>tfw you read this without knowing any German or WW2 history

Can I ask how old you are? I just can imagine how this happens. What led you to want to read a book set during WWII if you had no prior interest in that war? Especially a book as challenging to the common reader? Was that war not an important topic during your education or did you really just have no interest in the conflict before hand? Also where are you from? I'm not trying to be insulting or anything, I read that book when I was 14 and by then I had also read many anthologies and histories of the war from many perspectives as well as unthinkable hours of documentaries of all various quality and authenticity so while the prose was a little bit too erudite for a 14 year old there was absolutely nothing historically unfamiliar to me. I guess growing up having two grandfathers in the conflict, one in Europe and one in the Pacific, it seemed like an event that had monumental historical importance to the history of the world. Almost an unavoidable concentration of historical forces and lasting impact. Even a 10 year old can see this. Did you just not like history in general?

>>9446944
No fourteen year old knows about the information I'm referring to unless they have interests in 20th century art, nazi art, the hitler family tree, etc... Of course I knew about the basics of WW2. I'm talking about the intricate details of the book that only a partially serious study of WW2 can bring.

>>9446902
It helps if you remember Soviet-era nuclear paranoia too.

I love GR, but future generations just won't get it. It's doomed to fade into obscurity.

>>9447837
Nah. I know nothing of Soviet nuclear paranoia (18), but I just read it this past year and adored it. It's not just some historical piece relevant only to its period, it's more universal than that. It's a book about sex, death and power, using WW2 and the fear of Soviet nukes as mere channels for those three primal things. We will always feel sexual desire, we will always know power, we will always fear death. Gravity's Rainbow will remain relevant.

File: and.jpg (17KB, 256x389px) Image search: [Google]

17KB, 256x389px

>>9447837
I think a lot of the great works in the past two centuries are doomed to disappear.

I just know no-one will want to read a 900pg tome about a aristocratic woman, unless it has robots, spaceships and easy to swallow themes

>>9447837
the paranoid worldview is a fundamental part of the american psyche and will persist throughout the future in new variations. there's a good chance north korea and islamic terrorist groups will get their hands on nukes soon and the nuclear paranoia will revive anew

What are the essential topics you have to manage before reading GR?