Customer Reviews

Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My two sons (Zachary and Alexander) have been saving their allowance and doing extra chores to save money for a Nintendo DS (they save half, my wife & I pay half). This has been a huge deal for them because they each really want one.

Yesterday, my wife took the boys to a bookstore, and 7 1/2 year old Zach saw Zak Smith's book based on Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow". He could not, would not put it down; he was mesmerized. He's not one to want, want, want, but this, he had to have. He looked at various and sundry art-related books for at least a half hour, and kept coming back to this book. Which was $40. After much discussion and pondering, Zach was resolute: My wife had a $16 credit at the store which she let him use and he kicked in $20 of his $27 to get the book. The point is, he gave up his Gameboy money for an art book. A big deal. He said "You know how interested I am in art, Mom!"

I've read a bit of Pynchon ("Vineland") but when I've leafed through "Granvity's Rainbow" in the past, I've thought it challenging, circular, dense. Very much like, though not so much as, the uber-interpretive "Finegan's Wake" by James Joyce (referenced, coincidentally, by Zak Smith's book). So at once I was impressed; thumbing through Zach's Zak book, even more so. It IS mesmerizing; page after page of fascinating, provoking, stirring beauty. You can get lost in there.

Not only do I now have a renewed vigor to tackle "Gravity's Rainbow", but am inspired to have (with Zach's permission) Zak Smith's profoundly astonishing book along for the cerebral roller coaster, a benevolent guide to provide dazzling clues as I navigate the former's intellectually demanding jungle.

Whether $26.37 or $39.95, worth every penny...

I'm totally blown away by this book, after seeing these drawings at the Walker I had to own it. Check out his website to see all the drawings on line.

First off, many thanks to amazon.com for stocking the hardcover slipcase edition of this book. At first, they only had the paperback available online. I wrote to their customer service asking them to also carry the hardcover, which they soon added. It is a volume that you might want to consider spending the extra money to buy in the hardcover edition. It's worth it.

The pictures are incredible.

If you live anywhere near Minneapolis get yourself over to the Walker Art Center, where every single one of Zak Smith's drawings/paintings/sculptures (yes, some are three dimensional) for this project are displayed on one wall. (All are in the permanent collection of the Walker.) How do I know it's all 750+ artworks? Because I counted. 45 columns by 17 rows. You could spend hours staring at them and not exhaust this monumental project. I'm not sure how long they'll remain on display so don't put it off.

Zak Smith is probably one of the only people who could have sincerely undertaken this project and done something both unique and interesting with it.

After a few false starts I finally read Gravity's Rainbow from start to finish over the summer and well- it's weird. It's an exercise in maximalism to the highest degree that rides on a wave of zany humor and so many references (and cross references) that it's necessary to admit one's ignorance in reading the thing. You won't understand it unless you have a guide and while I think this is a questionable move in terms of fiction, it certainly makes for material worth interpreting.

What Smith did was was take Pynchon's work and avoid symbolism by making literal illustrations from lines within the text (which he states in the preface). A literal interpretation of Pynchon is bizarre enough in and of itself, but Zak Smith is also a damn good artist with a bunch of talent *and* a very serious approach to visual art which stems out of his work ethic. These factors all make the book an interesting standalone collection of drawings- and paired with the text it makes for completely deserving turn down the path of Pynchon's magnum opus.

Mr Apollo is mistaken. The images in this book are printed life-size. The originals are NOT 8.5" X 11".

Also, in the forums, someone asked what edition of Gr this book lines up with. It lines up with any edition of GR that has the same number of pages (760).

I just saw the Zak Smith exhibit at the Walker Art Center in Minn. where I had gone to see the "Picasso in America". But this Gravity's Rainbow page-by-page is, by far, the reason to go to the Walker right now. Mindboggling. Buy the book and picture each page lined up like a grid covering an entire wall. The Pynchon book is quite challenging to read so try to imagine Zak Smith capturing the concept of each and every page with a drawing or picture. Number 404 looks like an inch thick melted white plastic mess--does anyone know what happened in the book on this page? I noticed that one of the "tags" for this product is "genius." Believe it.

I have actually read Gravity's Rainbow - although it took me 25 years to do so. I started in in college and couldn't get all the way through - but every five years or so, I'd pick it up and restart at the beginning, each time getting further. Finally, with the help of an on-line concordance, I was able to get to the end. Now, it's my favorite book and it feels like a good, but very odd, friend that has come along with me over a large part of my life.

Now I want to read it again, this time with Zak Smith's illustrations. I can see myself sitting there, page by page, and turning each book in synchronicity. In the meantime, thumbing through the illustrations, picking out ones I like, trying to remember what was going in in GR... it's rare that a volume can give such pleasure over and over.

This is the perfect example of how a book should be illustrated. The pictures aren't literal, they're abstract intepretations. It doesn't damage the reader's previous images of the scenes in Gravity's Rainbow, it only adds to them. An exquisite work. Anyone who really likes GR should have this book.

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble (I haven't seen many reviews with this high an average, truth be told), but: there's no evidence whatsoever -- despite the convenient "title" -- that Mr. Smith actually had the attention span to plow through the whole thing.

There's no mention of I.G. Farben (the REAL company which predetermines Lt. Tyrone Slothrop's life), the Hereros (the African tribe -- the "unfinished business" -- who launch the 00001 rocket on the [American] reader's head), or the "Bell" in the mineshaft Slothrop goes down (fictional-IZED, not "fictional," as it turns out) in the "Introduction" Mr. Smith provides; just some ranting & drooling about how "hard" he worked, before milking a contact's ability to get him in the business of starring in pornographic/debasement/defilement films, as result of his newfound "fame."

Truth be told, I can't make heads nor tails of Smith's illegible, inexpressive chicken-scratch; my best guess is, he glanced at EACH PAGE -- one at a time -- and figured he'd get away with professing to show what happens on "Each Page," without any respect to narrative continuity or actual plot events.

If this is true -- and only checking the text of "G's R" against THIS book will suffice, not personal testimonies by the "author" of this claptrap -- Chronicle Books needs (at LEAST!) to pull it from it's place on the shelves aside Pynchon's novel(s) in every Barnes & Noble in the country.

I mean . . . what's next? "Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of . . " Fight Club and Atonement, too, without reading THOSE, either? Sheesh!