyce's prose, as well as the clean and scientific prose of Borges," you might say. What a deep understanding you show! Because the "prose" of a work is such an accessible topic, something that is felt immediately in the body and senses, a nice little sensation and flutter of the heart. Art obviously has nothing else to it, nothing other than the little sensations that I experience, because why should i attempt to understand it on a deeper level than this, when I have such a "refined" sense of the "prose?" Why even attempt to analyze the prose and the poetic and rhythmical underpinnings of it, when I could use a pretty little metaphor for it? It matters little that virtually every reader of literature has access to the music of the words and so my understanding is not quite so advanced as I would think, that form is something that goes hand in hand with theme, that I missed all the deep relationships between characters and between text and reader that existed in the work and that comprise a large part of the literary merit of the text, for my understanding of "the prose" shows such a mastery of language, a fine-tuned sense of the magical flow of the words! Having understood this work, I may as well move onto the next, the next bundle of pretty sensations to experience, the next bagful of fun linguistic treats!

[Anonymous No.10133046]

>>10133037
Pynchon isn't about characters. Lul.

[Anonymous No.10133070]

>>10131360
its a masterpiece.

[Anonymous No.10134001]

>>10133046
Pasta isn't about Pynchon

[Anonymous No.10134004]

>>10130693
Is there anything by Pynchon that I should read before reading this to understand it better or just to be properly introduced?

[Anonymous No.10134006]

>>10134004
no

[Anonymous No.10134011]

>>10134004
no (V. is a good companion-introduction but if you're asking it's just as likely to put you off)

[Anonymous No.10134014]

I loved the book when I read it, but it's really lost its halo after awhile for me at least
What used to feel like a magical metaphysical revelation of humanitys inherent masochism seems now just a shallow injoke by the po-mo whiz boy himself

[Anonymous No.10134015]

>>10134011
Thank you

[Anonymous No.10134456]

>>10133046
>Pynchon isn't about characters
If you unironically believe this you haven't read Pynchon, especially not GR. Sure, Slothrop is a dope but he's absurdly sympathetic. He's just trying to get along man, and the whole world keeps messing with him. You don't think about the Pöklers every now and again? I bet you think Buck Mulligan is mean or wrong.

[Anonymous No.10134468]

>>10134456
no

[Anonymous No.10134548]

>>10134014
All you have to do is start reading it again and you'll be cured of that dumb parrotitis

[Anonymous No.10134800]

>>10132978
gravity's rainbow is a good book, but if you think "Why didn't you like it's 'portrayal' of the military-industrial complex?" is 'deep' then you are sadly beyond help.

[Anonymous No.10134812]

>>10131670
oh, the irony

[Anonymous No.10134826]

>>10133046
>Pynchon isn't about characters

Oh, Jess. Jessica. Don't leave me. . . .

[Anonymous No.10134832]

>>10133070
Wow, brilliant point.

[Anonymous No.10134866]

>>10133037
nice prose

[Anonymous No.10134985]

>>10133037
This and only this

[Anonymous No.10135276]

>>10130693
I’m a peasant and English isn’t my first language but I’ll speak my mind
There are multiple parts about Time (the perfect DeltaT; the torpedo not hitting the Badass because of Oneirine distorting space and time (?); Blicero ramblings etc.) witch got me thinking.
Maybe the 00000 travelled in time and hit the cinema in LA, I find this, I don’t know, kind of too kitsch or fantascientifical, but that could be what happened.
Or the last part could be another fragmented-Slothrop dream or whatever (like the part where he seems to be in the US in a city).
I also read a translated version which explained that “harp” also means harmonica, which is Slothrop instrument that seems to start his disappearance (don’t know if this is known to English speakers sorry if it is)
About the Kirghiz light I think Pynchon kind of explains it at the end of Cicerin chapter but I don’t remember, if it was just a plot device to link it to the SG and Enzian (his new “quests”) I don’t know.
Also Richard in LA is obviously Nixon but I don’t think Pynchon just wrote a book to make fun of him in the end or to link the whole paranoia thing and missiles to Watergate or Cold War, or at least I hope aha

[Anonymous No.10136096]

>>10130693
Fucking loving GR, I got to page 500 today and the parts about the Anubis, while being initially funny and having that “whimsical” Pynchon charm, have turned quite melancholic. I really love how Pynchon can capture so many emotions and so many scenes with so many things in them with his prose and ideas. It’s extremely captivating.

[Anonymous No.10136574]

>>10136096
Funny, I'm around that part too, rereading it for the first time. I'm also using the "gravitys rainbow companion volume ii" this time around.

