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7210349 No.7210349 [Reply] [Original]

Gravity's Rainbow /lit/ Reading Group

This is the official /lit/ Gravity's Rainbow reading group.
We started on Oct. 1st, and are on page 136 as of 10/08/15. It's not too late to catch up!

OLD THREAD >>7181040
>This is the official /lit/ Gravity's Rainbow reading group.
>We start tomorrow.
>To get a good feel of where everyone is at, post here if you'd like to express what you know prior to starting the book and what your expectations are
>If you have the day-by-day page number guide please post it below, because I seem to have lost mine in a data transfer

>> No.7210394
File: 51 KB, 835x656, Gravity's Reading.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7210394

>If you have the day-by-day page number guide please post it below, because I seem to have lost mine in a data transfer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jKf4hWoeR8

>> No.7210395

Let's get this goin!

Do the bananas represent rockets??

>> No.7210411

What are the dogs for?

>> No.7210425

>>7210411
Test subjects for Pointsman's research. What specifically is he trying to do with them? Who knows. Sniff bombs? Predict rocket strikes? Could be anything, it doesn't much matter. The significance of the Dogs is just to establish Pointsman as an absolute student of Pavlov and admirer of his ways. Pavlov used Dogs, so Pointsman must too. It's mostly a joke, in my opinion. The dogs certainly don't play a role in the plot. He even gives his Dogs the Russian names that Pavlov might have given his own, despite Pointsman being English. Vanya, Ilya, etc.

>> No.7210482

What Is ACHTUNG?

>> No.7210501

>>7210395
Bananas
Bombs
Boners

>> No.7210525

>>7210501
Wow, I never noticed the pattern. Is there a Velvet U & Andy Warhol connexion??

>> No.7210528

>>7210425
>significance
rly? this isnt a puzzle, it's 4 fun

>> No.7210630

>>7210528
>puzzles
>not fun

>> No.7210750

>>7210482
Allied Clearing House, Technical Units, No. Germany

Slothrop investigates V2 impact sites for them with Tantivy Mucker Maffick

>> No.7211025

>>7210750
not 4 long

>> No.7211708

>>7210482
the acronym also means "beware" (as in warning, careful) in german.

And by the way I see that's already in the wiki but Poisson, which is named after the statistician, also happens to mean "fish" in french... see PISCES, as well as the corresponding tarot wankery.

>> No.7213532

Any stories while reading the book so far?

>Reading GR
>Listening to Hail to the Thief
>Enjoying myself and actually relaxed for the first time in ages
>Start spinning round in the chair (one of those officey ones)
>Realise I can read while spinning and the music sounds pretty good and strange
>Keep spinning for way too long (about 10 mins straight)
>Feels amazing, completely caught up in it
>Finally stop
>Head spinning like mad, try to get up and fall on the floor
>Don't get up for about 2 mins

10/10 experience tbh.

>> No.7213538

>>7211708
thx lol didnt cathc tat

>> No.7213564

>>7210411
Pointsman is a Pavlolvian. Ivan Pavlov used dogs for his experiments in classical conditioning.

>> No.7213641

>>7213532
Pynchon actually intended for you to read GR this way.

>> No.7213656

>>7213532
Pynchon here, that is actually how I wrote my magnum opus! Congrats on discovering my method!

>> No.7214612

i fucking love this book so far. no wonder its a meme here. roger and jessica passages are my favorite

>> No.7214619

>>7213641
10/10 post.

>> No.7216462

Bump for catch up

>> No.7216647
File: 185 KB, 267x320, Pynchon near you.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7216647

Some parts I don't understand but I still love this book I don't know exactly why. It's really amazing.
Also, what day is it since the start of the reading group?

>> No.7216708

>>7216647
The group started on October 1st, so the 10th day. Should be finishing up around 174.

>> No.7216924

Is it me or Pynchon mocks and ridicules racism throughtout the novel.

