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How to Read Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (Introductory Lecture) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-11-13 20:35:56
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2026-06
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Content

'A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.'

It’s time to begin our journey through Thomas Pynchon's intensely challenging postmodern masterpiece: Gravity's Rainbow.

Our reading will afford us the opportunity to explore mortality, mysticism, determinism, freedom, paranoia, postmodernism, war, technology, identity, symbolism, meaning, humour, existential angst, and much more.

Today we’re discussing how best to break into one of the most difficult novels of all time and overcome the challenges of reading Pynchon. 

Video Timestamps:

  • 0:00 how to read Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 1:00 great books are inexhaustible
  • 1:40 why read Gravity’s Rainbow?
  • 2:30 Pynchon’s postmodern masterpiece
  • 3:56 reading Pynchon as a community
  • 4:44 the difficulty of Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 7:56 Pynchon’s encyclopaedic novel
  • 8:32 the story of Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 8:50 the V2 vs V1 rockets in WWII
  • 10:00 life during the London Blitz
  • 12:44 gallows humours in times of war
  • 13:25 on fear of death in WWII
  • 15:00 atomic fear and Cold War anxieties
  • 16:33 first epigraph for Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 17:13 who was Werner Von Braun?
  • 19:20 paranoia in novel form
  • 21:27 reader relationship with Pynchon
  • 22:25 characters in Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 23:00 the character of Tyrone Slothrop
  • 24:00 central plot line for Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 25:00 the Pulitzer’s reaction to Pynchon
  • 25:45 experiments in classical conditioning
  • 28:15 reversal of cause and effect
  • 30:00 meaning of Gravity’s Rainbow’s title
  • 30:37 the quest of Tyrone Slothrop’s
  • 32:00 repression and religious allegory
  • 33:19 the line between life and death
  • 34:27 how we deny our mortality
  • 35:00 Time Magazine’s review of the book
  • 36:30 attaining freedom through play
  • 37:55 why did Pynchon write this book?
  • 38:48 humour in Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 40:00 Pynchon works on the unconscious
  • 40:30 literature as coping mechanism
  • 41:00 the rocket threatening all of us
  • 42:35 the reputation of Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 43:22 James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon
  • 44:10 Thomas Pynchon’s cult following
  • 44:33 Pynchon as ‘reclusive’ writer
  • 45:10 Gravity’s Rainbow first published
  • 46:00 why is Gravity’s Rainbow difficult?
  • 46:50 modernism vs postmodernism
  • 48:40 collapsing high and low culture
  • 49:20 pastiche, parody, and irony
  • 50:15 two kinds of Pynchon reader
  • 50:45 metafiction in postmodernism
  • 51:40 strange loops and paradoxes
  • 53:10 companion to Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 53:50 dealing with Pynchon’s allusions
  • 54:10 reading Pynchon with a community
  • 54:52 active reading and marginalia
  • 55:30 confusion is preface to understanding
  • 57:00 proposed pacing for Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 58:15 some words of encouragement
  • 1:00:00 your relationship with this book?

Recommendations:

  • Edition: Throughout our guided reading, I will be using the Vintage paperback edition of Gravity's Rainbow. But do feel free to use whichever edition comes most easily to hand for you.
  • Companion: Steven Weisenburger's Companion to Gravity's Rainbow is an indispensable resource because he provides synopses for each section of the book and an exhaustive rundown of the most important allusions. The Pynchon Wiki for this novel is also well worth consulting.
  • Audiobook: Although it seems only available in the US, the audiobook version of Gravity's Rainbow with George Guidall's narration is excellent.
  • Journals: Gravity's Rainbow is definitely a work that deserves its own dedicated journal. I recommend the Leuchturrm1917 range of bullet journals with dotted paper (the favoured pen is Muji). Embrace marginalia and note-taking as you make your way through this work.
  • Assignment: Our next discussion will cover part one of Gravity's Rainbow ('Beyond the Zero'), which runs to page 211 in the Vintage paperback edition.

Questions for You:

1) What is your current relationship with Thomas Pynchon? Is this your first reading or a rereading of this novel?

2) What are you hoping to get out of your reading of Gravity's Rainbow?

3) What themes from your wider reading would you like to pull into Pynchon?

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

Previews only

How to Read Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (Introductory Lecture)

0:00 how to read Gravity’s Rainbow 1:00 great books are inexhaustible 1:40 why read Gravity’s Rainbow? 2:30 Pynchon’s postmodern masterpiece 3:56 reading Pynchon as a community 4:44 the difficulty of Gravity’s Rainbow 7:56 Pynchon’s encyclopaedic novel 8:32 the story of Gravity’s Rainbow 8:50 the V2 vs V1 rockets in WWII 10:00 life during the London Blitz 12:44 gallows humours in times of war 13:25 on fear of death in WWII 15:00 atomic fear and Cold War anxieties 16:33 first epigraph for Gravity’s Rainbow 17:13 who was Werner Von Braun? 19:20 paranoia in novel form 21:27 reader relationship with Pynchon 22:25 characters in Gravity’s Rainbow 23:00 the character of Tyrone Slothrop 24:00 central plot line for Gravity’s Rainbow 25:00 the Pulitzer’s reaction to Pynchon 25:45 experiments in classical conditioning 28:15 reversal of cause and effect 30:00 meaning of Gravity’s Rainbow’s title 30:37 the quest of Tyrone Slothrop’s 32:00 repression and religious allegory 33:19 the line between life and death 34:27 how we deny our mortality 35:00 Time Magazine’s review of the book 36:30 attaining freedom through play 37:55 why did Pynchon write this book? 38:48 humour in Gravity’s Rainbow 40:00 Pynchon works on the unconscious 40:30 literature as coping mechanism 41:00 the rocket threatening all of us 42:35 the reputation of Gravity’s Rainbow 43:22 James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon 44:10 Thomas Pynchon’s cult following 44:33 Pynchon as ‘reclusive’ writer 45:10 Gravity’s Rainbow first published 46:00 why is Gravity’s Rainbow difficult? 46:50 modernism vs postmodernism 48:40 collapsing high and low culture 49:20 pastiche, parody, and irony 50:15 two kinds of Pynchon reader 50:45 metafiction in postmodernism 51:40 strange loops and paradoxes 53:10 companion to Gravity’s Rainbow 53:50 dealing with Pynchon’s allusions 54:10 reading Pynchon with a community 54:52 active reading and marginalia 55:30 confusion is preface to understanding 57:00 proposed pacing for Gravity’s Rainbow 58:15 some words of encouragement 1:00:00 your relationship with this book?

Comments

Alan

The book earned its place on my best ever list. It was surely much more satisfying than the 3,000 plus pages of Proust that I read in more than a year’s time. The humor and cinematic scenes of GR were alone worth the price of admission.

Samuel Thompson

This will be my first read of GR!! I have been planning on reading this book for a few years now and I am so excited to finally dig into it deeply!! As far as what I’m expecting to get out of this work, I really just want to have some profound realizations and let Pynchon take me on a wild ride, I like to compare this book to Infinite Jest in terms of complexity and depth of thought and if GR has even a remotely similar impact on me as IJ did then I have no doubt that I will fall deeply in love with this book! I am just happy to be diving deeper and deeper into Post Modernism, it really is shaping up to be my favorite literary era and I have loved everything I’ve read from the era so far! I expect to find similar themes in GR as I’ve found in Wallace and McCarthy and Morrison and I can’t wait for the challenge that this book brings to the table!

David

Part 3