| This page may be triggering; it contains mentions of (possible) Incest (Pökler and Leni), Paedophilia/Ephebophilia (Captain Blicero, Slothrop and Bianca), Coprophilia and Urophilia (Brigadier Pudding and the Dominatrix), the Holocaust, brief mentions of bestiality (the poetic dream).
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It's been a prevalent notion. Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation. And someday, somehow, before the end, a gathering back to home. A messenger from the Kingdom, arriving at the last moment. But I tell you there is no such message, no such home -- only the millions of last moments . . . nothing more. Our history is an aggregate of last moments.
Gravity's Rainbow is a novel written by Thomas Pynchon. Released in 1973, it tells of an intelligence agent being manipulated by mysterious forces during the dying days of World War II.
It is one of Pynchon's longer novels (with certain editions of V., Mason & Dixon, and Against the Day being around the same size) and (arguably) his most well-known novel. It was nearly a Pulitzer Prize winner but was rejected due to being "obscene and overwritten".
Characters[]
- Tyrone Slothrop - an American investigator for ACHTUNG with a long family history and a fear of the V-2s due to their silence.
- Captain Geoffrey "Pirate" Prentice - a member of the mysterious "Firm" with empathic abilities.
- Mr. Edward W.A. Pointsman, F.R.C.S. - a disciple of Pavlov who presumably works with the Firm and runs "ARF" (Abreaction Reserach Facility). One of the owners of the mysterious "Book" (presumably a text of Pavlov's works).
- The War - Within Gravity's Rainbow, World War II itself is somewhat frequently personified (or more accurately, described as a somewhat sentient force). On Page 133, a schizophreniac patient of "The White Visitation" is described as being linked to the War and believing himself to be said War. The surrounding pages (Pages 132-139) describe the War in detail.
- Captain "Dominus Blicero" Weissman - A Nazi captain. Leader of the Schwarzgerät project
- Oberst Enzian - The ostensible leader of the Schwartzkommandoes. Born to a Russian father and a Herero mother.
- Vaslav Tchitcherine - A Soviet intelligence agent. Half-brother of Enzian.
- Katje Borgesius - A former Nazi agent and former member of SHAEF. Katje's Dutch ancestors were involved in the extinction of the dodo.
- Gottfried - A young body whom Blicero plans to attach to a V-2 rocket.
- Major Duane Marvy - a racist Major within the US Army Ordnance. Leads "Marvy's Mothers".
- Seaman Bodine - a crewman on the US Naval ship John E. Badass and a junkie. Becomes friendly with several main characters within the narrative, including Slothrop and Roger Mexico.
- Gerhardt von Göll (or Der Springer) - a German film director whom Slothrop briefly accompanies. Possible father of Bianca Erdmann.
- Margherita Erdmann - a psychotic German actress who worked with Gerhardt von Göll. Mother of Bianca.
- Bianca Erdmann - the daughter of Margherita Erdmann.
- Miklos Thanatz - Margherita's husband.
- Klaus Närrisch - a German engineer who worked on the Schwarzgerät project. Allied with Der Springer.
- Frau Gnabh - a German pirate queen and smuggler. Slothrop briefly works with her.
- Teddy Bloat - soldier under the command of Captain Pirate.
- Roger Mexico - a statistician who works for the Firm.
- Jessica Swanlake - girlfriend of Roger Mexico
- Sir Stephen Dodson-Truck - a linguist
- Geli Tripping - a member of the "harem" of Tchitcherine.
- Hillary Bounce - an employee at Shell International Petroleum.
- Brigadier Ernest Pudding - an elderly Brigadier who works for "SHAEF" (or Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force).
- Dr. Kevin Spectro - A doctor for St. Veronica's Hospital and one of the owners of the mysterious "Book". Presumably works with the Firm.
- Oliver "Tantivy" Mucker-Maffick - an employee of ACHTUNG and friend of Teddy Bloat and Slothrop.
- Dr. Laszlo Jamf - Though Dr. Jamf is dead by 1945, Jamf's shadow looms over the narrative. He experimented on Slothrop as an infant and created Imipolex G - which was later used by the Nazis within Rocket 00000. Franz Pökler's professor.
- Lyle Bland - Slothrop's uncle who sold him as an infant to Dr. Jamf. Has ties with the Masons and various other movers and shakers throughout the world of Gravity's Rainbow, though by the events of the book he has presumably already astral projected out of his own body.
- Thomas Gwenhidwy - Pointsman's Welsh and alcoholic colleague. Described as having a Santa-like beard.
- Franz Pökler - an engineer on the V-2 project. Former member of the commune.
- Mario Schweitar - a "free-floating trouble-shooter" with ties to Psychochemie AG, the company that created Imipolex G.
- Francisco Squalidozzi - an Argentinian exile in Switzerland. Plans to leave for Germany.
