Sign in with Facebook
Nathan "N.R." Gaddis's Reviews > Gravity's Rainbow
Gravity's Rainbow
by
by
Nathan "N.R." Gaddis's review
bookshelves: after-joyce, encyclopedic, historical-fiction, thomas-pynchon-completioniziert, cnp-review, 100-mccaffery-read, 2015-gelesen, systext, annotations-please
Feb 03, 2012
bookshelves: after-joyce, encyclopedic, historical-fiction, thomas-pynchon-completioniziert, cnp-review, 100-mccaffery-read, 2015-gelesen, systext, annotations-please
CNP C. etc Gravitons & Rainbovitons
super nebulous or "difficult" authors , but dig this --
my right eye is dominant so I can read well enough
dozens of instances of pedophilia
telepathic elves who ride wolves
a lightbulb, randomly intersect
jargon-filled defenses of this book
if only we knew the melody
Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
the mark of a literary genius
A girl I dated in college said it was her
I quit reading at the coprophagia scene
a person with ADHD having an acid trip
the masterpiece literary snobs think it is
supposed to be one of the best books of the 20th century and all
I found myself laughing out loud as I progressed
waving his arms and shouting "look at me"
that I feel about David Lynch
Swaths of obscurity
But it was just annoying
the Pulitzer Board had difficulty with its coprophilic focus
nonchalance toward many a co-conspirator's favorite author
and throw it harder the second time
what I'd have for me tea
the brain of an untreated ADHD patient
the main reason a lot of people love this book
obsession with phallic objects
in their 20's while smoking clove cigarettes and drinking some PBR
as there's a later scene of coprophilia
I'd worry about you
it in its stupid ass
I ever read
the parts that were uncomfortably and pervertedly sexual
favorite
literary milestone that people seem to think it is
the writer's extreme hubris manages to shine through the written garbage
were on LSD the whole time
you feel as if you've been raped and torn to pieces
the myriad two page paragraphs filled with run on sentences that overwelm
also considered to be difficult
they fail to create the necessary feeling
LSD induced hallucinations, poor humor, anti-prose
Fuck his erections, fuck the rocket, fuck the S&M and shit eating and the fucking bananas
arsenic sauce represents pedophilia and/or
be rambling and incoherent
the mess appears some sense and cohesion
overblown, ridiculously difficult, wandering and fails
I'm a prude and lacking humor
banana pancakes
many loosely connected character developments
beauty in language
and it's author for having written it
a guidebook to help me understand it
bedazzled by the literary pyrotechnics
the rambling, self-impressed noodling
comic means smiling wryly every 100 pages or so
I reached a pedophilic sex-scene
...e poi e poi e poi?
taking the piss almost
misunderstood is to be thought great by critics
impenetrable - impenetrable and not worth reading
take drugs
unreadable
a long swim through a sewer makes me stupid
love this book or you don't get it
as complete gibberish
disjointed and uninteresting
take no more
writers that you love or you hate
shit
getting a boner
the company of a pretentious hipster
Just
filled stream-of-conscious writing
non stop stream of conscious bullshit
get it
grâce à de fulgurantes érections
kill me for what I am going to
doing some very serious drug
deserved a smack upside the head for abusing his readers
the assumption that his work is worth following
understand without tedious pretension
Han dynasty Chinese poetry in the original
so good ones or pretentious ones; esoteric ones and erudite ones
of contrived "postmodern literature"
show off his scientific prowess
thank God I did not
'literary classic' sometimes has to mean it is written in impenetrable
carry me along
sound your barberic yawp
have actually finished it
over-the-top theatrical fluff
"unreadable, turgid, overwritten, and obscene"
brutal
definitely a lost cause
flip open to random pages
one of the "great" authors
this insufferable book even without those people
get throug hthe whole thing
get through the first one hundred pages
literature at its best
guy goes down the toilet
great awards
morally outraged
Something about a banana breakfast
12 year old children and their math teacher
Sucked
a genius
bizarrely juvenile sex-obsession and dubious racial politics
realize this is supposed to be a classic
supposed to like this
war machine and scatophagia
picked for the 1974 Pulitzer
summers reading challenge
waste
getting this
negative stars aren't available
Pretentious!
