Gravity's Rainbow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Author | Thomas Pynchon |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Viking Press (first edition), Penguin Books, Bantam Books |
| Released | 1973 |
Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28, 1973.
The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers around the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest undertaken by several of the characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device named the "Schwarzgerät," or "00000."
Frequently digressive and often playfully self-conscious, the novel subverts many of the traditional elements of plot and character development, traverses detailed, specialist knowledge drawn from a wide range of disciplines, and has earned a reputation as a "difficult" book.
In 1974, the three-member Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction supported Gravity's Rainbow for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. However, the other eleven members of the board overturned this decision, branding the book "unreadable, turgid, overwritten, and obscene." The novel was nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and won the National Book Award in 1974. Since its publication, Gravity's Rainbow has spawned an enormous amount of literary criticism and commentary, including two reader's guides and several online concordances, and is widely regarded as Pynchon's magnum opus.
Contents |
[edit] Structure and chronology
| Quotation |
| [...] a million bureaucrats are diligently plotting death and some of them even know it [...] |
| Thomas Pynchon |
Gravity's Rainbow is composed of four parts, each of these comprising a number of episodes whose divisions are marked by a graphical depiction of a series of squares. It has been suggested that these represent sprocket holes as in a reel of film, although they may also bear some relation to the engineer's graph paper on which the first draft of the novel was written.<ref name="weisenburger1">Weisenburger, Steven (1988). “Introduction”, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion. University of Georgia Press, 1. ISBN 0-8203-1026-3. “The first draft of Gravity's Rainbow was written out in neat, tiny script on engineer's quadrille paper.”</ref> One of the book's editors has been quoted as saying that the aforementioned squares relate to censored correspondence sent between soldiers and their loved ones during the war. When family and friends received edited letters, the removed sections would be cut out in squared or rectangular sections. The squares that start each of the four parts would therefore be indicative of what is not written, or what is removed by an external editor or censor.<ref name="bookforum">Howard, Gerald (2005). "Pynchon from A to V.". Bookforum (Summer 2005): 1.</ref> The number of episodes in each part carries with it a numerological significance which is in keeping with the use of numerology and Tarot symbolism throughout the novel.<ref name="weisenburger-numerology">Weisenburger, Steven (1988). “Part 1: Beyond the Zero”, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion. University of Georgia Press, 15. ISBN 0-8203-1026-3. “Numerological correspondences also shape part 1.”</ref>
"Part 1: Beyond the Zero" consists of 21 episodes which corresponds exactly to the number of cards in the Major Arcana of a Tarot deck if the Fool card is not counted or assigned a null value, hence the name of this part; "Beyond the Zero".<ref name="weisenburger2">Weisenburger, Steven (1988). “Part 1: Beyond the Zero”, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion. University of Georgia Press, 15. ISBN 0-8203-1026-3. “"Numerological correspondences also shape part 1... There are twenty-one episodes in part 1; the Tarot deck has twenty-one numbered cards, if one omits another - The Fool - which is a ... null card."”</ref> The events of this part occur primarily during the Christmas Advent season of 1944 from December 18-26. The epigraph is a quotation from a pamphlet written by Wernher von Braun and first published in 1962: "Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death."<ref>Von Braun, Wernher, 'Why I Believe in Immortality', in William Nichols (ed.), The Third Book of Words to Live By, Simon and Schuster, 1962, pp. 119-120.</ref>
"Part 2: Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering" (French for "A Furlough at the Hermann Goering Casino") contains 8 episodes, a number that evokes the mathematical symbol of infinity and makes repeated appearances throughout the narrative.<ref name="weisenburger3">Weisenburger, Steven (1988). “Part 2: Un Perm au Casino Hermann Goering”, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion. University of Georgia Press, 86, 105, 125-126, 152, 153, 291. ISBN 0-8203-1026-3. “The number eight has a widespread significance throughout GR: there were eight episodes in part 2; Slothrop assumes eight different identities; V-E Day, White Lotos Day and Pynchon's birthday all fell on May 8; the text references Krishna, eighth avatar of Vishnu; and in Judaeo-Christianity eight is the number of letters in the Tetragrammaton.”</ref> The events of this section span the five months from Christmas 1944 through to Whitsunday the following year; May 20, 1945. The epigraph is attributed to Merian C. Cooper, speaking to Fay Wray prior to her starring role in King Kong, as recounted by Wray in the September 21, 1969 issue of the New York Times: "You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood."<ref name="weisenburger4">Weisenburger, Steven (1988). “Part 2: Un Perm au Casino Hermann Goering”, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion. University of Georgia Press, 105. ISBN 0-8203-1026-3. “The epigraph derives from a New York Times feature of September 21, 1969, entitled "How Fay Met Kong...".”</ref>
"Part 3: In the Zone" is comprised of 32 episodes, a number some speculate is related to the gravitational acceleration of 32 feet per second per second and also bearing significance to the Kabbalistic tradition.<ref name="weisenburger5">Weisenburger, Steven (1988). “Part 3: In The Zone”, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion. University of Georgia Press, 105. ISBN 0-8203-1026-3. “Part 3 of the novel contains thirty-two episodes...because the gravitational pull...is a constant thirty-two feet per second and...because the number is significant in Kabbalistic mythology.”</ref> The action of Part 3 is set during the summer of 1945 with some analepses to the time period of Part 2 with most events taking place between May 18 and August 6; the day of the first atomic bomb attack and also the Feast of the Transfiguration. The epigraph is taken from The Wizard of Oz, spoken by Dorothy as she arrives in Oz and shows her disorientation with the new environment: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas any more..."