- Darlene - a nurse with whom Slothrop lodges.
- Mrs. Quoad - Darlene (and by extension, Slothrop's) elderly landlord.
- Osbie Feel - a mycologist who lives in the maisonette seen at the beginning of the novel.
- Myron Grunton - a presenter for the BBC who partially runs SHAEF.
- Dr. Porkyevitch - a refugee doctor who works at ARF.
- Edward Treacle - a Freudian psychologist who works for SHAEF.
- Dr. Rollo Groast - a doctor who works at ARF.
- Dr. Géza Rózsavölgyi - a violently anti-Soviet refugee who works at ARF.
- Dr. Aaron Throwster - a neurosurgeon who works at ARF.
- Milton Gloaming - a linguist
- Carroll Eventyr - a medium who works for SHAEF.
- Richard M. Zhlubb - a thinly veiled pastiche of Richard Nixon.
Publisher's summary[]
Cover of the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition
We could tell you the year is 1944, that the main character is called Tyrone Slothrop and that he has a problem because bombs are falling across Europe and crashing to earth at the exact locations of his sexual conquests. But that doesn't really begin to cover it.
Reading this book is like falling down a rabbit hole into an outlandish, sinister, mysterious, absurd, compulsive netherworld. As the Financial Times said, 'you must forget earlier notions about life and letters and even the Novel.' Forty years since publication, Gravity's Rainbow has lost none of its power to enthral.
Plot[]
Part One: Beyond the Zero[]
During the Blitz, a Special Operations Executives lead by Captain Geoffrey Prentice (who is known by the nickname Pirate) have set up in a maisonette. Pirate has started growing bananas on the roof and (after saving his associate Teddy Bloat from falling to his death), he sights a V-2 rocket streaming towards the maisonette. The first thing Pirate does is save the best of the bananas he has been growing. Instead of smashing into the maisonette and destroying it, the V-2 misses. This is talked about by Teddy Bloat and Pirate as the two make breakfast from the bananas.
As breakfast is served, Pirate is called by his mysterious employer (presumably within the mysterious "Firm") about the V-2 rocket. While Pirate drives out to the V-2 crash site, Teddy Bloat visits the offices of ACHTUNG (Allied Clearing House, Technical Units, Northern Germany) where a friend of his named Tantivy works. While at the office, he snaps a map of sexual conquests made by Tantivy's coworker, Tyrone Slothrop - an investigator of the V-2s.
Meanwhile, Slothrop arrives at the site of a V-2 rocket crash also sighted by Pirate. Barred from actually visiting the crash site, Slothrop watches as Pirate reaches into the ruins of the V-2 and takes a cylinder containing documents from it. The next day, Slothrop frees a young girl from a V-2 crash site.
At a seance, Pirate meets with a statistician working for the Firm named Roger Mexico and talks with him while Roger's girlfriend Jessica talks with a nervous linguist. On the drive back to their home (in a town evacuated back in 1940), Roger tries to strike up an argument with Jessica but fails. They then spot firefighters putting out a fire presumably caused by a German bomb. They sight Roger's superior Dr. Pointsman and Roger tries to help him catch a dog (who seemingly can speak) but the dog escapes. Roger then leaves to meet with Dr. Spectro. After Roger meets with Spectro, he talks with Pointsman - revealing that the two are observing Slothrop and that Slothrop has precognition of V-2 landings. Spectro then tries to get Pointsman to keep an octopus but his colleague refuses.
That night, Jessica is woken up by a V-2 bomb blast. Roger voices his theories about statistically mapping and predicting the impacts of V-2 bombs to Pointsman and Pirate, who are both dismissive of his efforts. While the couple makes dinner (and Roger feels up Jessica), they are interrupted by another V-2 bomb exploding in the distance.
After getting injected with sodium amytal as part of SHAEF efforts at "The White Visitation" (a former mental hospital) to transmit racial fears into the minds of the German peoples, Slothrop (presumably within the hallucinatory state caused by the chemical) is interrogated by PISCES about a visit to Boston in which he plunged into a toilet and got accidentally covered with feces. This quickly devolves into a homoerotic fantasy which ends with a pun on the sentence "You never did the Kenosha Kid". Meanwhile, Pirate literally ejaculates a message using a chemical called Kryptosam and various scientists working at SHAEF discuss how to psychologically profile Slothrop.
It is also revealed why Teddy Bloat photographed Slothrop's maps of sexual conquests - it lines up with Roger's map of V-2 bombings. One of the scientists proposes that Slothrop is psychokinetically influencing the bombs to drop (which is possibly due to psychological experiments which an infant Slothrop took part in). Roger is initially dismissive of this theory, but begins to fear that it is true. Roger discusses this with Pointsman on the seaside - leading Pointsman to reveal that he intends to make Slothrop into the subject of a Pavlovian experiment.
