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A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources And Contexts for Pynchon's Novel (Paperback)

by Steven C. Weisenburger (Author)
Key Phrases: sodium amytal session, service slang, rocket strikes, World War, New York, Times of London (more...)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Adding some 20 percent to the original content, this is a completely updated edition of the indispensable guide to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Steven Weisenburger takes the reader page by page, often line by line, through the welter of historical references, scientific data, cultural fragments, anthropological research, jokes, and puns around which Pynchon wove his story. Weisenburger fully annotates Pynchon's use of languages ranging from Russian and Hebrew to such subdialects of English as 1940s street talk, drug lingo, and military slang as well as the more obscure terminology of black magic, Rosicrucianism, and Pavlovian psychology. The Companion also reveals the underlying organization of Gravity's Rainbow-how the book's myriad references form patterns of meaning and structure that have eluded both admirers and critics of the novel.

The Companion is keyed to the pages of the principal American editions of Gravity's Rainbow: Viking/Penguin (1973), Bantam (1974), and the special, repaginated Penguin paperback (2000) honoring the novel as one of twenty "Great Books of the Twentieth Century."

About the Author
Steven C. Weisenburger is Mossiker Chair in Humanities and Chair of the English Department at Southern Methodist University. His books include Fables of Subversion (Georgia) and Modern Medea.

Product Details

Paperback: 412 pages
Publisher: University of Georgia Press; 2 Rev Enl edition (November 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0820328073
ISBN-13: 978-0820328072
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #41,511 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories: (What's this?)
#28 in Books > Reference > Encyclopedias > Literature
#35 in Books > Nonfiction > Education > Literacy
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
sodium amytal session, service slang, rocket strikes, underworld slang, astrological year, hysteron proteron, holy center, blues harp, dirndl skirt, rocket program

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
World War, New York, Times of London, United States, Companion's Companion, Mare's Nest, William Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, Ballistics of the Future, Fritz Lang, White Goddess, Great War, Tyrone Slothrop, Los Angeles, Martin Fierro, Monte Carlo, Pirate Prentice, South-West Africa, Pictorial Key, General Electric, Luneburg Heath, Oral Art, The Berkshire Hills, Franz P�kler, Gerhardt von G�ll

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Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews

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4 star:		(5)
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4.3 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable Handbook with an eclectic Bibliography, May 18, 2001

By	Walter O. Koenig "Amoxtli" (San Diego, California, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A "Gravity's Rainbow" Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel (Paperback)

I agree with the previous review that this book is not as comprehensive as Gifford and Seidman "Ulysses Annotated" (see my review), but it is better than Douglas Fowler's "A Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow", the only other usable sourcebook to "Gravity's Rainbow" I am aware of.

This book has a most helpful introduction in which the scope and instructions for use are discussed. The section "For Further Study" contains some insightful information regarding the patterns of Pynchon's borrowings, the chronology of the novel and its structure as a "Bildungsroman", which is according to Weisenburger as follows: "(1) the disclosure of the hero's miraculous gifts (2) his education (3) his testing during a course of travels, and (4) the confirmation of his powers, a revelation." (p.7) I wish this subject would have been developed further. It certainly offers another avenue for reading the novel and analyzing its structure.

The "Companion" Section itself gives helpful intoductions to each episode and somewhat brief descriptions of the many allusions and references. The vast majority seem to be included, though further information about them, will in many cases require the reader to do some work.

At the time I read this novel, I was conducting research at the Library of Congress, so I decided to check around fifty of the references listed in the Bibliography. I checked verything from the "History of South-West Aftrica" to "Ballistics of the Future", and Stendhal's "Life of Rossini" to Pavlov's "Conditioned Reflexes", and found that both Pynchon and Wiesenburger did the their work well. If you really want to understand the allusons in this novel, you may want to check some of these out.

The Book ends with a helpful, but not comprehensive Index. I think this book is a most usable and reliable guide to the Novel. The Novel can be read without it, as has been pointed out, but half the fun is, at least to me, checking on the allusions, and coming across their often hidden and surprising meanings. Interested readers should buy this book. It is not only well-done as a Guide, but the Bibliography contains a mixture of references that can be found nowhere else.

