What is Yea Forums honest opinion on this book?

It's good but demands a lot of the reader. Not a good place to start either with Pynchon or postmodernism.

Basically Pynchon doing a massive riff on genre fiction of the late 19th/early 20th century, with his usual period appropriate math/science, folklore, marginally grasped conspiracies etc.. It's good but a huge time investment and probably best left until you're more familiar with his style. Lot 49 is a better intro.

>muh Æther

This. Start out with Vineland or COL49. and if you absolutely must start with Against then expect several types of genres mashed together, and more than a hundred characters. Dont worry too much about the science, just keep going.

Muh anarchism

hey this is fun

Disregard what people are saying about it not being a good Pynchon starter, it's fine if you're not illiterate

Masterpiece.

>CL49
>Story

TF you on, mate?

boomer trash

amazing insight

Dropped it one third of the way through, too. But I read and enjoyed Inherent Vice (having seen the movie several times)

Imagine putting all that effort in only to drop it right before it gets good

Is a companion necessary to finish it?

no

I have a question; I haven't got around to reading any postmodernism yet (started Crash but fell asleep), but since we're now moving into post-postmodernism, should I even bother or can I skip it all together?
My life has meaning and I like it that way.

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Read it alongside the pynchon in public podcast section by section series.
Once I got through a third of the book I started to naturally follow his kind of offbeat rhythm and realized how to read it. It's an exceptional work of literature that doesnt really have any kind of grand moralising statement, just beautiful craftsmanship and mind bogglingly expansive writing. How he accomplished this book I have no idea.
It was just alot of fucking fun, I'll never have another literary experience like this again. Just think of it as a giant, genius, incredibly ambitious cartoon that somehow manages to touch your heart everyonce in a while and will do so during a pagelong excerpt that contains some of the greatest prose you've ever read.

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I'll fall back on my memory of the company or comradery of Moses, our brother who died on the border of Israel but couldn't enter within

[Autocorrect literally not understanding comradery]

yes, they can provide you with moral support and make you cups of tea etc

Stop using words you don't understand. Pynchon wrote GR with heavy influence by Henry James, a writer so concerned with the human condition and classics that he was considered archaic for his time.

Pynchon has hope for the world. Stop going on lit or YouTube for opinions and read a fucking book.

okay

Thanks for the input. I intend to read Lot 49 as an introduction anyway, seems safer.

Yeah, Vineland interested me as well.

>more than a hundred characters

...whoa. Are they all important?

Don't read Vineland before GR

It's the most fun I've ever had reading a book.

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What topics should I have a general knowledge of if I want to read GR? I've heard it's incredibly referential.

Fantastic book. I agree with whoever said its like a cartoon. Yeah there are some really fucked up portions but also some beautiful and sublime portions. Pynchon is a great writer and there is nothing at all like this book. People saying they read 250 pages and dropped it are retards. Part 3 and 4 are substantially different/better/completely unique. Its funny to see that nu-Yea Forumss waves of newfags get so buttflustered by it and spam the passage that cost him the pullitzer like a literally 45 year old controversy should be relevant on fucking Yea Forums. I've said it recently but I will be shocked if the zoomers even put a dent in pynchon posting. Bananaposting, man goes down toilet, pynchon is seth macfarlane, goofs and gags, le boomer trash, controversial passage posting and even the release of the inherent vice movie couldn't stop pynchon posting.

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literally watch the alex jones and joe rogan podcast and read like melchizedek and the mystery of fire and a guide to tarot cards. Not kidding.

European WWII history
Tarot cards
V2 rockets
Wernher von Braun
Pavlovian conditioning
Lightbulbs
Mickey Rooney
Military Industrial Complex

You should also definitely read V. first. Quite a few characters that appear in Gravity's Rainbow were first introduced in V.

>quite a few
Mondaugen and bodine? its not like it actually matters

Just look it up as you go along. youll never end up reading it if you think like that.
gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gravity's_Rainbow_-_Page_by_Page

Of course it matters. Pig Bodine means nothing in Gravity's Rainbow if you haven't read V.