In Pirate's maisonette, Osbie Feel grows mushrooms. He is joined by a Dutch woman named Katje. Both of them are unknowingly being filmed by someone possibly related to Osbie's time spent with a Nazi captain named Briceno. During this time, Katje took part in sexual congress between the Captain and a young boy named Gottfried. One day, Katje left both of them (while Gottfried was in a cage) and moved to England, meeting Pirate and Osbie.
After SHAEF makes a film to spread the false rumor of "the Schwartzkommando" and his black soldiers, Slothrop is released from "The White Visitation". Slothrop has the feeling that he is still being watched but soon lodges with a nurse named Darlene and her sick landlord Mrs. Quoad. Slothrop eats some of their candy (a bad experience for Slothrop) and then has sex with Darlene, which leads to a V-2 crashing nearby.
As Christmas nears, Roger (who is feeling more and more paranoid about the various mystic figures within his job) and Jessica (who finds herself torn between Roger and two other men named "Jack" and "Jeremy") attend a platoon of carolers.
The V-2 dropped out of the sky by Slothrop's coupling with Darlene lands on "The White Visitation" - killing Dr. Spectro. An unnamed figure (presumably Pointsman, though possibly also Slothrop) learns of the death late into an unnerving dream. Pointsman is unnerved by the death of Spectro, believing it to be tied to a curse linked to "the Book". Pointsman also begins thinking about Slothrop, and decides to begin experimenting on Slothrop before he kills more people. Around the same time, two bomber pilots report sighting an angel. SHAEF investigates these claims - with medium Carroll Eventyr trying to contact one of them psychically. As Christmas nears, Pointsman has sex with a woman named Maudie Chilkes and his Welsh colleague Thomas Gwenhidwy fills himself with the Christmas "spirit" - leading to some drunken arguments about the nature of the War.
In a German Marxist commune (one which has an unhealthy obsession with the V-2 rockets), two women named Rebecca and Leni engage in a lesbian affair before Leni's husband Richard returns from the warfront. Another man named Franz Pökler looks for work, finding several dead ends, before he sights a V-2 rocket exploding. The members of the commune (despite their Marxist leanings) meet with various Nazis and talk of the nature of the War and the economy.
At a Boxer's Day pantomime of Hansel and Gretel attended by Roger and Jessica's family, the play is interrupted by a nearby V-2 blast - leading to the actress playing Gretel breaking into a song that everyone in the theatre joins into. Later that day, a nephew named Penelope sights a demonic figure of her dead father and Roger realizes that Jessica will eventually leave him
Part Two: Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering[]
Slothrop, Teddy Bloat, and Tantivy visit the Casino Hermann Goering (which has recently been liberated from the Nazis) on the French coast. While at the beach, Slothrop saves a woman - Katje - from being killed by an octopus with the help of Bloat. Due to his paranoia, Slothrop is convinced that something bigger is going on (which is, unbeknownst to Slothrop, true - as the octopus was trained by Dr. Porkyevitch and returns to him).
While at the Casino, Slothrop meets with Katje again and (after talking with Tantivy about his paranoia), visits Katje's room and has sex with her. The next day, all of Slothrop's things are stolen by a mysterious person and Slothrop chases after him wearing only a purple bedsheet as a toga. The thief gets Slothrop to climb up a tree and fall off of it - right in front of where Bloat and a general are playing croquet. Bloat gives Slothrop some of his clothes. Slothrop then begins looking for Tantivy - running into a general who believes him to be a Nazi - but finds no trace of his friend.
Slothrop returns to Katje's room and the two begin spending time together. One day, a scientist named Sir Stephen Dodson-Truck emerges and enters into the company of both. Slothrop becomes convinced that he is being moved through life by something larger and begins growing a mustache. To figure out who Sir Stephen is exactly, Slothrop gets him drunk and plays "Prince" with him. After the two leave the bar, Sir Stephen reveals that he has been sent to monitor Slothrop. The next day, Sir Stephen vanishes and Slothrop argues with Katje before the two have sex.
Meanwhile, Caroll Eventyr watches the German commune seen near the end of Part One using his paranormal powers. During this, Eventyr remembers his "control" Peter Sachsa being killed by German police while in the company of Leni.
After Slothrop finds out about Sir Stephen, SHAEF briefly descends into chaos before Pointsman assures the assembled heads that it is only a minor hiccup and that they will continue to be funded and have Brigadier Pudding's blessing. That night, after a brief musical number by the animals at ARF, Brigadier Pudding meets with a dominatrix he met during the Spanish Civil War and engages in uro- and coprophilic acts. Brigadier Pudding also discusses his depressive feelings about SHAEF before leaving the dominatrix's company.