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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable insights, July 11, 2000

By	Randy (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A "Gravity's Rainbow" Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel (Paperback)

This is an invaluable companion to a reading of Gravity's Rainbow. Without it, not only would a goodly portion of the novel be incomprehensible (especially, I might add, to those of us under the age of 40- there are a ton of references that those of us in this age bracket will not relate to or even comprehend), but the mastery of Pynchon's work would be less than fully grasped. For sheer research and grasp of subject matter I can't conceive of a companion volume that would best this one. In short, without this companion I would have recognized Pynchon's novel as creative if a bit befuddling. With this companion I learned to recognize it as brilliant and much more comprehensible (to the extent that any of it was meant to be comprehended in the first place). One final point, I take a different view than some of the other reviewers. I read 1/2 of the novel before I learned of and bought the companion volume. Reading the novel with the companion the first time was much more rewarding for me than struggling through the novel without the companion for the first time.

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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful and well-done, but at a price..., July 17, 2005

By	D. Eigenvector - See all my reviews

This review is from: A "Gravity's Rainbow" Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel (Paperback)

An extremely useful and interesting companion to GR. Perhaps not essential, but certainly helpful in getting much more out of this fantastic novel. There are different ways to use the Companion - I ended up reading an episode in GR and then reading the accompanying pages in the Companion, which worked pretty well though it obviously breaks the natural flow of the novel. I like the fact that Weisenburger generally does not attempt to provide detailed interpretations - the sheer length of the novel fortunately prevents the flood of over-interpretation and academic nonsense that, for example, sometimes fills companion books for shorter novels (e.g., The Crying of Lot 49). Weisenburger's thoughts on timelines and the overall structure are enlightening.

I do have one major complaint: for reasons I'm sure Weisenburger would try to defend but that I don't understand at all, he "gives away" rather early in the Companion the events described in the very last episodes in GR. We're talking major spoiler here! Although there are numerous hints throughout GR leading up to this, the picture doesn't become clear until the very end. Unfortunately, Weisenburger blows the surprise very early on and personally I really resented this.

A minor complaint: As mentioned in other reviews, Weisenburger commits a number of errors when explaining some of the science and math. Often, these explanations just weren't necessary and in some cases work only to deflate the book's magic. As one of a number of possible examples, consider the extraordinary balloon ride episode, in which Slothrop witnesses the earth's shadow moving across the land. Weisenburger chimes in with a discussion as to whether or not the cited speed of the shadow is realistic, and also informs us that of course shadows can't break the speed of sound! Useless over-analysis of the type that explains why generation after generation of students are turned off to literature when forced by professors with too much brain and not enough heart to dissect great books in the classroom.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Full of Spoilers.
Why does Weisenburger decide to randomly drop spoiler after spoiler into his annotations? The companion was extremely helpful but the first time I read GR I realized I had to hide... Read more

Published on December 7, 2006 by J. Gaines

5.0 out of 5 stars Look for the 2nd edtion
There are two editions of this book. The first was published in 1988. The second was published November of this year (2006). Read more

Published on November 22, 2006 by Caracarn

3.0 out of 5 stars The worst companion except for all the others
So you've decided to try and tackle GR. The novel is certainly worth the time and frustration that can sometimes accompany reading it. Read more

Published on February 20, 2006 by J. Shanes

4.0 out of 5 stars Yer gonna need this
Yep. Very well put together collection of stuff you'll need -- even if you think you don't -- to get through Gravity's Rainbow proper. Sure you can fly solo, naked, hungry ... Read more

Published on September 13, 2005 by Plutarch XL

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't leave home without it
Indispensable. I plowed through GR in my mid twenties without the Companion. Large portions of Pynchon's encyclopedic epic were totally baffling to me. Read more

Published on September 8, 2003 by Todd Denlinger

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Helpful Don't Read GR Without It
Seriously they should package the two books together. If you're going to try to read Gravity's Rainbow get this book too, it will make the process alot more pleasant.

Published on August 13, 2003 by jackmike1

4.0 out of 5 stars The Heart as it's Reason's...
i have to say i thoroughly enjoyed this book. but, i used it at a wierd time in my reading, towards the end. so i had to read the companion by itself for awhile... Read more

Published on March 31, 2002

4.0 out of 5 stars Read the novel first
Definitely get yourself through the novel without this, then let Weisenburger soothe much of your bafflement away with his solid research. Read more

Published on November 18, 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Read the novel first - then this one
I agree with all the above. However, to avoid the disappointment of finding out how it ends, I suggest reading the novel right through first and using this companion piece for a... Read more

Published on August 2, 1999

3.0 out of 5 stars Revealing and helpful, but at a price....
Enormous fun, very helpful for bringing Pynchon down where we mortals can begin to digest, but I had to set it aside; Wesenberg drops too many subtle and not so subtle hints about... Read more

Published on April 26, 1999

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