Favorite episodes? Best characters? What was it all about Yea Forums?

Didn't he tell his publisher or editor that he was working on two other books at the same time and if he pulled it off it would be the greatest thing ever? Or was that with V? Fucker was working like a mad man. Always wondered what those other two books were and if the drafts will get released when he dies.

there are so many scenes in that book that it's hard to decide. really really hard to decide. i can't wait to read it again desu.

He was working on 4 after V. It's all but confirmed that one was Gravity's Rainbow, the other was mostly likely Mason & Dixon, not sure about the other two.

I know. Whenever someone asks me, I just shrug and recite the usual 'sex acts = rocket fall' blurb, but there's infinitely more than that. Got one more episode left and that'll complete my second reading. I've got Vineland lined up, but part of me wants to just restart GR, again.

>Favorite episode
The scene where Roger and Jessica visit the chapel for a Christmas service, the opening scene where Prentice sees the rocket's parabolic trajectory for the first time, Slothrop's visit to the Mittelwerk, and Roger's piss attack on Pointsman and his board meeting. Also many of the ones already mentioned.
>Best character
Roger Mexico
>What was it all about
Something about industrial society and its future.

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i need to read his other works before i read it again, honestly. i haven't even skimmed MD yet, i used to save all my "good to be read" books, hoarding them for some stupid reason, but in retrospect i wish i had broken the seal so i can enjoy multiple readings later on in life. breaking that habit now though.
what'd you think of the 93 million mile roar? i still think that was the best line in the whole damn book.

>Favorite episodes?
Most of the ones that have been mentioned already are among my favorites, but I think my favorite "diversion" (not an entire episode) is the one about the pinballs being conscious beings.

My favorite mental image is Slothrop walking through the German countryside in the pig suit, with his pig friend by his side.
>Best characters?
idk. Maybe Ian Scuffling or maybe Rocketman.
>What was it all about Yea Forums?
Mandalas.

>93 million mile roar
Which part is that? I can't remember it off the top of my head.
I've read his first 3 books, and got a little nervous to read the rest, but I'm going to get through the rest of the bib before circling back. M&D is the one I'm the most excited to get to; AtD is intimidating just from length alone. 1,500 pages might be too much Pynchon haha. We'll see.

It's the sound the sun makes that you can't perceive because you hear it all the time.

Okay, I do vaguely remember that. It's actually not a very pleasant thought. Pynch has a unique way of being unsettling with wide scale phenomena like that.

Who was the Kenosha Kid? Was it pic related?

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Roger Mexico’s story hit too close to home. Their in love, fuck the war. Oh, war’s over aaannnd there she goes

For me it's either Tichicherene's first chapter or Springer's fart ellipse.

It's about love war and bananas which is Obvious if you've read it.
I always wondered what to make of the Orson Welles connection there, did pynch know something about the moon landing?

Did he ever?

To my knowledge, he* never did.

* The Kenosha Kid

im halfway thru.

the candy episode was good but i think thats mostly because it was easy to parse.

Tchicherine doing drugs w the opium dealer is good.

mad scientist escape/chase scene that just happened was good

slothrop jumping off the tree and parachuting w the bedsheet was vivid

octopus beach attack was good

You're absorbing a lot better than I did my first read; after the first round, I couldn't tell you anything that actually happened except for the Pudding scene, and The Poekler episode. The second time, I picked up a lot more.

The Counterforce is an amazing part of the book. It's hard to imagine Gravity's Rainbow going off the fucking rails but that last episode with the story fragmenting and ending with the ascent and descent are absolutely bonkers and feel vaguely like an altered state of mind.

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>feel vaguely like an altered state of mind.
Completely agree. Towards the end it doesn't even feel like you're reading the same book, but characters start returning, ends being tied up, etc.. Especially Tchicherine's Haunting towards the end. That was strange.

anyone notice that a lot of his books are named or themed towards a line? mason & dixon, gravity's rainbow, V, inherent vice..

an explosion in the beginning, a parabola, and an implosion at the end.

>slothrop jumping off the tree and parachuting w the bedsheet was vivid
I'm almost done with the book and that feels like a lifetime ago, I forgot that happened for a bit.

SO many things happen in the book

Oh bud it's about to get so much better. I forgot how subdued the beginning of part 3 was when i reread

its about "a lot more" than this, but your response is a really great, succinct way to put it

>Best Episode
i was mesmerized and horrified by the orgy scene on the Anubis. That's definitely up there. As is the episode with Lyle Bland's transcendence. And Byron the Bulb. Its too hard to choose.

>Character
Slothrop, though I love Bodine so much, especially having read V. first

>What was it about?
... At the simplest level: Its Us vs. Them (dont misconstrue this to be anti-semitic, you freaks). And it always will be. We must find joy and purpose in the face of power-structures so massive and corrupt that they can hardly be mapped out.