After Sir Stephen leaves, a revolving door of various figures emerge to inform Slothrop on various things. One of these figures is Hilary Bounce, a worker at Shell International Petroleum, who gives Slothrop a German blueprint which mentions "Imipolex G". Bounce accompanies Slothrop to a party where Slothrop is given an envelope and a zoot suit by a forger and arms dealer. After the party is ended by a tank, Slothrop and Bounce break into a Shell office where they find files on "S-Gerät 11/00000". While at the office, Slothrop finds a newspaper reporting on the death of Mucker-Maffick.
The next day, Slothrop checks into a hotel and buys passage into Switzerland. Slothrop barely escapes two MPs a week before makes his way to Zürich. While in Zürich, Slothrop checks into the Hotel Nimbus and meets a spy named Mario Schweitar who tells Slothrop that Dr. Jamf while the two talk about Imipolex G. Slothrop also meets an Argentinian refugee named Francisco Squalidozzi and agrees to become Squalidozzi's courier - giving notes to Schweitar - in exchange for a sizable payout. During one of these jobs, Slothrop visits Dr. Jamf's grave.
Pointsman sends detectives to find Slothrop, but these detectives fail miserably. Chaos then descends onto "PISCES", as the Soviets have stormed Germany (and the War, at least in Europe, has officially ended in "V-Day") and evidence has been found of a real Schwartzkommando. Pointsman takes a vacation to the beach with several of his colleagues to smooth matters over, but this fails as Pointsman starts hearing voices.
Part Three: In the Zone[]
Slothrop enters into "the Zone" (which is presumably Germany) by train. While on the train, he learns of dealings between his uncle and Dr. Jamf which led to him being experimented on. He also learns about the Schwartzkommando from a racist Major named Marvy who gets thrown off the train by Oberst Enzian, a member of the Schwartzkommandoes. Once off the train, Slothrop dances with a young girl by a fire that vanishes and meets a girl named Geli Tripping that is a member of a "harem" made by a Soviet intelligence agent named Tchitcherine. Slothrop follows Geli back to her home, where he learns that the 00000 rocket is essentially for sale on the market and is attacked by her pet owl while trying to have sex with her.
After leaving Tchitcherine's house, Slothrop visits a sensationalist museum about space travel before entering into the V-2's underground production facility (built in the shape of the Nazi SS and the double integral sign) dubbed the Mittelwerke. There, he has a fantasy about an orgy before running into various soldiers still working within its tunnels. These soldiers are under the command of Major Marvy - who shoots at Slothrop and then has his drunken soldiers chase after Slothrop. He is only able to escape due to the help of a German mathematician named Glimpf. After riding out of the Mittelwerke in minecarts, Glimpf brings Slothrop to the laboratory of one Professor Zwitter.
Within their base, the Schwartzkommandoes (descendants of Herero peoples brought from Africa to Germany in the 1900s) plot to wipe themselves out, not through mass suicide but by creating a negative birth rate within their own society. Despite this, they still work on the V-2s in semi-secret from within their community in the Zone.
After leaving Zwitter's lab, Slothrop reunites with Geli and travels through the Zone with her. They run into Major Marvy while talking with American soldiers but are able to escape him. They soon run into a hot air balloon merchant named Schnorp. Slothrop leaves Geli behind and gets into Schnorp's hot air balloon - flying over the zone with a cargo of pies. While in the air, they are tailed by Major Marvy's forces and are soon joined in the sky by Major Marvy in a plane filled with his men singing bawdy songs. Slothrop is able to hit the Major in the face with a pie and, as the two air vehicles fly into a cloud, loose the plane after throwing stuff into its engine.
While wandering through the Zone, Tchitcherine reminisces on an expedition to Central Asia (specifically near Baku) that he was sent on by his Soviet overlords (allegedly due to his ties to the German chemist Wimpe, though Tchitcherine is doubtful of this) that was part of the "Weird Letter Assignments". While in Central Asia, he met a Kirghiz man named Džaqyp Qulan and the two rode on horseback together. He also thinks of his relation to his brother, Enzian, who was fathered by his sailor father while on an expedition during the Russo-Japanese War.
Slothrop reaches Berlin, where he falls extremely ill after drinking water from an ornamental pond. Presumably after recovering from this illness, Slothrop finds the Schwartzkommandoes looking for crashed V-2s in the ruins of Berlin. From talking with them, he figures out that they are looking for the SG-00000. He then wanders through the streets of Berlin and notices the smell of "reefer" being smoked by the safecracker Säure and his gaggle of women. Slothrop joins this odd gang, where he is dressed in the costume of "Rocketman" and joins them in wandering through the streets of Berlin before meeting with an American contact named Bodine from the US ship John E. Badass in a bar. After this, "Rocketman" is pressured into travelling to Potsdam to reclaim a hidden stash of "reefer" after he is promised a million marks.
