Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Frank Miller (Illustrator)

"A screaming..........."by fattrucker

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November 04, 2009: Bought this book in paperback back in the seventies, back when I was all into Phillip K Dick and Hunter Thompson. It's Catch 22 on acid. I've read it through twice with added ocassional visits over the years. It's a peek behind the curtain of the post WW2 world order, but it's the zany cast of characters with their hilarious names that sticks with you over the years. There is just one bizarre scene after another, after another. It would make the most fantastic mini series if only Pynchon weren't such a curmudgeon. You can pick it up and start on virtually any page. It's the perfect "desert island" book. You can finish it, BUT you'll never be quite finished WITH it. It's difficult to get into, impossible to get out. It's so much more readable than "Finnegan's Wake". Pynchon is the anti Ayn Rand. You'll never look at a multinational corporation in quite the same way again. They don't write them like this anymore. It's wicked fun. It's a challenge. Imagine how smug you'll feel. Not for the lazy or the slow witted.

I Also Recommend: 2666, The Sot-Weed Factor, Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide Deluxe Edition (Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics), Something of Value.

One of the Great American Novelsby dsddd

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July 11, 2009: Though this award winning book (national book award) is certainly one of the best novels any American has ever written, it is also, for novice readers, one of the most difficult (although equally rewarding) journeys you will take reading. The plot (if you want to call it that) spits in and out of realities and un-realities; unexplained or over-explained plot threads arrive without warning and can fade away just as fast; there are a multitude of different multi-faceted characters; and so many references and factoids that you simply will not get -but that is the point. It is controlled chaos this book, it is as if while you read, if you plow through it, the kaleidoscopic images are printed directly onto your brain, and they will stay there with you forever... it is also wildly funny and witty most of the time, and smart and sick and sophisticated, it is weird and terrifying; and the prose of Pynchon, with its paranoid exasperated tones, and wry sadistic hilarity, are constructed so beautifully and originally and expertly, you may find yourself going back and reading passages over and over for the sheer weight of them; Pynchon's words have this mass to them, this heavy multi-layered quality, an indefinable richness... Be patient with Gravity's Rainbow and stay the course, you'll come out of the missile blown haze a changed person, like with any canonical work... This is certainly a candidate for "the Great American Novel" on that short list with Moby-Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Blood Meridian, As I Lay Dying, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, Huck Finn, maybe some others...