Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A promising plot and some entertaining digressions undone by a sense of trying too hard, May 30, 2007
Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel GRAVITY'S RAINBOW is often looked upon as the author's magnum opus, a 900-page monster that, in constructing its fairly straightforward story, plunders all the riches of history and many of the sciences that its author found fascinating.
The plot is simple: in the last days of World War II British intelligence notices that a map American lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop has made of his sexual conquests in London corresponds exactly to where German rockets subsequently hit. An obscure branch of the British military specializing in all manner of ESP, voodoo, and Pavlovian crackpottery--Pynchon is playfully referring to how much money was thrown at all kinds of war-winning proposals--tries to discover how exactly Slothrop can predict the rocket, but Slothrop breaks away from his handlers and heads off to discover his destiny. Pynchon digresses from the main plot extremely frequently. From a 5-page tour of the awful English candies of yesterday to the creation of a new alphabet for Turkic speakers in the Soviet Union, from the tropes of Westerns to Herero religion, references abound to all manner of obscure subjects.
The novel has a reputation for being "difficult" and full of obscure references, but this is largely exaggeration. The reading public shouldn't have trouble following a long main plot of wartime intrigue and shifting between a wide cast of characters--after all, Neal Stephenson's similar and similarly huge novel Cryptonomicon was a best-seller. Most of the digressions are understandable for anyone with a solid university education.
In the end I found the novel disappointing. I did, indeed, read the thing, Pynchon fans, so don't accuse me of not having what it takes to make it through there. My reasons for not liking GRAVITY'S RAINBOW are somewhat similar to those of Pulitzer board members that overturned the 1973 award, calling the novel "unreadable," "turgid," "overwritten," and "obscene". Unreadable it's not, I got through it as have many. However, the problematic parts of the novel are turgid, overwritten, and obscene at once. Most digressions are entertaining, but often Pynchon throws in long passages of foecal humour or unusual sexual fetishes in a transparent attempt to be shocking and boundary-pushing. Unlike a William S. Burroughs, who wrote could sincerely write out-there stuff, Pynchon's risque writing is calculated and lame.
Much of the novel is impressive--and I especially like the surprise ending and the Finnegans Wake-like circle the book makes--but its failings were pretty big for me. I wouldn't warn all readers away from GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, as evidentally many do like it as a whole, but one can risk disappointment with Pynchon's work.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
