Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

 

I decided to start off my August reading with a book that I was very intimidated by, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Coming in at 776 pages, this postmodern novel has been praised by many critics as a masterpiece of the genre. That is exactly what made me nervous about it. I generally do not enjoy postmodern literature, but in my infinite wisdom, I put this book on my Classics Club list anyway. I wanted to include a wide variety of classics, so here we are. Why I ever thought variety was more important than my personal enjoyment when it comes to reading for pleasure is a mystery to me at this point. I guess the me from five years ago was a lot more ambitious than present day me. In any case, I finally finished the book and I'm here to report back.

Trying to describe the plot of this novel is quite difficult, as it doesn't exactly contain a coherent narrative. Speaking very broadly, the story centers around Tyrone Slothrop, a U.S. Army lieutenant serving during the end of WWII. He becomes obsessed with learning more about a certain German-produced V-2 rocket with the serial number "00000." This rocket is said to contain a mysterious device that he wants to uncover the secrets of. Several other characters with various ties to this rocket are also followed throughout the story. As the war continues on and moves towards its conclusion, more and more paranoia starts to set in and Slothrop struggles to hold it together mentally. The situations he finds himself in become more and more surreal and bizarre until it's impossible to tell reality from fantasy.

That summary doesn't give a true picture of what Gravity's Rainbow truly is though. The story contains over 400 characters, most of whom are only mentioned once. The plot doesn't stick to one timeline and goes off on long digressions that have little to nothing to do with the main story. Many sections are stream of consciousness-style and almost completely unintelligible. Reality is mixed with supernatural and fantasy elements and it is never made clear how much of it is actually happening versus being figments of the characters' imaginations. To say this is a challenging read is an understatement. This novel isn't mean to be understood in the traditional sense and at times actively tries to alienate the reader with graphic and disgusting content. Some readers appreciate reading stories that defy the typical conventions of a novel. That's the point of postmodern fiction, and Pynchon is very successful at doing that here. I, however, am not one of those readers. Gravity's Rainbow was a torturous, mind-numbingly boring experience for me and I strongly disliked it. I acknowledge that readers who appreciate this style consider it to be an excellent and important work, but it is very clearly not the book for me.  

I knew this going in, of course. I knew that I wasn't going to enjoy the style of it. I was hoping, at least, to see the merit of it by the time I finished. To be honest though, I was never able to latch onto anything that felt truly meaningful the entire time I was reading it. Pynchon comments on a lot of topics of course, like war, paranoia, and fate, but all of his points were so buried under layers of writing that were either confusing or offensive that it was difficult to take away any kind of clear message from it. I think that fact that I am a woman didn't help me here either, as a lot of the story centered around graphic sexual encounters in which women were not depicted well. At one point, there is a fairly long scene in which Slothrop has sex with a small child. The child behaves with as much desire and knowledge as an adult woman would. It was difficult to read. There is another scene in which a woman urinates and defecates into a man's mouth. Also difficult to read. Those are far from the only examples of graphic sexual content. All throughout the text, women behave in ways that feel exploitative and make no sense. I had a hard time feeling for any of these characters because I was so distracted by these scenes. There is very little in this book to appeal to women, even if they enjoy the postmodern writing style. It's the same for people of color, because there's a lot of racism running throughout the story as well.

In the end, what I am left with is confusion and relief that I finally finished reading this. I'm not sure why Gravity's Rainbow is regarded so highly. Doesn't all the racism, sexism, homophobia and pedophilia bother people? Is that something people are okay with looking past to appreciate the unique style of the novel? This is something I struggle with myself when it comes to enjoying classic literature, so I'm not trying to be glib here. I just think that this book in particular has a lot more blatantly objectionable things to look past than most. How do people reconcile this? Do any women actually really like this book? How about African Americans? 

I'm sure fans of Pynchon would say that I lack the intelligence to understand what he was trying to do. That might be true. I read a lot, but I'm certainly no expert in this type of writing. After this experience, I think I'm quite happy to remain that way. I've also seen other reviewers say that this book requires multiple readings to truly appreciate. To that I say, no thanks. One brush with coprophilia was enough for me. At least I can cross this book off my list now and say that I gave it a shot.

Challenge Tally

Classics Club (#70 on my list): 97/100 books completed

Total Books Read in 2021: 38