In Potsdam, Slothrop (still in his Rocketman costume and armed with forged papers) discovers that President Roosevelt has died for the first time from Säure. After Slothrop talks about the Schwarzgerät, Säure leaves. Slothrop travels to Zehlendorf (passing by a few Soviet sentries) and rides into a compound (where according to Säure, someone had buried a large stash of marijuana in the past) on a boat. He discovers that the compound is home to the leaders of the Allies and is let into it after pretending to be a celebrity. He is briefly spotted by Mickey Rooney before being knocked out after walking into the Soviet side of the "White House".
Slothrop wakes up inside of a white-walled room to find that he has been injected with sodium amytal and that the stash of marijuana has been looted (by Tchitcherine and his Kazakh companion Džabajev). While walking around the compound, he is found by the actress Margherita Erdmann and (after learning that the fake papers he was given use the identity of a dead Jewish actor) has sex with her. Meanwhile, Squalidozzi falls in with German mobsters and makes a film adaptation of the poem Martín Fierro with director Gerhardht von Göll. After this, he returns to the stolen U-Boat base of his fellow Argentine refugees. Presumably as Slothrop wanders through the "White House", the Argentines and the US ship John E. Badass nearly fire on each other.
Several years before, Franz Pökler fell in love with Leni. The two had an affair which resulted in Leni falling pregnant. After Leni left, Pökler was despondent and only lightened up after finding work in the V-2 project. Several years into this work, Leni's daughter Ilse visited Pökler. The engineer tried to be a father for the young girl (who had fantasies of living on the Moon) but she was sent to a "re-education camp". Some time later, "Leni" (or at least, someone claiming to be Leni) returns to Pökler. Believing "Leni" not to be the real Leni, Pökler argues with his superior (Weismann). Instead of firing Pökler, Weissman sends him to a city ruled over by children named Zwölfkinder where he has sex with "Leni". This repeats for several years. During one of these trips, the base of the V-2 project is bombed and it gets moved to the Mittelwerke. Presumably a short time before the War ends, Weissman drags Pökler into working on the SG-00000. After the War, Pökler visits the nearby Dora camp (where "Leni" was held) and is disgusted by the conditions - giving a random woman his wedding ring in the hopes that it helps her to survive.
Slothrop leaves Margherita behind to find Säure. He returns to Säure's base to find it destroyed, but he finds note in a chess piece directing him to Säure's new base. Säure tells Slothrop that he has found the SG-00000 (for sale for only 10,000 pounds) and that the promise of a million marks is null and void. Police then break into the new compound - with Slothrop only barely escaping. He returns to Margherita, who attacks him for leaving her alone. The two begin to live together, though their relationship is extremely tenuous and Slothrop has rather odd visions (most notably a brief one of his father) and dreams (including one described as a poem about a woman who has "relations" with animals and whom drowns at sea, her body used by various creatures living inside of her as a submersible before they are found by Squalidozzi, who takes the form of Neptune).
In the waters around the Zone, the Rücksichtslos - the only member of the "Toiletships" created by the Nazis - floats. Inside of it sits the Schwartzkommandos and a German engineer named Horst Achtfaden, who worked on the Schwarzgerät. They interrogate the engineer trying to find the names of other people who worked on the project. Though Achtfaden is initially unwilling to give them anything, he cracks and points them towards "Klaus Närrisch".
Slothrop and Margherita travel to Swinemünde to meet up with the Anubis - a ship holding refugees from the "Lublin regime", including Margherita's young daughter Bianca. They briefly visit a spa, where Margherita flees after seeing a mysterious woman, before sighting the Anubis. Margherita boards the ship but Slothrop is thrown into the sea by mischievous passengers - getting rid of his Rocketman costume while in the water to keep from drowning - and has to board by climbing up a rope into the cabin of the captain's wife. He finds that the passengers of the Anubis are having a "party" and talks with a general named Kammler (who reveals that a boy named "Gottfried" has something to do with the Schwarzgerät) before Margherita beats her daughter with a ruler in front of the passengers.
Later that night, Slothrop "sleeps" with Bianca. After Bianca leaves, Slothrop meets a Japanese ensign named Morituri. From Morituri, Slothrop learns that Margherita murdered several Jewish children while in a psychotic state at the spa she later visited with Slothrop - with the mysterious woman possibly being one of the children Margherita murdered. He then learns that Bianca has gone missing and enters into Margherita's room. Though Margherita initially assumes that Slothrop is one of "them", she lets him into her room and tells him about meeting (alongside her husband Thanatz) with Blicero and being inducted into the worship of Imipolex-G. Even later, Slothrop sights Bianca falling overboard and gets thrown off the Anubis.