>> No.7216969

how long will it take me to catch up if I start right now?
lolita took me about 3 days to finish

>> No.7216980

>>7216969
You'll be on track within a week, probably less

>> No.7217019

So from what I'm understanding from the chapter summaries here: http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/rainbow.htm, a couple of characters are shared with V.? Is this significant or just cameos?

>> No.7217122
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7217122

>>7217019
GR is for the most part an entirely standalone book, but that said, a lot of the African stuff has bigger impact having read V., and knowing the stories of Kurt Mondaugen, Weissman Blicero, and the "Von Trotha days" and stuff. But no, mostly it's just Pynchon's style of worldbuilding. GR shares characters with and minor connections to most of Pynchon's other books. Though V and GR are probably the most closely linked and thematically similar.

>> No.7217137

>>7217122
what are the similarities to crying of lot 49? I really enjoyed that book, it had a really nice break from romanticism/modernism

>> No.7217146

>>7217137
Clayton Bloody Chiclitz of Yoyodyne Galactronics appears in GR and V. Not sure if there are any other direct links from Lot 49 to GR, though.

>> No.7217151

>>7217146
oh I wasn't the other guy, I was referring to the overall style of the books

>> No.7217216

>>7217151
The style is similar, but in GR it's less... focused? You get wild time/space shifts, PoV shifts, and it tends to be more emotional, the plot so far (we're almost at the end of part 1) has been constructed more by the relations and fleshing out of the characters than by a succession of events.

>> No.7217372

>>7216924
He's a pretty big anti-racist. There's a short storty in Slow Learner about it, some stuff in Mason & Dixon. I hear he's a big fan of Thelonious Monk.

>> No.7217388
File: 33 KB, 530x300, 10155648_10206298117994739_1223464804859177922_n.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7217388

>>7210349
I'm going to catch up.

But any tips on reading up to 136, or keys to look for? I just got to Adenoids. and bananadude experiencing other peoples' fantasies.

also im drunk and on too much klonopin, and of all the times I've started reading this thing so far it is the best, i just quickly let go of anything that didn't make sense to me, and treat it like some sort of vague fragmentation that makes sense as vague fragmentation.

>> No.7217423

>>7217388
I wouldn't recommend reading while drunk, first time I read Pynchon is was on a bit of pot and it was horrible. Take your time, especially on the long paragraphs that come around the Christmas chapters.

>> No.7217655

>>7217372
iirc there was a bit with "niggers" in lot 49
this was in the 70s too, so it's not like it wasn't a euphemism in san francisco

>> No.7217678

>>7217388
this >>7217423
p. much.
I just started today and got to page 20 in an hour, it's meant to be read slowly

it takes a while to get used to his style too, I definitely do not recommend reading gravity's rainbow as your first pynchon book. It takes a certain understanding; certain details are just setting up the scene, others are important later, other things are just extraneous and you kindof need to understand his style to pick them out
I am enjoying it a lot more than the first time I tried to read it for this reason I think

>> No.7217836

>>7217423
I've been reading GR almost exclusively stoned this time around, I think it's great. The "iron afternoon" in London and Slothrop's family history felt especially evocative.

>> No.7217845

>>7216924
Pynchon is a pretty huge nigger lover. Everyone Black is a good guy -- almost Tarantino levels.

>> No.7217859

can we do another infinite jest soon? i missed the one this summer

>> No.7217864

>>7217845
Josef Ombindi in this book wasn't a good guy.

>> No.7217886

>>7217864
Good point. Disenfranchised? Misguided? He's not a good guy, but Pynchon doesn't paint him nearly as monstrous as the book's other villain's. He's a victim trying to commit an honorable pagan genocide, severing the line on his own terms instead of holding onto a meaningless life like a coward. He listens to Enzian too. He has none of the evil self interest of Pointsman, the arrogance of Marvey, or the demonic character of Blicero.

>> No.7218265

>>7217859
well the end of this book isn't until almost december, depends on your definition of soon

>> No.7218810

>>7218265
FUCK YOU

>> No.7218860
File: 123 KB, 535x738, big_lebowski_ver2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7218860

Movies that remind you of pynchon's work?