a mechanical engineering textbook
Get off my lawn
Impenetrable
failed
about S/M, depravity
a graphing calculator
call this tome
Wordy author
didn't see any reason
Obscene pretentious assprat
impenetrable
Life's too short
Readability is a good thing
my worst enemy
Un-readable
finished in college
still wondering what
life's too short
understand what
The word "pretentious"
get into it
thirty years
painful
about T. Pynchon's nob
only person
dreck
En pausa hasta nueva orden
want to
0 stars
lightshow
age well
small coffee table of an epic
Not
Horrible
Hate
super nebulous or "difficult" authors , but dig this --
my right eye is dominant so I can read well enough
dozens of instances of pedophilia
telepathic elves who ride wolves
a lightbulb, randomly intersect
jargon-filled defenses of this book
if only we knew the melody
Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
the mark of a literary genius
A girl I dated in college said it was her
I quit reading at the coprophagia scene
a person with ADHD having an acid trip
the masterpiece literary snobs think it is
supposed to be one of the best books of the 20th century and all
I found myself laughing out loud as I progressed
waving his arms and shouting "look at me"
that I feel about David Lynch
Swaths of obscurity
But it was just annoying
the Pulitzer Board had difficulty with its coprophilic focus
nonchalance toward many a co-conspirator's favorite author
and throw it harder the second time
what I'd have for me tea
the brain of an untreated ADHD patient
the main reason a lot of people love this book
obsession with phallic objects
in their 20's while smoking clove cigarettes and drinking some PBR
as there's a later scene of coprophilia
I'd worry about you
it in its stupid ass
I ever read
the parts that were uncomfortably and pervertedly sexual
favorite
literary milestone that people seem to think it is
the writer's extreme hubris manages to shine through the written garbage
were on LSD the whole time
you feel as if you've been raped and torn to pieces
the myriad two page paragraphs filled with run on sentences that overwelm
also considered to be difficult
they fail to create the necessary feeling
LSD induced hallucinations, poor humor, anti-prose
Fuck his erections, fuck the rocket, fuck the S&M and shit eating and the fucking bananas
arsenic sauce represents pedophilia and/or
be rambling and incoherent
the mess appears some sense and cohesion
overblown, ridiculously difficult, wandering and fails
I'm a prude and lacking humor
banana pancakes
many loosely connected character developments
beauty in language
and it's author for having written it
a guidebook to help me understand it
bedazzled by the literary pyrotechnics
the rambling, self-impressed noodling
comic means smiling wryly every 100 pages or so
I reached a pedophilic sex-scene
...e poi e poi e poi?
taking the piss almost
misunderstood is to be thought great by critics
impenetrable - impenetrable and not worth reading
take drugs
unreadable
a long swim through a sewer makes me stupid
love this book or you don't get it
as complete gibberish
disjointed and uninteresting
take no more
writers that you love or you hate
shit
getting a boner
the company of a pretentious hipster
Just
filled stream-of-conscious writing
non stop stream of conscious bullshit
get it
grâce à de fulgurantes érections
kill me for what I am going to
doing some very serious drug
deserved a smack upside the head for abusing his readers
the assumption that his work is worth following
understand without tedious pretension
Han dynasty Chinese poetry in the original
so good ones or pretentious ones; esoteric ones and erudite ones
of contrived "postmodern literature"
show off his scientific prowess
thank God I did not
'literary classic' sometimes has to mean it is written in impenetrable
carry me along
sound your barberic yawp
have actually finished it
over-the-top theatrical fluff
"unreadable, turgid, overwritten, and obscene"
brutal
definitely a lost cause
flip open to random pages
one of the "great" authors
this insufferable book even without those people
get throug hthe whole thing
get through the first one hundred pages
literature at its best
guy goes down the toilet
great awards
morally outraged
Something about a banana breakfast
12 year old children and their math teacher
Sucked
a genius
bizarrely juvenile sex-obsession and dubious racial politics
realize this is supposed to be a classic
supposed to like this
war machine and scatophagia
picked for the 1974 Pulitzer
summers reading challenge
waste
getting this
negative stars aren't available
Pretentious!
a mechanical engineering textbook
Get off my lawn
Impenetrable
failed
about S/M, depravity
a graphing calculator
call this tome
Wordy author
didn't see any reason
Obscene pretentious assprat
impenetrable
Life's too short
Readability is a good thing
my worst enemy
Un-readable
finished in college
still wondering what
life's too short
understand what
The word "pretentious"
get into it
thirty years
painful
about T. Pynchon's nob
only person
dreck
En pausa hasta nueva orden
want to
0 stars
lightshow
age well
small coffee table of an epic
Not
Horrible
Hate
Sign into ŷ to see if any of your friends have read
Gravity's Rainbow.
Sign In »
Quotes Nathan "N.R." Liked
Reading Progress
February 3, 2012
– Shelved
February 3, 2012
– Shelved as:
after-joyce
February 4, 2012
– Shelved as:
encyclopedic
February 4, 2012
– Shelved as:
historical-fiction
February 4, 2012
– Shelved as:
thomas-pynchon-completioniziert
April 26, 2015
–
Started Reading
April 26, 2015
–
0.39%
"22,174 ratings · 1,890 reviews
...no possible way this ueber=pop'u'lair book's gunna be any good..."
page
3
...no possible way this ueber=pop'u'lair book's gunna be any good..."