You all will hate me for saying this but It's almost like Family Guy's absurd story within a story format. Like "hey loise, remember that one time I went down the toilet: cut to scene of toilet"

>you will hate me for saying this but [6 year old meme you mentioned and implicitly agreed with]
kys retard

If you want to pass by on a first reading you can just search the stuff up as you go along. Maybe get Pynchon and the dark passages of history.

If you want to get more out of it I'd reccomend at least knowing the events of the european theatre of world war 2 towards the latter half because it's not explained. Also having a working knowledge of tarot (at least a decent understanding).

Finally if you want to be pynchon himself tier I'd reccomend brushing up on the following:
The basics of thermodynamics in relation to engineering physics
Augustinian theology
Post structuralist theory and post modern theory of lit
Very very basic wave mechanics
The basics of behaviouralism, freudian psychoanalysis and jungian psychoanalysis
Get a sense for the history of not only world war 2 but also and more importantly late 20th century american and european history
Finally and most importantly claude shannon and the basics of information theory as I believe this corpus is the key to interpreting Gravity's Rainbow (to the extent that there is one).

Holy FUCK Yea Forums, is fast now. A couple hours since the last post and page 9? We're done.

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i thought of looney tunes quite often when reading, i think very much that it is a work of great synchronicity, and it had a grave and deep effect on me, that still pulls me in some direction to this day. There were inexplicable moments I experienced while reading the work, that seemed as though they were timed for my reading them. Anyhow, I felt the most compelling aspect of the book was its structure. there were moments of gliding along in the wind, moments of collection and gathering, and moments of clarity, and in retrospect it followed the path of the bomb itself, but instead of chronologically, it worked its way backwards, an explosion and confusion of sorts in the beginning, and ending with an assembly of some of the spare parts laying around. there were gaffs, but they had something of a sadness to them, a garish cartoonish effect, as though instead of telling jokes, you were watching a living breathing bugs bunny ruin your life and be sassy when you just want to eat wabbits or what have you. it's something that nags at you in retrospect more than during, i notice. and phantoms collide in the gaps of your memory, what you recall becomes the truth, and that alone, and those truths become a different picture organically from the one presented upon the pages. and I think pynchon expects that, that he gave notice of a retrospective understanding of his own novel.

Hell is the place that you can no longer live in, but can't leave either.

this book is like a diamond in the rough

my experience with Pynchon is one of envy and joy. all of his worlds depict wonderful complicated people and environments with unique dynamics that we all long to live in. we get to experience life at it's most sophisticated and unique through Pynchon and that is ultimately what is great about him. through researching the book you become part of dynamics he paints out. but then you go back to everyday life and realize it lacks all the beauty and complexity contained within Pynchon and you dream all day "why couldn't i be a doctor at the white visitation dealing with psychic dick rockets, why do i have to work at mcdonalds or some shit all i do here is push buttons". Pynchon creates a picture of what the world could be. i think he relates these beautiful unique times to eras in history as well. Gravity's rainbow is about how the world came to life during the second world war and Mason and dixon about how the founding of america did a similar thing. he portrays and creates a world that mocks our own.

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GR isn't some sui generis work requiring esoteric knowledge to understand. If you've read Burroughs Pynchon should hold no terrors

I haven't read it but maximalism sucks.

Love it beyond words

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Burrough is pretty hard for normalfags tho

jeez

you fags should try reading another book sometime. literally any other book

We are all one person and we have all only read this one book

yup

why bother? Gravity's Rainbow is the greatest book of all times

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Seconding this, the wiki was of great help when reading V.

Thinking comes later

kek

Joaquin Phoenix was amazing and forever will be in my mind whenever i read Pynchon. Comfy af.

It makes me self conscious about my shit writing

Every book is a sui generis requiring esoteric knowledge to understand. Of course you wouldnt know this, being a midwit and all.

quads confirm