>> No.7218872

I'm ahead of the group at p.448. Wondering what the significance of all the S&M stuff is? My guess would be that it has to do with the conditioning as a result of the war which causes people to begin to derive pleasure from pain. Also ties into the transmarginal paradoxical conditioning that was talked about near the beginning of the book.

Curious what other interpretations there are for it?

>> No.7219064
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7219064

Well folks, today we're done with part 1. Pat yourselves on the back, you're a bit more patty now, for whatever little that is worth.

>> No.7219102

how many pages/hour do you guys read at for this book?

>> No.7219114

>>7218860
That new pta mov

>> No.7219115

>>7219102
Been doing about 20 an hour. I usually read about 30-35 an hour but I have to take my time and reread sections with this one.

>> No.7219128

>>7219115
same. was just wondering because I thought that I was going pretty slow
it's much more enjoyable than the usual sessions for school though

>> No.7221035

Getting caught up today. Was finishing some Houellebecq and Delillo.

>> No.7221157

I'm a quite a bit behind, friends. Only just started it today. Absolutely adoring what I've read thus far, though.

>> No.7222760

bump

>> No.7223199

>>7218872
Is that before or after Greta Erdmann?

>> No.7223829

Why is pynchon so obsessed with sex?

>> No.7223851

>>7223829
Oh wait
This is what postmodernism is, isn't it? The obsession with the self, self gratification , abandonment of rigid morality of the old world, disillusionment. The sex isn't love, it's fulfillment of sexual needs. Maybe a jab at freudian constructs too

>> No.7224631

>>7223829
Spooked statement

>> No.7225322

>>7223851
that's basically modernism

>> No.7225374

>>7225322
Modernism I thought was concerned with the individuals who still wanted to be traditional living in the world where it doesn't fit anymore, and postmodernism was the next generation where it was abandoned entirely.

>> No.7225379

>>7223851

You don't know what any of those words mean

>> No.7225383

>>7225379
Sure they're trite but they all make sense

http://www19.homepage.villanova.edu/karyn.hollis/prof_academic/Courses/2043_pop/modernism_vs_postmodernism.htm

>> No.7225386

>>7225374

you need to spend some time away from 4chan, preferably reading books

>> No.7225394

>>7225383

sweet Jesus that chart is trite, if anything

is this from a real school?

>> No.7225854

>>7217845
What? Tarantino had some black character that weren't good guys. Samuel L. Jacksons characters in Django Unchained and Jackie Brown both were villains and the first person Beatrice went after in Kill Bill was Vivica Fox who was sympathetic but definately one of the people who wronged her.

>> No.7226967

>"What did the Cockney exclaim to the cowboy from San Antonio?" I think Weisenburger tries way too hard on this one. If you ask me, the punchline to this terrible joke is simply "Cor, Tex!" with the "cor" from the Cockney slang exclamation "Cor blimey!" and the "Tex" from the American cowboy diminutive, indicating a person from Texas.

Fuck's sake Pynchon

>> No.7228862

bump

>> No.7228886

and another.

Certain characters, at least Blicero and Pointsman, have a "center"? The oven, and... I don't remember Pointsman's bit.

Also what the fuck is "machines of black metal and glass gingerbread" supposed to mean

>> No.7230003

>But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice—guessed and refused to believe—that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chances, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the Rainbow™, and they its children. . . .
Really?

>> No.7230829

>>7230003
It's so good isn't it?

>> No.7231515

Feel like someone should mention how he ate her (Katje's?) shit...disgustingly well written. Does he like pain because he fought in wars? Why does Pynchon link it to sex?

>> No.7231660

>>7231515
Funny, I was just reading the ship scene on page 67
What the fuck was slothrop doing? Was he literally swimming through shit while almost being raped by negros?

>> No.7231671

>>7231660
Fuck, autocorrect
*shit
Rather than ship

>> No.7231687

>>7231515
BDSM is a fetish like any other, there's not a real reason I'm into giantesses

>> No.7232288

>>7231687
>there's not a real reason I'm into giantesses
Is that what you believe or what you tell yourself?