Slothrop is pulled out of the water by Otto Gnabh - the son of Frau Gnabh, a smuggler and pirate queen. While wandering around, he finds "Der Springer" - actually Gerhardht von Göll (whom is the possible father of Bianca) - and Närrisch. The three board Gnabh's vessel, which is also carrying a troupe of chimpanzees, and ride it into Peenemünde. During this ride, it is revealed that the offer for the Schwarzgerät was a ploy to gain the attention of Tchitcherine. Once the ship arrives at Peenemünde, von Göll is captured by Soviet troops. Slothrop, Närrisch, and Frau Gnabh escape their attention in the chaos that follows the Soviet troops unleashing the chimpanzees and the trio begin plotting to break von Göll out. After sneaking up to the compound Göll is being held in, Slothrop and Närrisch break in armed with fake Molotov cocktails while their companions distract the guards. While trying to find Göll, the duo accidentally alert a guard. Shortly after finding Göll (who has been drugged with sodium amytal), they are found by Tchitcherine and his comrade Zhdaev, whom let the two intruders escape (with Slothrop taking Tchitcherine's outfit). They make it to Zhdaev's car but are found by the various guards in the compound. Slothrop and Göll escape on Frau Gnabh's ship but have to leave Närrisch behind.
After finding blood belonging to one of their member (Christian)'s sister, the Schwartzkommandoes ride through the Zone on motorcycles. They briefly visit an abandoned and bomb-damaged IG factory before Christian punches Enzian. While on the water, Slothrop and Göll (who is in extreme denial of Närrisch's possible death) plan a meeting in Cuxhaven before Frau Gnabh sights the Anubis - ramming her ship into it before Göll and Slothrop board the Anubis. Göll sends Slothrop to the lower decks of the ship, where he is attacked by an unknown figure and sees the corpse of Bianca.
Across the Atlantic and shortly after Brigadier Pudding dies from an e. coli infection, Katje escapes from "the White Visitation" with the help of Osbie Feel (whom has created a symbolic film including footage that reveals that the reason Katje was being recorded was to train the octopus assassin) and is sent to meet with Pirate - whom has defected from the Firm. As Pirate wanders through the city streets, he finds a horde of familiar figures who bring him to despair over his fear that he will never escape the Firm. He is then found by Katje and the two discover the love they have for each other.
While wandering around the Zone, Slothrop has dreams of his dead friend Tantivy and tree spirits. After a young boy obsessed with his missing pet marmot joins his company, Slothrop runs into Major Marvy - who is smuggling fur along with an American toy manufacturer named Chiclitz. As Slothrop is wearing Tchitcherine's uniform, Major Marvy does not recognize him and he accompanies Marvy for a brief moment. After leaving Marvy behind, Slothrop gets captured by the Schwartzkommandoes. While in their company, Slothrop tells them what Greta told him about the Schwarzgerät and Blicero. Presumably as Slothrop talks with the Schwartzkommandoes, Tchitcherine meets with the extremely drunken Major Marvy and Chiclitz. From their drunken ramblings, Tchitcherine learns that a member of IG Farben was involved in the Schwarzgerät project.
After leaving the Schwartzkommandoes, Slothrop wanders into a village on the coast and takes part in a village festival celebrating an ancient legend about a massive pig that saved the village from Vikings. As such, Slothrop dresses in a pig costume. This backfires, as Soviet cops descend on the village after someone finds Slothrop's discarded Soviet outfit and assume that he is a deserter. With the help of a villager he meets, Slothrop escapes from the village. While wandering through the Zone, he meets a pig who joins his company. While the pig accompanies Slothrop, he steals eggs from a farm and narrowly escapes being shot at by the farmer. Slothrop and his pig then enter into Zwölfkinder. They find Pökler - with Slothrop playing a game of chess with the engineer while the two of them discuss the Schwarzgerät.
While Slothrop was still a child, his uncle Lyle Bland entered into the Masons after fixing pinball machines in a Missouri town named Mouthorgan. From them, he learned the gift of astral projection and began using it more and more frequently - spending long times outside of his own body. One day, Lyle told his family that he was going to leave his body forever and presumably live on the astral plane forever. After doing this, his wife (who was only vaguely aware of his ties to the Masons and his astral projecting) covered his face with a chintz drape.
Still dressed in the pig costume, Slothrop reaches Cuxhaven. He first visits a meeting of soldiers and sailors including Bodine and several other junkie sailors. Though Bodine doesn't recognize Slothrop due to the pig costume, he and his clique help Slothrop escape from various MPs (unknowingly being followed by two SHAEF scientists, Doctors Muffage and Spontoon) by stealing a Red Cross van with a nurse still inside of it and driving it to "Putzi's" (a "sprawling, half-fortified manor house"), where Slothrop is supposed to meet with Der Springer. While at Putzi's, Bodine hands some drugs over to Major Marvy who then retires to a "house of ill repute" inside of the manor. Shortly after this, the manor is raided. To hide his own identity, Marvy unknowingly puts on Slothrop's pig costume and gets captured by Muffage and Spontoon - who castrate Marvy despite him protesting that he is not Slothrop. Due to this faux paus, Dr. Pointsman is essentially disgraced and forced to work on studying a herd of escaped German guard dogs with his only company being Clive Mossmoon and Sir Marcus Scammony (whom are possibly gay for each other and are working on a raincoat made of polyvinyl).
