Summer reading: Gravity's Rainbow

[elpollodiablo]

Yes? How do these things normally go--do you just pick an agreed-upon date to finish? 

[ellaguru]

It's a pretty long book with 4 sections - maybe we could set a date to start chatting about "Beyond the Zero"? Go like that?

[peacocks]

Yes, I think there should be check points along the way and we can do an ongoing discussion then a discussion when we're all finished.

[jm]

I also think we should maybe figure out how long it will take the slowest of us to finish it (within reason), and then set our checkpoints accordingly, by which I mean further into the future than our assumptions would suggest. Us slowpokes would benefit greatly from that.

[elpollodiablo]

So Beyond the Zero is 177 pages. Is a week reasonable? Ten days?

[ellaguru]

Sounds good to me.

[dieblucasdie]

Oh, I'm in.  I've definitely started it like 4 times, but always end up putting it aside (because I have to read other stuff, not because I'm not into it).

Maybe, say, the 11th?  I know craziness over the 4th might keep me from getting to it right away; I'm sure other people are in the same boat.

[elpollodiablo]

That sounds good! And of course everyone feel free to use this thread for posting musings along the way. I'm gonna go ahead and call amnesty on spoilers, too; don't worry about shading them out or whatever unless that's your thing. There is no way to spoil this book. 

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

ayo i tried rereading this at the start of this year but kept getting mired in sentences because the first and only time i read this book i was high all of the time and blasted right through it not caring

so i'm in

[peacocks]

It doesn't really seem like the kind of book that would have a TWIST. I remember my step grandpa got mad at me once when I was in high school and told me that the main character died at the end of All Quiet on the Western Front and me laughing because, really?

[mountmccabe]

I am still reading Against the Day from the last pollo-curated Pynchon LPTJ book club.

Though I may have Gravity's Rainbow on my phone and might be suckered in again if y'all actually start this time. I do love this fucking book.

[elpollodiablo]

Shameful admission: after two attempts, I have still not actually finished AtD.

[FreddyKnuckles]

I got about halfway through Gravity's Rainbow 3 or 4 years ago.  I would have to do some major rereading. 

[Dick]

I read it last in 2003, a rather strange time of my life.  Maybe it's time to read it again.

[FreddyKnuckles]

I liked crying of lot 49

[Thermofusion]

I had a harder time getting through Inherent Vice than I did Against the Day, despite the former being about 20% the latter's length, and in considerably bigger print.

I'm up for reading Gravity's Rainbow again. I haven't read it cover-to-cover in a while, but a couple times a year I'll pull it out and flip through it, reading paragraphs at random and admiring how he throws words together. Pynchon's the kind of author you can do that sorta thing with.

[FreddyKnuckles]

My synapses aren't firing or something when I read that shit. The writing is admirable but I just get too confused to really get immersed and burn through pages. I read like 5 pages and I'm like wtf is going on and have to go back.

Blucas got me Crying of Lot 49 when I was a Senior in HS.  I still thought blucas was super cool so I really wanted to like it but I think I was just too immature a reader for it.  So dense!  I'm like wait why the fuck is this guy named Mucho Maas and why did I just read a three page diversion from the story about his existential crisis re: dealing used cars?   Then I went back a couple years later and just made myself read it.  The payoff is so great with his books if you're persistent. Gravity's Rainbow is so long and has so many bizarre characters and storylines that by the time I'm halfway through I'm frustrated with my memory and it will weave back to a group of characters i had completely forgotten about!

[Thermofusion]

Worth linking: the Pynchon Wiki has excellent background annotations and character indices (esp. useful for the really dense stuff like Gravity's Rainbow, AtD, M&D)

[peacocks]

so long and has so many bizarre characters and storylines that by the time I'm halfway through I'm frustrated with my memory and it will weave back to a group of characters i had completely forgotten about!

this is exactly what Gaddis' The Recognitions is like. Funny that I'm taking a break from one labrynthine mammoth to read another. Ho hum! I'm gonna try to buy this on my kindle. I forgot I had one for a second there.

[peacocks]

Uh! What a gip! they don't have it!

[Chet]

I have a copy of Gravity's Rainbow, but I had to finish Underworld first. Maybe I can catch up.

[mixed cats]

I am about three days away from finishing my current reading, and then I will start Gravity's Rainbow. I pulled it out to the front of my nightstand shelf.

[FreddyKnuckles]

I've got both V and GR on my shelf dog-eared at around page 250.  All I could tell you about Gravity's Rainbow this far removed is that there are german rocket strikes on all of the locations where this one guy has sex with women as his unit moves across europe. 

[jebreject]

If I finish with what I'm reading by this weekend, I'm in

[dieblucasdie]

I went through my shelf to pull it tonight, and damn, there's definitely writing in the margins ALL OVER THE PLACE through "Beyond the Zero" and no further.  Writing in margins is something I haven't done since undergrad, a full 8 years ago.  This is gonna be funny.  Sample marginalia:  "Communism is a threat to macho American culture."  Oy.