>> No.7232535

>>7231515
He doesn't like pain, it's some sort of convoluted PTSD thing. A sort of guilt is what I get, as if he feels he needs or deserves to be brought back to Passchendaele, which the shit eating does for him. Reminds him of the angel of Death he saw on the battlefield. Just further character building on how Pudding is tied to the past, unable to understand the new forms of War.

>> No.7232995

Hey, there were some folks wondering what the
>a-and
stuff was about a while ago. I thinks it's supposed to be not a stutter, but a lengthened and emphatic aaand.

>> No.7233182

>>7232995
naw, he just writes "aaand" for that

>> No.7233301

>>7231660
Not literally - he was being drugged in the lab test, either recalling a memory or a paranoid trip.

>>7231515
Look at the first passage on Pudding (kek every tiem) again, it's pretty earthen and excremental already, strong memory connection.

>> No.7233498

>>7233182
Does he? A search in my pdf gives no instances of "aaand" or "aand".

>> No.7233850

>>7233301
Oh that makes things much clearer
Kinda struggling with the narrative though it'll be like one line says what's going on and 3 pages after that off on a tangent and if you miss it you have no idea what's going on. I do remember they were talking about drugs before that though, faintly.

>> No.7234020

>>7233301
>passage on Pudding
?

>> No.7234090

The sex stuff is off-putting, not gonna lie.

I guess it's why GR didn't receive the Pulitzer.

>> No.7234172

>>7234020
The first time Pudding is introduced, in the White Visitation chapter. Makes him look like he's more or less permanently reminiscing about his time the war, and it involved shit.

>> No.7234212

>>7234172
The first time pudding is introduced is in the first chapter. Banana Blancmange

>> No.7235257

So I've got a couple of questions. First, why do they drag Slothrop around? Is Hermann Goering in France? Why does he feel a conspiracy against him? What are they conspiring for?
I have to admit that the second chapter is more boring than the first one, that's why I got a little confused.

>> No.7235366

>>7235257
Slothrop has precognition

>> No.7236577

bump

>> No.7237215

>“In the days of the gauchos, my country was a blank piece of paper. The pampas stretched as far as men could imagine, inexhaustible, fenceless. Wherever the gaucho could ride, that place belonged to him. But Buenos Aires sought hegemony over the provinces. All the neuroses about property gathered strength, and began to infect the countryside. Fences went up, and the gaucho became less free. It is our national tragedy. We are obsessed with building labyrinths, where before there was open plain and sky. To draw ever more complex patterns on the blank sheet. We cannot abide that openness: it is terror to us. Look at Borges. Look at the suburbs of Buenos Aires. The tyrant Rosas has been dead a century, but his cult flourishes. Beneath the city streets, the warrens of rooms and corridors, the fences and the networks of steel track, the Argentine heart, in its perversity and guilt, longs for a return to that first unscribbled serenity . . . that anarchic oneness of pampas and sky. . . .”

>tfw Pynchon summarizes your country's dilemma perfectly
10/10 will tl and use on upcoming classes about Borges' author-image.

>> No.7237299

>>7234212
Did you just then flip through the breakfast for the first related item or actually memorize it all, is what I must wonder

>> No.7237302
File: 65 KB, 1180x842, Pirate.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7237302

>>7210349
Haven't been keeping up with the reading group until now, but I'm around where you guys are so I'm going to join.
Just a question, what do the characters look like to you? I started reading GR after watching wet hot american summer and now all the main characters look like the people in that movie. It fits surprisinly well.

>> No.7237341

>>7237302
Pointsman - fat Watson
Mexico - kinda scrawny and pale, like he's about to get attacked by someone, think Shinji Ikari
Jessica/Katje - more or less the same, svelte but severe looking women; Jess with darker hair and redder lips
Slothrap - classical Tommy P without the teeth (he's got a pomp after all)

>> No.7239347

Bump, still catching up

>> No.7239485
File: 29 KB, 410x166, Beetle-Bailey-running.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7239485

>>7237302
Slothrop is something like Pynchon in the style of Beetle Bailey
Bloat is Sarge from Beetle Bailey
Pirate Prentice is Peter Sellers as Mandrake in Dr. Stangelove
Franz Pokler is the main guy from the movie Brazil
Blicero in his youth looks like the square-jawed-ubermensch-propaganda Nazi
Osbie Feel looks something like Doc from the Inherent Vice movie
Brigadier Pudding is Ernest Hemingway

>> No.7239667

>>7239485
Brigadier Pudding is categorically not Ernest Hemingway.

