Amazon.com ReviewTyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), "a screaming comes across the sky," heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, Gravity's Rainbow, refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky. Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel, which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. Gravity's Rainbow uses beautiful prose to induce an altered state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. --Tim AppeloReviewNovel by Thomas Pynchon, published in 1973. The sprawling narrative comprises numerous threads having to do either directly or tangentially with the secret development and deployment of a rocket by the Nazis near the end of World War II. Lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop is an American working for Allied Intelligence in London. Agents of the Firm, a clandestine military organization, are investigating an apparent connection between Slothrop's erections and the targeting of incoming V-2 rockets. As a child, Slothrop was the subject of experiments conducted by a Harvard professor who is now a Nazi rocket scientist. Slothrop's quest for the truth behind these implications leads him on a nightmarish journey of either historic discovery or profound paranoia, depending on his own and the reader's interpretation. The novel won the National Book Award for fiction in 1974. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Gravity's Rainbow (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Thomas Pynchon

Ladybird Books Ltd

Penguin Books Ltd

The Viking Press

Penguin Books US

Penguin classics deluxe edition, New York, New York, 2006

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, US, 2006

Compass books, New York, 1973

October 31, 2006

"'Gravity?s Rainbow' by Thomas Pynchon is written in four parts. Many critics find following the characters and plot difficult. The novel takes place during the last few months of World War II and the months that follow. The main goal of the characters, especially Tyron Slothrop, is to track down rockets?not just any rockets, German V-2 rockets. These are the first guided missiles, and therefore, draw attention for the technological advances in warfare that they represent. Pynchon?s novel is not just about hunting for German rockets; it is also about the aftermath of the war on society. The world was in a state of confusion both during and after the war; that confusion is represented by Pynchon?s head-hopping and tangential plot."--Publisher description

Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II, and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military

Winner Of The 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow Is A Postmodern Epic, A Work As Exhaustively Significant To The Second Half Of The Twentieth Century As Joyce's Ulysses Was To The First. Its Sprawling, Encyclopedic Narrative And Penetrating Analysis Of The Impact Of Technology On Society Make It An Intellectual Tour De Force. Beyond The Zero -- Un Perm' Au Casino Hermann Goering -- In The Zone -- The Counterforce. Thomas Pynchon. Originally Published: U.s.a. : Viking Press, 1973.

Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative, and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.

I changed the Publication year from 1973 to 1980. This digital edition is a scan copy of the 9th printing edition of this book (1980) not the first printing(1973)

2024-10-15