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Gravity's Rainbow Lecture: Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering (Part Two) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-12-07 21:16:14
Imported:
2026-06
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  • Gravitys Rainbow Un Perm Lecture.mp3

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Content

'Between you and me is not only a rocket trajectory, but also a life...'

Today we are discussing the second part of Gravity's Rainbow. And we're discussing bookish reflexes, character deconstruction, symbolism, allegory, beautiful prose, redemption, reversed temporality, the soul’s journey, meaning, and much more.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 part two of Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 3:00 appreciating Pynchon’s symbolism
  • 5:00 the aesthetics of Pynchon’s prose
  • 7:00 Pynchonian monster movie parody
  • 9:00 reading Gravity’s Rainbow aloud
  • 11:00 Slothrop, Katje & the octopus
  • 12:00 Puritan reflexes, order & paranoia
  • 15:00 Pynchon’s character deconstruction
  • 17:00 story world as interpreted text
  • 19:00 redemption & reversed temporality
  • 22:00 the paranoia of Tyrone Slothrop
  • 24:00 more character deconstruction
  • 27:00 Slothrop described in rocket terms
  • 29:00 Casino & roulette as grand metaphor
  • 32:00 Slothrop’s rocket study sessions
  • 34:00 the mystery of the rocket’s life
  • 37:00 allegory for our soul’s journey
  • 39:00 meaning, death & rocket mysticism
  • 40:00 great airless arc & certain secret lusts
  • 43:00 the great lab experiment of life itself
  • 45:00 Slothrop makes his way into the Zone
  • 48:00 conspiracy, war & Imipolex G
  • 50:00 the majesty of Gravity’s Rainbow
  • 51:00 what are you making of the novel?

Reading Assignment:

You are doing a tremendous job bringing yourselves so valiantly to this incredibly difficult work. Well done for reaching this point because this means you can absolutely make it all the way through. The next discussion will focus on part three of the novel, which takes us up to page 730 in the Vintage paperback.

Questions to Consider:

1) Where do you personally find meaning?

2) How do Pynchon's characters differ from those of other novels?

3) What has been the most interesting part of your reading so far?

And please do share with us your insights and favourite passage from the second part of this novel.

Happy reading, everybody!

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Comments

Jonathon Glover

A few things that jumped out at me in this section were: 1) the idea that there are forces in our lives, structures and institutions, that inevitably win out. A pessimistic, cynical, and probably true, idea that the house always wins. We see that with the casino itself, and how within the framework individuals may win from time to time, but inevitably, the house will always come out ahead. We see this explored in this novel with the military industrial complex, and the idea that the companies who have developed the plastics that allow the war to function, are not bound by nations, and set to profit no matter the outcome, and concerningly, profit more the longer the conflict can continue. Now, this is not a new idea, and reminds me of an inversion of Brecht’s Mother Courage, and feels incredibly prescient today with the multinational corporations who profit from human suffering. Devastating stuff! 2) in many ways I think Slothrop is a conduit for the reader in this novel. Whilst Pynchon uses Slothrop as a vehicle for critiquing government bureaucracy and multinationals, he also uses him as a tool for deconstructing the novel in a postmodern way. Pynchon’s disconnected, paranoid view of the world is ultimately how I feel when reading this section. His life is being controlled and experimented on by PISCES and Pointsman, and he is being influenced by the likes of Katje, and all this serves as a metaphor for this reading experience. If you allow me a little allegory, PISCES could by symbolic of the novel form, Pointsman a conduit for the experimentation of Pynchon within the novel, and Katje the seductive words and prose that captures us. 3) I think there was a powerful echo from the opening prologue of the novel towards the end of the section. The idea that we never die, we transform is an interesting one. But Pynchon makes a point of talking about the impact that War (capitalised) has on the individual/society and uses the word mutate, rather than transform. The connotation here is drastically different, and I feel the mutation occurring in the paranoid development of this novel. And this is not only on an evolutionary level, but on a moral, psychological and spiritual level too. I can’t say that I am enjoying the page by page experience of the novel, particularly when being read side by side with the likes of Dickens, but I do get to the end of a section and have a lot to think about. I am also struggling with the pacing, as I feel that it is limiting the ability for a discussion, as I am now 400 pages behind the rest of you 😂 but this is a novel that I am finding takes a lot of time to read (much more than the likes of Middlemarch, and probably Dostoyevsky too). On a final note, has anyone in Australia been able to find access to an audiobook?

Tatiana

Your 3rd point = the second law of thermodynamics.

Jaye Cee

Page 323, realising there is no proof, avoiding the matter, saying data is incomplete.... A metaphor for religion?

Phyllis Riley

Half way through part two and trying to decide if I want to continue. It’s a little too gross. Last part of part one was beautiful and I now know that I “can” read it but do I want to?