April 26, 2015
–
2.37%
"NR, Slothrop. Slothrop, NR. No but right. We've actually already meet. Yeeears ago."
page
18
April 28, 2015
–
70.66%
"Proof I've been here before. But no further. Fifteen year old bookmark."
page
537
May 2, 2015
–
19.74%
"If 'arclight' and 'regginbrow' are Wakese for 'rainbow', what's the Wakese for 'gravity's'?"
page
150
May 3, 2015
–
22.89%
"I literally had bananas for breakfast. Some kind of Indian concoction. Ice cream, caramel, banan's. Failure!!"
page
174
May 6, 2015
–
46.58%
""All the oil money taken out of these fields by the Nobels has gone into Nobel Prizes."
So that's where all that money comes from...."
page
354
So that's where all that money comes from...."
May 6, 2015
–
52.63%
""They're using you to kill people. That's their only job, and you're helping them.""
page
400
May 11, 2015
–
66.71%
""Tits 'n' ass," mutter the girls, "tits 'n' ass. That's all we are around here.""
page
507
May 11, 2015
–
69.21%
""a Text, to be picked to pieces, annotated, explicated, and masturbated till it's all squeezed limp of its last drop"
Yes please."
page
526
Yes please."
May 11, 2015
–
70.79%
"On the back cover, just below the "New York 10022" of Viking Press's address, in a white rectangular box, is the number "0365". What does this mean?"
page
538
May 13, 2015
–
74.74%
""a German Expressionist pig, plush outside, padded with straw inside. It seems to fit perfectly. Hmm.""
page
568
May 15, 2015
– Shelved as:
cnp-review
May 15, 2015
– Shelved as:
100-mccaffery-read
May 15, 2015
–
77.37%
""Check out Ishmael Reed. He knows more about it than you'll ever find here.""
page
588
May 16, 2015
–
89.21%
""who-who's been putting bananas-- In-the-re-frig er a-tor! O no-no-no, no-no-no!""
page
678
May 16, 2015
–
94.08%
"Seriously though, I can't in good conscience quote you this Rabelasian menu."
page
715
May 18, 2015
–
Finished Reading
May 19, 2015
– Shelved as:
2015-gelesen
May 7, 2016
– Shelved as:
systext
June 1, 2016
– Shelved as:
annotations-please
Comments Showing 1-30 of 30 (30 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Nate D
(new)
-
rated it 4 stars
Dec 10, 2012 09:36AM
Interesting to hear how this was understood immediately in its time, before the years of code-breaking and whatnot. That's a pretty perceptive review (I got sucked in and read the whole thing). (And I really ought to finish my own re-read of this.)
reply
|
flag
Nate D wrote: "I got sucked in and read the whole thing"I tore myself away after I found a quotable paragraph, but I'll return to it. These archival reviews are often quite illuminating. I.e., Jack Green's compilation of Recognition reviews. I think, too, that I have an excerpt from an early Finnegans Wake review over in that corner of goodreads. Which book, FW, is still delaying my own return to this Pynchonian W.A.S.T.E. country.
Aesthetically out of place now, but Nate D's comment above there in Comment #1 refers to what used to be contained in that there Review Box up there, which is ::From ye olden days:
(view spoiler)
@NR: What the...! The format fooled me into thinking you wrote a verse!Where did you get such gems from?:
"the brain of an untreated ADHD patient."
"comic means smiling wryly every 100 pages or so."
"a long swim through a sewer makes me stupid."
Priceless!
But you wouldn't recommend Pynchon to me� he scares me. Strictly for Big Boys, right?
Mala wrote: "But you wouldn't recommend Pynchon to me� he scares me. Strictly for Big Boys, right? "NO!!!!
Against the Day is where this Big Boy Heart seems to lie.
(view spoiler)
Against the Day � okay, maybe someday.I had no idea those one star reviews were so funny! I shd seek them out more often. I liked this one far more than your Ulysses effort. This one coheres well.
Mala wrote: "I had no idea those one star reviews were so funny!"They really are quite consistently stuffed with gems!
I stole the idea from Biblioklept's excellent posts of amazon one=stars. Check 'em out ::
Hehehe! Biblioklept is a very smart guy! His pastiche of Bolano's 2666 one star reviews just had me in stitches. Thanks.
Biblioklept's IJ one=star sampler ; on the occasion of his having completed GR ::
Ali wrote: "Dan Schneider, the guy responsible for the notorious ten thousand word Gravity's Rainbow screed,"Does he do the paranoid thing where he anticipates that Pynchonians and Pynchonites will denounce him for being such a silly twit?