The companion would suggest that Bianca is actually around 16, maybe older, which would make Slothrop a little less pedo? I always thought that part was a little weird. I also really dislike Margharita, she's annoying.

[Anonymous No.10136620]

>>10136574
Huh, I thought Bianca was younger becauase of the sentence in lage 463 that says:
“He knows he’s vulnerable, more than he should be, to pretty little girls, so he reckons it’s just as well, because that Bianca’s a knockout, all right: 11 or 12, dark and lovely,...”

But if she really is 16, it goes to prove how much we can trust what’s being said. How does the writer of the companion reach that conclusion, does it say?

[Anonymous No.10136646]

>>10135276
in the US the harmonica was (like 1900-ish) it was called a french harp or a mouth harp. There is another instrument called a mouth harp (aka jaw harp or Jew harp) which you also play in your mouth

[Anonymous No.10136781]

I've the notion that the rocket Pirate sees as he's picking bananas in the beginning is the 00000, as he nor the higher-ups ever see it land, and GR ends with an unspecified rocket crashing into the theatre. It's definitely a roundabout theory, but, I mean, it makes as much sense as the other bonkers stuff, and it contributes a little to the circular structure you talk about.

[Anonymous No.10136877]

>>10136781
I thought Pirate's rocket turned out to be a message delivery for him, but literally

[Anonymous No.10137511]

>>10136781
Isn’t the rocket Pirate sees the one he goes to recover a message from later on? The message with Kryptosam

[Anonymous No.10137518]

I have read three Pinecone books and they've all been letdowns, something I've wanted to just put back on the shelf since i started them.

V = GR = IV.

Is there any hope for me or am I just a stupid fucking brainlet?

>Why do you keep reading if you dlsliked two of his books
because your threads are so fucking funny

[Anonymous No.10138287]

>>10136877
>>10137511

Damnnation, that’s right. My bad.

[Anonymous No.10138291]

>>10137518
How come you dislike them?

[Anonymous No.10138439]

>>10136646
So slothrop has a harmonica right? Not a hew's harp (which is the only 'mouth harp' i know)
>>10135276
I got how the light tied in the two 'quests' of tchitcherine, but it wasn't explained what he saw exactly.

I didn't catch the nixon reference with richard, but it makes a lot of sense, thanks!

[Anonymous No.10138668]

>>10138291
What I liked about V was the passage of time and overwhelming the reader with characters and passage of real time to create a mosaic of time and space. This *big picture* was dare I say even impressive at times. What I also liked was some of the passages that were painterly like, like the stuff in ME, some of the more in-your-face philosophical messaging, or the parts about Malta.

What I did not like was how the characters all felt to have a same voice, the prose around parts that were more dry / less colorful.

Then there's how you don't really get to understand or know these people, but of course You could just say that this is because of its display of time and V itself (how you can never know someone not even if you spend decades learning about it), but still.

I suppose a rereading would clear a lot of my confusions and brainletism about this book but it was such a log to go through I will not be visiting it soon.

[Anonymous No.10138719]

>>10138439
jew's*

[Anonymous No.10138883]

>>10134456
Slothrop is awesome fuck buck mulligan tho

[Anonymous No.10139002]

>>10136620
The companion, unfortunately, just cites "A Suspension Forever at the Hinge of Doubt" by Duyfhuizen, p. 3-6, in reference to that exact line. I think it's supposed to be Slothrops perspective rather than the narrator's, so it could just be another "Slothrop is losing his mind" moment. Weird device on the part of Pynchon if she really is older though.

>>10138883
Buck just calls out Stephen on all his whiney adolescent bullshit. They're men in their twenties. Buck is learning medicine and fucking bitches while Stephen is moping around and crying about how bad his life and country are. Buck is the jester to Stephens King Lear.

[Anonymous No.10139353]

Read Norbert Wiener.

[Anonymous No.10139512]

What the fuck was the deal with the harmonica anyway?
He dropped it in a toilet, dived down to look for it while black people laughed at him while fingering his asshole, then he falls down into the toilet, escapes huge amounts of shit and continues life as if nothing happened?
And then someone finds the harmonica at some point later?

[Anonymous No.10139529]

>>10139512
That was a dream induced by Amytal or Oneirine when he’s taken to White Visitation
Also the harp he finds at the end it’s the same one he lost

[Anonymous No.10139622]

>>10139529
While we're here, what the fuck is the deal with oneirine? How does it relate to imipolex? Does it?

