Gravity's Rainbow Lecture: Beyond the Zero (Part One) (Patreon)

'Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation.'

Today we are discussing the first part of Gravity's Rainbow. We are going to meet Pynchon's characters and attempt to assimilate ourselves into his world.

We're discussing the Calvinist doctrine of preterition, evacuation as theatre, secularised redemption, beliefs that force ethical action, the human soul, analepsis, Pavlovian conditioning, allegories, extinction, rocket mysticism, psychoanalytical therapy, cause-and-effect, the Monte Carlo fallacy, and much more.

Timestamps:

• 0:00 ‘a screaming comes across the sky’
• 2:00 the Calvinist doctrine of preterition
• 5:00 dreams, anxiety, death & rainbows
• 7:00 thinking about the V2/A4 rocket
• 8:00 appreciating Pynchonian parody
• 9:00 the power of rereading Pynchon
• 10:00 secularised redemption & hope
• 12:00 analysing the opening epigraph
• 13:00 two beliefs that force ethical action
• 15:00 extinction & life beyond the zero
• 17:00 Lt. Tyrone Slothrop’s map
• 20:00 Slothrop’s response to the V2
• 22:00 momento mori in the sky
• 24:00 allegory of Slothrop’s Progress
• 26:00 Slothrop’s puritan ancestors
• 27:00 Pynchon’s hysteron proteron
• 28:00 death as debt to nature due
• 29:00 Jessica’s painful meditation
• 32:00 Roger & Jessica’s relationship
• 33:00 the harmful illusion of control
• 34:00 meeting Dr Pointsman & PISCES
• 36:00 Pynchon’s slapstick lampooning
• 37:00 Jungian abreaction trauma therapy
• 38:00 war as laboratory environment
• 39:00 Slothrop feeling the rockets coming
• 40:00 Dr Jamf’s conditioning of Slothrop
• 42:00 concerns about being monitored
• 43:00 Jamf’s work for IG Farben
• 44:00 true war as celebration of markets
• 45:00 silent extinction beyond the zero
• 48:00 rockets falling in Poisson distribution
• 50:00 junking the idea of cause-and-effect
• 51:00 Roger on the Monte Carlo fallacy
• 53:00 ‘equal in the eyes of the rocket’
• 57:00 imposing structure & meaning
• 59:00 Slothrop’s response to the rockets
• 1:02:00 Pynchon on the Herero genocide
• 1:04:00 meeting Captain Blicero
• 1:07:00 approaching a holy centre
• 1:10:00 the ending of part one
• 1:12:00 approaching a holy centre
• 1:15:00 your thoughts on the novel?
• 1:18:00 how to deal with difficulty

Reading Assignment:

Congratulations are in order because you have brought yourselves valiantly to one of the most difficult works of literature ever penned. The next discussion will focus on part two of the novel, which takes us up to page 331 in the Vintage paperback.

Questions to Consider:

1) What are your impressions of Gravity's Rainbow thus far?

2) What are the greatest challenges of reading Pynchon?

3) What ideas are you finding most resonant?

If this is your first reading of Gravity's Rainbow, I would love to know how the story is meeting your expectations. If this is a reread for you, what is it like returning to the story? And please do share with us your favourite passage from the first part of this novel.

Happy reading, everybody!