Meanwhile, Tchitcherine spies on Göll's film shoot of Martín Fierro. Throughout this, he is worried that his higher-ups within the Soviet Union will have him killed before he is able to find Enzian.
Part Four: The Counterforce[]
Unable to meet with Der Springer and get forged papers, Slothrop lives in the ruins of an abandoned village - convinced that everywhere he has been to is swarming with MPs but still holding out vague hopes of returning to America - before moving into Säure's tenement. Around the same time, Pirate flies into the Zone in an old bomber.
Some time after V-Day (but before Pirate's flight into the Zone), Jessica leaves Roger. Though Roger initially continues his work for Dr. Pointsman (meeting with a member of IG Farben during this time), he has a revelation while driving through the streets in a motorcycle that his life has been essentially stagemanaged by Pointsman. He enters into Twelfth House in a state of nigh-murderous rage and - after a brief standoff with Dr. Rózsavölgyi and a German secretary - breaks into a conference room where Pointsman is meeting with several businessmen. Roger urinates all over the room before declaring that he will make sure that Pointsman falls. After fleeing from the room, Roger visits the base of Pirate's defectors and joins their number.
In the wastes of the Zone, some American soldiers give their corporal a haircut. After hearing a mouthharp (presumably being played by Slothrop) in the wastes, one of the soldiers hears about "Happyville". While "in" Happyville, this soldier meets Dr. Jamf whom tells him the story of Byron the Bulb.
While in "Baby Bulb Heaven", Byron formed a plan to take over the world by unionizing his fellow bulbs and using them to cause mass seizures in the humans. Unbeknownst to Byron, most of the bulbs on Earth were under the control of a conspiracy between various companies. Byron was first placed into a bulb in a "house of ill repute" where he discovered that he was immortal. Due to this, Byron was kidnapped and taken to be destroyed but was saved by being stolen. Over the years, Byron floated through various locations - including the Mittelwerke - before he was put into a socket which is now underneath the head of the corporal, where Byron has lost his dreams of a united bulb attack on humanity and instead collates all of the information in the world.
After this story has ended (and possibly while under the influence of Byron), the soldier kills his corporal with a pair of scissors.
Pirate's plane lands in the Zone with Katje (who plans on finding Slothrop) on board. Shortly after arriving, the two are found by the Schwartzkommandoes. Katje and Enzian discuss Weissman/Blicero (who is missing and believed to be dead) and their time spent with the Captain. Meanwhile, Thanatz is thrown off of the Anubis in a storm and is brought to a community of homosexuals whom have escaped from the death camps but still yearn for their rigid chains of command. While in the community, Thanatz is worried by their talk of Blicero. Shortly after this, Thanatz is captured by the Schwartzkommandoes and is interrogated - telling them everything he knows about Blicero.
Presumably while Slothrop is living in Säure's tenement, he tries to contact the the Argentinian U-Boat and begins having visions of being a superhero whose father is constantly trying to murder him from the shadows - with one of these visions showing Slothrop wearing drag to enter into a "transvestite's toilet" to meet with another member of his superhero team. Bodine moves into the tenement and begins talking about American/English slang with Säure. These sections of the plot are also slotted between small sections about two Kamikaze pilots, the Kenosha Kid, a letter written by Slothrop's mother to Ambassador Jack Kennedy, and a brief description of Imipolex-G.
After Džabajev abandons him and Tchitcherine learns that a member of the "Commissariat for Intelligence Activities" named Nicolai Ripov is moving towards him, he remembers his conversations with Wimpe. During these conversations, the two of them used a drug caused Oneirine which led to Tchitcherine experiencing a hallucinatory state called a "haunting" where he discussed his hunt for Enzian with Ripov.
Jessica and Roger meet again - with Jessica revealing that she is going to get married to her lover Jeremy after she has fallen pregnant with his child. Later that night, Jeremy and Roger have dinner together. During this dinner, Jeremy invites Roger to a dinner at the house of the former manufacturer of a German arms company. Roger invites Bodine to the dinner and the two play a game where they describe the plan for the most disgusting dinner they can imagine - causing most of the dinner guests to flee in sheer disgust. Around the same time, Roger meets with the medium Carrol Eventyr, Morituri, and Thomas Gwenhidy in an inn named "der Grob Säugling" (or the Gross Suckling) and plot the direction that the SG-00000 rocket was fired in - true north, 000°.