[Anonymous No.10139658]

>>10139622
If I recall correctly Oneirine is a drug produced by IG, a guy (don’t remember his name) with Pirate goes to Roger towards the end and explains him some things he knows about IG and he says they patented a polymer and a drug, or something along those lines, which I remember were heavily and transparently implied to be Imipolex and Oneirine.
Also I don’t know if it has some power one time or it’s percetion (see the Badass vs torpedo incident)
Maybe it’s composed from Imipolex? Maybe Gottfried in the 00000 was subject to it since the SG is made from Imipolex

[Anonymous No.10139761]

>>10136574
>The companion would suggest that Bianca is actually around 16, maybe older, which would make Slothrop a little less pedo? I always thought that part was a little weird.
normalfag please leave

[Anonymous No.10139848]

>>10139761
Slothrop thinks, "Bianca's a knockout, alright: 11 or 12, dark and lovely [...]" (p.463), but how old is Bianca, really? Well ...

Bianca is conceived during the filming of Alpdrücken ("I think Bianca is [Schlepzig's] child. She was conceived while we were filming this." - p.395)
Ilse was conceived after Franz Pökler saw Alpdrücken ("he knew that had to be the night, Alpdrücken night, that Ilse was conceived." - p.397)
Leni had already given birth to Ilse when she was seeing Peter Sachsa, e.g. "Ilse is awake, and crying. [...] They ought to try Peter after all. He'll have milk." (p.163); and Sachsa is killed during a street action in 1930 ("Taken forcibly over in 1930 by a blow from a police truncheon [...]" - p.152)
Placing Bianca's conception, say, 6 months to a year before Ilse's (depending on how long it took for Alpdrücken to reach the theatres and how long it took Franz Pökler to go see it), Bianca's birth would have been in 1928 or 1929.
Slothrop meets Bianca aboard the Anubis in 1945.
Thus Bianca must be 16 or 17, yes?

[Anonymous No.10139866]

>>10130700
That's such a great sentence, fug

[Anonymous No.10139933]

>>10139658
Do i see a oneirine-timetravel-imipolex-gottfriend and the rocket from the start link? Or am i just seeing spooks?
On one side i think it's over the top and there's little evidence for it in the text. But then again i might have missed alot and i litteraly wouldn't know where to look for it in the text.
The badass incident, the start, end, one of the oneirine parts (with Margaretha and thanatz and a different one with slothrop if i'm not mistaken?) and the part 'qualities of Imipolex. And then there would still be the dozens "x is linked to y is linked to z is linked to... " parts.

Anyway, i read somewhere oneiric means 'dreamilke?' or was that in the book itself? I don't remember.

[Anonymous No.10139950]

>>10139933
read the book again, it's all laid out plainly in painstaking detail

[Anonymous No.10140071]

>>10139933
I too would want to read it again but I don’t know where to look specifically, maybe use the “Some thing that happen in GR more or less” site
Also yeah Onirine comes from ὄνειρος which means dream
And i find the link/the time travel thing a bit overdose the top too but hey who knows what went trough TommyP’s mind!

[Anonymous No.10140224]

Is there any particular significance to the usage of the word 'Naphtha' in the beginning?

[Anonymous No.10140225]

Does /lit/ prefer reading high or drunk?

[Anonymous No.10140235]

>>10130693

What do we make of this: >>10140075
And if it's real, why'd he choose that shit thread instead of this decent one?

[Anonymous No.10140256]

>>10139002
Buck is the man, shit, I mean SHIT, first Chad ever. He swims, studies medicine, fucks bitches and mocks death

Not to mention the Omphalos Fertilizing Farm

I love this guy, I mean he's so fucking dope; my favorite Ulysses passages are those starring or mentioning him, the one in The Oxen of the Sun and later Circe being based Buck; his very chadness also makes Telemachus my favorite episode of all time, perhaps the best thing I've ever read

he's like the first pomo character ever, shit, he is the shit literally JUST

[Anonymous No.10140261]

>>10140256
inb4 plebbit spacing, fuck off I'm wasted af but my no-homo love for Buck 'The Virgin Vermin Smasher' Mulligan, nobody can take it away

[Anonymous No.10141373]

>>10140224
I don't have clue, but if i hear Naptha i think of Naptha from the Magic Mountain, is that of any help?

[Anonymous No.10142867]

>>10141373
Isn't it used in fuel and also that horrendous chemical used by dry cleaners (naphthalene)?

Haven't read GR because it seems retarded but that's my two cents

[Anonymous No.10143020]

>>10140225
Sober?