"Part 4: The Counterforce" is made up of 12 episodes, this number being most commonly associated with the 12 Apostles and the total number of zodiacal signs. The plot of this part begins shortly after August 6, 1945 and covers the period up to September 14th of that same year; the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, with extended analepsis to Easter/April Fool's weekend of 1945 and culminating in a prolepsis to 1970. The simple epigraphical quotation, "What?" is attributed to Richard M. Nixon, and was added after the galleys of the novel had been printed to insinuate the President's involvement in the unfolding Watergate scandal.<ref>Pynchon Notes 11, February 1983, p. 64.</ref>
Given the novel's title it would be logical to assume that the "shape" of the novel would be an arc, like a rainbow. However, critics such as Weisenburger have found the novel's plot to be cyclical following in the literary tradition of Joyce's "Ulysses" and Melville's "The Confidence-Man".<ref name="weisenburger6">Weisenburger, Steven (1988). “Introduction”, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion. University of Georgia Press, 11. ISBN 0-8203-1026-3. “the shape of Gravity's Rainbow is circular. The literary precursors of this design ... are Joyce's Ulysses and Melville's ... The Confidence Man.”</ref>
[edit] Plot
As if to showcase both the erudite and the naughty, the narrative contains numerous descriptions of illicit sexual encounters and drug use by the main characters and supporting cast, sandwiched between very dense dialogues or reveries on historic, artistic, scientific, or philosophical subjects, interspersed with whimsical nonsense-poems and allusions to obscure facets of 1940s pop culture.
The main narrative thread (insofar as there is one) concerns a possibly promiscuous US Army lieutenant named Tyrone Slothrop. (At certain points in the book, Pynchon leads the reader to doubt the very existence of the women Slothrop claims to sleep with.) In "Beyond The Zero", some of the other characters and organisations of the book note that each of Slothrop's sexual encounters in London precedes a V-2 rocket hit in the same place by several days.
He is studied covertly and sent away by superiors in mysterious circumstances to the Hermann Goering casino in recently liberated France. There he learns of a rocket, the 00000, and a component called the S-Gerät (short for Schwarzgerät, which translates to black device) which is made out of the hitherto unknown plastic Imipolex G. It is hinted at that Slothrop's prescience of rocket hits is due to being conditioned as an infant by the creator of Imipolex G, Laszlo Jamf. After getting this information, Slothrop escapes from the casino into the coalescing post-war no man's land-like "Zone" of Europe, searching for the 00000 and S-Gerät.
Slothrop's quest continues for some time "In The Zone" as he is chased by other characters. Many of these characters are referred to as "shadows," and are only partially glimpsed by the protagonist. Unfortunately, he is repeatedly sidetracked until his persona fragments totally in part four despite the efforts of some to save him. The final identification of him of any certainty is his picture on the cover of an album by obscure English band "The Fool".
Towards the end of "The Counterforce", it transpires that the S-Gerät is actually a capsule crafted to contain a human. The maniacal Captain Blicero prepares to fire the 00000. He launches it in a pseudosexual act of sacrifice with his bound sex slave Gottfried captive within its S-Gerät. At the end of a final episode where the rocket descends, the text halts with a complete obliteration of narrative from a rocket blast as the 00000 lands (or is about to land) on a cinema.<ref name="GR">Pynchon, Thomas (1973). Gravity's Rainbow.</ref>
[edit] Relation to actual wartime events
Many facts in the novel are based on technical documents relating to the V-2 rockets. Equations featured in the text are correct. References to the works of Pavlov, Ouspensky, and Jung are based on Pynchon's actual research. The firing command sequence in German that is recited at the end of the novel is also correct and is probably copied in verbatim from the technical report produced by Operation Backfire.
In reality, a V-2 rocket hit the Rex Cinema in Antwerp on December 16, 1944 where some 1200 people were watching the movie The Plainsman killing 567 people, the most that were killed by a single rocket during the whole war.