Shit book

>favorite episodes
Slothrop and the witch, or Tchitcherine in Siberia
>best characters
Slothrop, Tchitcherine, Franz Pokler, Frau Gnab
>what was it all about?
The loss of and subsequent search for meaning in our post modern era

Favorite part is a toss up between the killing of the dodoes (the skeleton key of the book) and Slothrop’s spirit guiding the man powering Byron to signal Pensiero to cut the Colonel’s throat.

Favorite character is Tchitcherine.

It’s about a shit ton of stuff, but if I had to try to narrow it down to one thing I’d probably say the worst evils of humanity and what we do to try to justify it, along with the utter helplessness of those who want to stop the evil.

Im almost done as well lol Im about to sit thru the last 50 pages right now. Its my second time around and Im prettt sure there's gonna be a third.
Fav episode for me is the whole Argentine submarine mafia shenanigans, cause it all seems so cheap yet so plausible, and to me it's the key that opens the door to de-center slothrop from the book, as in 'not everything that happens is connected to this story line', if you know what i mean.
Also im argentinian so the fact that Pynchon knows so much about Martin Fierro and Argentina's slang makes me admire the guy so much.
Fav character is Pirate for me, I wish there was more of him featured on the book.
And I cant tell what it is *all* about, so I wont say anything

>Argentine submarine mafia shenanigans ... to me it's the key that opens the door to de-center slothrop from the book, as in 'not everything that happens is connected to this story line',
I hate to burst your bubble, but...

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>Favorite episodes?
Slothrop vs. Marvy, Slothrop vs. the octopus, Slothrop vs. Malcolm X, Slothrop as the pig hero, the rocket limericks, and of course Byron the Bulb
>Best characters?
Roger and Jessica, Pig Bodine, Gottfried
>What was it all about Yea Forums?
Beats me

i really like ur thoughts on the book thanks for posting

>killing of the dodoes (the skeleton key of the book)
can u elaborate on this a little if ur still here?

lol why him specifically?

I dont get it

I don't think pynchon put much stock in the meaning of pre WW2 society

>favorite episode
The air balloon in the clouds
>character
Pirate
>what was it all about
As with anything Pynchon, he tackles his ‘themes’ indirectly and by tangential storylines. It’s, obviously, a book about WWII, but the idea of the war itself is gleaned through episodes only somewhat related. There are, as another user said, a multitude of ‘themes’,perhaps the most prominent being the unseen hand/veiled upper eschelons of the military industrial complex and their effects.

It’s pretty difficult to summarize something like this without sounding like a pseud.

no, it's about Vietnam

Best part for laffs was when slothrop digs up the hash at the potzdam conference.
Prettiest prose was either
1. the sun-sound-shadow
2. The part where Bodine spikes the US's badass's coffee with oneirine, causing everybody to trip balls hard enough for the entire ship to time glitch through a torpedo from the Argentinian U-boat
I can't remember what the kirgiz light was exactly anymore, does anyone know?
Also, how do you think Slothrop was connected to the rockets in the end?
And why did Gottfried have to be launched?

Fickt nicht mit dem Raketemensch
youtu.be/moOOA-5f9C0

>So, for a time, is Slothrop, attempting to get through to the Argentine anarchist U-boat, now in unknown waters.
Slothrop and the Argentine U-boat are connected.

Have you read V.? It's essentially a prequel/prototype for GR, and there's a lot in there about the relationship between the decadence of pre-WWI and interwar Europe and the ensuing violence and loss of innocence. That stuff isn't as obvious in GR, but if you read the two books back to back it's hard not to see a connection between them.
>kirgiz light
Some kind of pre-modern equivalent to the blinding white light Gottfried gets launched into in the end, I guess. There's that bit about Tchitcherine and his experience with "approaching holy sites" referenced in the scene at Soviet-occupied Peenemunde.
>how do you think Slothrop was connected to the rockets
He accidentally got bound up in the creation of the rocket because of his childhood conditioning to Imipolex G. I don't think Pynchon was trying to make him the center of the rocket conspiracy, he's just a hapless fool that became involved with it because of bureaucratic mismanagement. Because the rocket defies the normal order of cause and effect (explosion before sound etc.), Slothrop's penile conditioning to the presence of the plastic used in the rocket's construction kicks in before it actually arrives.
>why did Gottfried have to be launched
Something about transcendence, I dunno. I hope somebody argues with this post, because a lot of the book still doesn't make sense to me.
Really like this video and your channel in general, keep up the good work.

gr argues that ww2 was caused by old world thinking though, the only thing that changed was that it was preserved in secret after the war, of anything he's lamenting what's left of the old world

nice quads