>> No.7239696

>>7239485
It's been ~8 years since I read this book but I imagined Beetle Bailey a lot too lol

>> No.7240255
File: 40 KB, 500x349, tumblr_n1u2ojNN211t06hqzo1_500.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7240255

>>7239485
I like your style

>> No.7241590

Fuck, every time I feel like I'm starting to get bored Pynchon implicates some terrifying detail or makes me lauh my ass off.

>> No.7241641

>>7239485
I've never heard of this beetle bailey thing and it's pretty close to what I had in mind. On the second reading Slothrop has also grown to look a lot like young P, whose face I hadn't seen before.

>> No.7241829

>>7235257
did you not read the first book?

>> No.7241884

>>7241829
As I said, I did and understood everything, but casino fucked me up.

>> No.7241925

Fuck I don't understand much. Fuck.

>> No.7241940

>>7241925
Nabokov (who was a teacher of Pynchon) said a good book takes two reads to understand. Don't give up, half the fun/point of the book is not knowing what the fuck is going on

>> No.7241944

>>7241940
>(who was a teacher of Pynchon)
I am tired of this meme

Pynchon was a student in one of Nabokov's university courses. Nabokov didn't remember him. Nabokov's wife remembered a bit of his essays that she graded for class. They never personally interacted.

>> No.7241950

>>7210349
>tfw been reading this slowly as fuck for a long time (on page ~50 atm)
>don't come to /lit/ often, would've joined in otherwise
might try and catch up

>> No.7241951

>>7241944
I'm sure most of my University teachers don't remember me either

>> No.7242129

>>7231660
I assumed that was a memory of an episode of paranoia. Later on pointsman talks about what a dysfunctional paranoid person slothrop is.

>> No.7242137

>>7242129
It was a truth serum hallucination

>> No.7242147

>>7237302
I can't help but imagine pirate prentice as looking like an actual storybook pirate with frilly clothes and a pointed mustache.

>> No.7242358

>>7241925
http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/rainbow.htm

>> No.7242624

>>7237302
the cast of dr strangelove

>> No.7244447

dead

>> No.7244605

Bump

Also to say some dudes made a cd based of the songs in GR https://soundcloud.com/transmissionsfm/sets/the-thomas-pynchon-fake-book

>> No.7245114
File: 134 KB, 572x300, mandrake.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7245114

>>7242147
Mandrake just seems so clearly Pirate to me

>> No.7245613
File: 82 KB, 1015x1378, V1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7245613

The train poem is beautiful. Pynchon is great.

>> No.7245907

>>7231515

so Katje was the dominatrix? I thought that's what it was implying but I wasn't sure.

>> No.7245923

Did Roger and Jessica die in a rocket strike? Was that scene a flash forward or did it not actually happen?

>> No.7246057

>>7245923
It's the end.

>> No.7246525

>>7245923
The rocket hit closeby, but not them

>> No.7246730

>>7245114
You're fucked, Pirate is a rough, jaded career soldier. Mandrake is.... a ninny.

>> No.7247180

>>7246730
Pirate is unquestionably a ninny

>> No.7247223

>>7245114
Brigadier pudding is more like mandrake.

>> No.7247354

just finished. good book but I think a lot of page 400-600 could have been cut.

>> No.7247517

Since this is the active Pinethread I'll address this very strange question here. Didn't El Pinchonero once say something about how much he was influenced by Mario Vargas Llosa? I remember reading this quite distinctly but I can't find anything by googling. I find it interesting because I'm currently reading Vargas Llosa for this very reason and can't see anything at all similar to TRP's writing.