Ali wrote: "seen through quite well, as most poseur crap is."The famous Performative Fallacy. Pretty powerful stuff (strong enough to take down Logical Positivism with a single stroke!). Take the criteria which is enunciated, and apply it to the enunciation/enunciator. If, for example, one were to say that DFW/Pynchon should have just stopped before he embarrassed himself, you would apply that same criteria/(helpful suggestion) to the person making the statement, such that X should have stopped (saying that silly thing about DFW/Pynchon, etc) before he embarrassed himself. So in this case, we find that is is quite easy to see through the poseur crap which this weird internet guy going by the name of "Dan Schneider" seems compelled to continually spew forth (which, of course, it is entirely his right to do so! of course of course ; but just because he has a right to say xyz doesn't necessarily mean that what he says is right!)
Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Biblioklept's IJ one=star sampler ; on the occasion of his having completed GR ::"
NR, you are not Biblioklept, are you? Cause this IJ pastiche came very close on the heels of your own GR pastiche...hmmm... Iol, I'm getting paranoid even without reading Pynchon!
Some priceless gems here as well:
"This is the T.S. Eliot Effect." !!!
How so?! Oh, the reviewer meant that it's *intellectual*� so non-pc, being intellectual, that is.
Mala wrote: "Iol, I'm getting paranoid even without reading Pynchon!"He even got the Ishmael Reed ::
(“check out Ishmael Reed,� the narrator tells us on page 588 of Gravity’s Rainbow)
Knot even sure who I am anymore!
this song captures the mood of the first 350 pages of Gravity's Rainbow:
Aiden wrote: "this song captures the mood of the first 350 pages of Gravity's Rainbow: "Was ist das denn?
Maybe I'm just old (?)
; )
I just don't see heavy metal being Pynchon-esque. he needs whimsy and wackiness... hmmm.
Aiden wrote: "I just don't see heavy metal being Pynchon-esque. he needs whimsy and wackiness... hmmm."True. More like ::
here's the complete soundtrack to Inherent Vice ::
Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Aiden wrote: "I just don't see heavy metal being Pynchon-esque. he needs whimsy and wackiness... hmmm."here's the complete soundtrack to Inherent Vice ::
... "
Oh man, nice find.
Aiden wrote: "Oh man, nice find. "I'm gunna go out on a limb ; his and my musical interests ain't all that aligned. ; )
But there was this thing where maybe he wrote the linear notes for a Lotion release ::
and though ::
But there was this thing where maybe he wrote the linear notes for a Lotion release ::...
"Find the remote, get out the Snapple and Chee-tos, and like the Love Boat staff always sez, welcome aboard. - Thomas Pynchon"
what a great guy
unrelated topic; do you watch Doctor Who?
Aiden wrote: "unrelated topic; do you watch Doctor Who?"I have. Far too much. That one guy with the scarf ;; he's my Doctor of choice.
Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Aiden wrote: "unrelated topic; do you watch Doctor Who?"I have. Far too much. That one guy with the scarf ;; he's my Doctor of choice."
I haven't seen enough classic doctor who. Anyhow, these days, with such a high production budget and good actors, its a show that lives and dies on the strength of its writing. Which means I have learned a lot about writing by watching it. My favorite episode has just gotta be "Blink"... such a masterclass in tension, character, and structure.
Some of Against the Day reminded me of the best episodes of DW.
Aiden wrote: "My favorite episode has just gotta be "Blink"... such a masterclass in tension, character, and structure. "Doesn't ring a bell at the moment. My favorite of the reboot is probably the one where everyone's stuck in this eternal traffic jam.
on the subject of sci-fi (Doctor Who), I reccomend the underrated film Primer, commonly known as the most complex sci-fi flick ever made; it took me hours of research and reading before I wrapped my head around it.
Aiden wrote: "on the subject of sci-fi (Doctor Who), I reccomend the underrated film Primer, commonly known as the most complex sci-fi flick ever made; it took me hours of research and reading before I wrapped m..."I'll keep my eyes out for it.
I'll keep my eyes out for it. oh, in case you're worried about Hollywood marketing/dumbingdown, it was made on a $6000 budget by a guy with a mathematics degree.
I found a 1987 paperback of Gravity's Rainbow in a half price books today, it appears to be rare - I can't even find the edition on goodreads. Thomas Pynchon's unofficial website has a high quality image, however. 
Sorry but I seem to misunderstand your review in it's humour. From what I can gather, you didn't like it. But in another review, you said you liked Against the Day, am I right? Why so? What's the difference? What makes one better and why should I pick up ATD over GR?
Josh wrote: "Sorry but I seem to misunderstand your review in it's humour. From what I can gather, you didn't like it. But in another review, you said you liked Against the Day, am I right? Why so? What's the d..."This is a sort of 'art installation' built out of negative remarks made by other reviewers here on gr. GR is sort of required reading I think ; I do need to go back and read it again. AtD is a bit more readerly readable perhaps. But both are most delectable.
