Gravity's Rainbow

I recently finished Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 epic, Gravity’s Rainbow, and have been trying to work out how to write about it ever since. Described variously as ‘The postmodern Ulysses’ and one of the finest books of the twentieth century, it is a baffling, beguiling and brilliant read. So much so that Time Magazine have said that “Among American writers of the second half of the 20th century, Pynchon is the undisputed candidate for lasting literary greatness. This book is why.”

I must admit that I was a fan of Pynchon beforehand, as one inevitably must be when attempting to read a 900-page book that contains extended dream sequences, pages of rocket science and more than 400 hundred characters. I can also understand scepticism as feel that whenever one reads a book that is more than 500 pages long, one becomes so engrossed in the act of reading and the characters that it is impossible not to adore the book in question. But, this book is resoundingly different.

In short, it tells the story of Lt. Tyrone Slothrop, an American soldier who finds himself in Blitz-time London, when German V1 and V2 rockets are hailing down on the weary metropolis. After marking all of his sexual conquests on a map of the city, he is noticed by British intelligence, who recognise that his conquests exactly match the sites of rocket attacks. Slothrop is then sucked into an international conspiracy spanning continents where no one can be trusted and everyone is in search of an elusive V2 rocket. Whilst this may not seem like much of a plot, there is a conventional story buried under a phantasmagoric and chaotic mix of styles, digressions, ‘stupid songs’ and surreal scenes.

I would recommend the novel to anyone interested in serious literature and specifically postmodernism as this is, clearly, not a book for everyone. But if you do get your hands on a copy, prepare to be amazed at and entertained by the sheer beauty of the prose and the virtuosity of one of the finest works of possibly the world’s greatest living author.