>> No.7247525

>>7210395
that, and penises

the overaching theme is the arch, in more ways that just the arching of penises, bananas and rocket patterns

>select all images with bananas
goddamnit captcha

>> No.7247587

>>7247180
We might just both be bloody ninnies if you keep this bullocks up.

>> No.7247594

So I'm around 3% in.
It won't get better, will it?

>> No.7247599

>>7219115
>>7219128
>>7219102
with GR I was glad if I could make 20 an hour.

>> No.7247708

>>7219102
>>7247599
I counted around a page every 4 minutes, so I'm around 15 an hour.

>> No.7248286

>>7246525

it literally describes death coming into the room for them

>> No.7249113
File: 233 KB, 1200x867, Pilot_in_Cockpit.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7249113

>Not only are there turnouts dazzling enough to thrill even the juvenile leads of a space-operetta, down to the oddly-colored television images flickering across their toenails, but Heini has even thought of silks for the amusing little Space-Jockeys (Raum-Jockeier) with their electric whips, who will someday zoom about just outside the barrier-glow of the Raketen-Stadt, astride “horses” of polished meteorite all with the same stylized face (a high-contrast imago of the horse that follows you, emphasis on its demented eyes, its teeth, the darkness under its hindquarters . . .), with the propulsive gases blowing like farts out their tail ends—the juvenile leads giggle together at this naughty bathroom moment, and slowly, in what’s hardly more than a sigh of gravity here, go bobbing, each radiant in a display of fluorescent plastics, back in to the Waltz, the strangely communal Waltz of the Future, a slightly, dis-quietingly grainy-dissonant chorale implied here in the whirling silence of faces, the bare shoulderblades slung so space-Viennese, so jaded with Tomorrow. . . .
>Then come—the Space Helmets! At first you may be alarmed, on noticing that they appear to be fashioned from skulls. At least the upper dome of this unpleasant headgear is certainly the skull of some manlike creature built to a larger scale. . . . Perhaps Titans lived under this mountain, and their skulls got harvested like giant mushrooms. . . . The eye-sockets are fitted with quartz lenses. Filters may be slipped in. Nasal bone and upper teeth have been replaced by a metal breathing apparatus, full of slots and grating. Corresponding to the jaw is a built-up section, almost a facial codpiece, of iron and ebonite, perhaps housing a radio unit, thrusting forward in black fatality.
So these guys from Alien where named after these? Huh.

>> No.7249217

>>7248286
Yes and it taunts them, doesn't take them.

>> No.7249236

>>7249113
they never call the space jockey the space jockey in alien

>> No.7249355

>>7247517
Maybe you mean Borges? Pynchon likes him (Katje Borgesius) and translated some of his stories when he was living in Mexico.

>> No.7249399

>>7249355
>Pynchon likes him
>makes him shit nigger dicks
Would not be friends with / 10

>> No.7250105

>>7249236
I know; nicknamed then.

>>7249399
>He doesn't want to be qt BDSM Dutch girl.
Sounds like an honor chamigo.

>> No.7250320

>>7250105
well pretty unlikely

>> No.7250498

Is this bait?
It's literally an endless collection of barely connected stories that serve no purpose other than showcasing the author's prose wankery.

>> No.7250511

>>7250498
How far in are you? I'll agree that some parts are unnecessary but it's on the contrary
*all connected* in every way

>> No.7250544

>>7250511
Roger showing his poisson map to the pavlov guy.

>> No.7250579

>>7250544
lol I hope you're kidding

>> No.7250600

>>7250579
N-no... why?

>> No.7250609

>>7250600
it's like the singularly most important thematic element in gravity's rainbow: the idea that the chance of you getting hit by a bomb is completely random
any second you could die, there is no prediction based on where it hit before

>> No.7250617

>>7250609
I was just stating where I was at, not criticizing the scene.
It was actually my favorite part so far.

>> No.7251098

>>7250498
The themes, even "messages" are so fucking overt its almost too much the second time around

Is THIS bait? How can anyone be so fucking stupid?