Additionally, the novel uses many actual events and locations as backdrops to establish chronological order and setting within the complex structure of the book. Examples include the appearance of a photograph of Wernher Von Braun in which his arm is in a cast. Historical documents indicate the time and place of an accident which broke Von Braun's arm, thereby providing crucial structural details around which the reader can re-construct Slothrop's journey. Another example is the inclusion of a BBC Radio broadcast of a Benny Goodman performance, the contents of which, according to historical record, were broadcast only once during the period of the novel and by which the events immediately surrounding its mention are fixed. Further historical events, such as Allied bombing raids on Peenemünde and the city of Nordhausen (close to the V-2 producing concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora) also appear in the novel and help to establish the relation of the work's events to each other.
[edit] Public reaction
The novel is regarded by some as the greatest postmodern work of 20th century literature, while others have declared it unreadable.
The three-member Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction unanimously supported Gravity's Rainbow for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. However, the other eleven members of the fourteen-member Pulitzer board overturned this decision, calling the book "unreadable", "turgid", "overwritten", and "obscene", with at least one member confessing to having gotten only a third of the way through the book.
The book, however, was nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and won the National Book Award for 1974.
The novel inspired the 1984 song "Gravity's Angel" by Laurie Anderson. In her 2004 autobiographical performance The End of the Moon, Anderson said she once contacted Pynchon asking permission to adapt Gravity's Rainbow as an opera. Pynchon replied that he would allow her to do so with one condition: the opera had to be written for a single instrument: the banjo. Anderson said she took that as a polite "no."
The novel also was the inspiration for the title of Pat Benatar's 1993 album Gravity's Rainbow [1].
Reportedly, a scene in the film Trainspotting (1996) is an homage to a passage where Tyrone Slothrop dives into a toilet [2]. The novel also features in the animated television series The Simpsons; in the 13th-season episode "Little Girl in the Big Ten", Lisa Simpson spies a college girl's recreational reading material. Awestruck, she asks, "You're reading Gravity's Rainbow?" To which the college student replies, "Well, re-reading." This exchange may have motivated Pynchon to guest-star in two later episodes, both of which preserve (and satirize) his anonymity by animating him with a paper bag over his head. The Japanese anime series Boogiepop Phantom also makes Rainbow allusions. (Such as the title of 11th episode, Under the Gravity's Rainbow)
A German film, Prüfstand VII (Test Stand 7, 2002) is based upon Gravity's Rainbow. Starring Inga Busch as Bianca and Jeff Caster as Pointsman, it was nominated for the 2003 Adolf Grimme Award in the area of "outstanding individual achievement" (recognizing its writer/director Robert Bramkamp).
New York artist Zak Smith created a series of 760 drawings entitled, "One Picture for Every Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow" (also known by the title "Pictures of What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow") [3]. Occupying eleven rows and over eleven meters of wall space, the drawings attempt to illustrate, as literally as possible, every page of the book. The piece includes palm trees, shoes, stuffed toys, a lemon meringue pie, Richard Nixon, Sigmund Freud, an iron toad wired to an electric battery, a dominatrix, and other exotic images from the novel. The series had a successful reception at New York's 2004 Whitney Biennial event, and it gained a reputation "as a tour de force of sketching and concept" (Abbe 2004).
David Lowery has stated that the Camper Van Beethoven song All Her Favorite Fruit is based on a subplot of Gravity's Rainbow.
The Nirvana song "Territorial Pissings" is rumored to derive the lyric, "Just because you're paranoid/don't mean they're not after you" from Gravity's Rainbow. The pop group Army of Lovers derive their name from a graffito reference ("an army of lovers can be beaten") in Gravity's Rainbow. (This is itself a reference to Plato in the Symposium, albeit with the meaning reversed). British indie band Klaxons have a song called Gravity's Rainbow.
Derek Gregory named his last chapter in the influential The Colonial Present 'Gravity's Rainbows' (sic) after the book. Gregory's book, which has had a large impact in modern political geography, is a highly critical account of actions by Israel, the United Kingdom and the USA in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq.
[edit] Availability
Gravity's Rainbow is available in paperback under ISBN 0-14-018859-2 (New York: Penguin, 1995) and ISBN 0-14-028338-2 (New York: Penguin, 2000).
Also available is Steven C. Weisenburger's A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1988), which documents many of the references and allusions used by Pynchon for his novel. ISBN 0-8203-1026-3
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- The following links were last verified 21 February 2006.
- HyperArts' Gravity's Rainbow Web Guide & Concordance
- From The Modern Word:
- More selected Gravity's Rainbow quotes
- Discussion of Slothrop's appearance on The Fool album (with pictures)
- Zak Smith's Illustrations For Each Page of Gravity's Rainbow (see also Mary Abbe, "Words and pictures; A brilliant new show pairs 755 antic drawings with a monster novel", Minneapolis Star Tribune 17 December 2004).
- Essay of similarities between Gravity's Rainbow and Catch-22it:L'arcobaleno della gravità