While the Schwartzkommandoes are building their own version of the Schwarzgerät - dubbed the SG-0001 - they are attacked by an unseen enemy and their survivors are forced to flee. While fleeing, Enzian sights Tchitcherine but the two of them do not recognize each other - possibly due to a spell cast by Geli. Around this time, Slothrop begins to "fragment" (at least spiritually). Before completely shattering, Slothrop meets with Seaman Bodine and runs into Džabajev. After a brief scene showcasing "Richard M. Zhlubb" (a thinly-veiled cariacture of Richard Nixon), Blicero stuffs Gottfried (whom has had an earpiece surgically attached to his ear) into the SG-00000 and fires it. The last sight of the rocket is it hanging over a movie theatre.
Analysis[]
A common theme within Gravity's Rainbow is the loss of innocence. Most characters who have innocence (even if it is extremely vague) lose it by the end of the novel. Similar themes are seen in Pynchon's The Secret Integration but they are greatly magnified within Gravity's Rainbow. Another major theme is entropy. The entire structure of the novel breaks down by Part Four (with the fourth act being riddled with segues, interjections, and spiritual imagery) and even the driving force of the novel's first half, SHAEF, breaks down by the time of part three.
Gravity's Rainbow can be described as being hypersigilic. Its narrative (most notably in the last fourth part) is filled with religious symbolism and the entire narrative can be viewed as a passing through successive chambers. Indeed, the novel hints towards this near the end with the passage:
For the working mystic, having the vision and passing through the chambers one by one, is terrible and complex. You must not only have the schooling in countersigns and seals, not only the physical readiness through exercise and abstinence, but also the hardon of resolution that will never go limp on you. The angels at the doorways will try to con you, threaten you, play all manner of cruel practical jokes, to turn you aside. The Qlippoth, shells of dead, will use all your love for friends who have passed across against you. You have chosen the active way, and there is no faltering without finding the most mortal danger.—Page 764
The ending of the book can also be viewed as a purposeful mirroring of vondun initiation rituals, with the SG-00000 representing the "lingan".
Notes[]
- Older Penguin Vintage Classic editions of Gravity's Rainbow have rather notable typoes.
- At a few points in the book (most notably in the ending), references are made to "William Slothrop" - a reference to Pynchon's ancestor William Pynchon.
Author's continuity[]
- Captain Blicero first appears in Pynchon's debut novel, V.
- A member of the Slothrop family - Hogan Slothrop - first appeared in Pynchon's short story The Secret Integration.
- Seaman Pig Bodine first appeared in Lowlands and later appeared in V. Though he was not even alive during the events of these novels, his ancestors appeared in Mason & Dixon and Against the Day.
Gallery[]
.jpg "Gravity's Rainbow (1973 1st ed cover).jpg (54 KB)")
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| V. | Thomas Pynchon | 1963 | Pynchon's debut novel. It can be viewed as a prelude to Gravity's Rainbow. |
| Slaughterhouse-Five | Kurt Vonnegut | 1969 | A blackly comedic postmodernist novel which is partially set in World War II |
| The Naked and the Dead | Norman Mailer | 1948 | A blackly comedic postmodernist novel which is partially set in World War II |
| Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | 1961 | A blackly comedic postmodernist novel which is set within World War II |
| The Cannibal | John Hawkes | 1949 | A dark postmodernist novel which is partially set within World War II that possibly inspired this novel |
| Naked Lunch | William S. Burroughs | 1959 | A postmodernist and surrealist spy thriller |
| HHhH | Laurent Binet | 2010 | Another novel examining the Nazi regime |
| Pale Fire | Vladimir Nabokov | 1962 | An experimental and metafictional postmodernist novel written by Pynchon's (supposed) mentor |
| The Tin Drum | Günter Grass | 1959 | A postmodernist German novel detailing World War II |
| Underworld | Don DeLillo | 1997 | A long postmodernist historical novel |
| V2 | Robert Harris | 2020 | A novel about the development of the V-2 rockets |
| Europe Central | William T. Vollmann | 2005 | A postmodernist novel with similar themes |
| Infinite Jest | David Foster Wallace | 1996 | A long and experimental postmodernist novel |
| Finnegans Wake | James Joyce | 1939 | An extremely experimental novel known for being difficult to understand/read |
| Ulysses | James Joyce | 1922 | A long and experimental novel from the Modernist era |
| 2666 | Roberto Bolaño | 2004 | A long and experimental postmodernist novel |
| Armageddon | Leon Uris | 1963 | A novel set in post-World War II Germany |
| Just War | Lance Parkin | 1996 | A postmodernist novel set in World War II |
| The Winds of War | Herman Wouk | 1971 | Another massive novel set in World War II |
| Illegal Alien | Mike Tucker and Robert Perry | 1997 | A mystery/thriller novel set in the Blitz |
| Blitzcat | Robert Westall | 1989 | A historical novel set in the Blitz |
Sources[]
- Wikipedia
- Goodreads
| Works of Thomas Pynchon | ||
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Early works (Collected in Slow Learner) | ||