Gravity's rainbow

Other rockets you stupid fuck

In the time you're going to spend analyzing individual sentences of a pointless fucking meme book, you could read shit that will change your mind and soul forever.

You could read Balzac or Dostoevsky or Shaw and start a dialogue with yourself that you will carry with you for life. Or you could read this and ask "on page 197 what did he mean by 'ZYZM BLORP!' Was it a postmodernism?? do I need to read Ulysses to understand this?"

>>9492325
So back then you compared the sound of rockets to the sound of other rockets?

>>9492334
There's just nothing now that compares to it. That is what he is saying.

>>9492329
Just the first sentence, haven't read the book (only "V", "Lot 49", "Inherent Vice"). Have read a lot of Dostojevski, and he's probably my favorite author. I just had an autistic sperg over a sentence I read and thought was very cool.

>>9492329
Sadly this

>>9492342
Ok. The way I read the sentence was that back then you could compare the screaming to "something", but not today.

>>9492344
That's clearly two sentences.

Come on man.

>>9492348
I almost exclusively read old classics, but for some reason got stuck in this sentence of a book I haven't read. I have even published a novel in my own country, and got exactly one (good) review. Sold ca 200 copys.

>>9492353
My mistake.

>>9492329
>>9492348
>muh deep meanings and contemplation
You don't want to read literature.You want to read philosophy.

>>9492434
OP here. Can't really blame them for the aggresivnes. It's was a weird question anyway.

>>9492355
tell me your name and you might sell another one. Swedish?

>>9492463
Close. Don't dare to post name

>>9492481
is it translated? if your language is nordic you could just write a bunch of words in your language (all lower case letters) and I'll be able to spot your name among the words since I'll probably know the language

>>9492297
It's so weird you can't compare it to anything.

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>>9492452
Actually, you can and should blame them for aggression. They clearly understand nothing about Gravity's Rainbow. Your question was a question about the meaning of a sentence in a larger network of meanings: a text. It's a valid kind of question as any. >>9492329 claims Gravity's Rainbow is
>a pointless fucking meme book
Whoever you are, anon, you are wrong. You either haven't read GR, or you didn't understand it. So I disagree entirely with every single point in the statement, except one.
>pointless
Gravity's Rainbow has so many points that it's bewildering. Which is why people are literally b-e-w-i-l-d-e-r-e-d by the novel. You can't reduce it down to any one meaning. Depending on which thematic element you focus on, the rest of them change and shift around into new meanings. GR actively resists a final analysis -- but there IS content to analyse. Some things GR is about: the paranoia-act, anti-paranoia, authority, resistance to authority, marginalisation of people who don't serve authority, competing nations, political ideologies, traumatic breakdowns of those ideologies, an appearance of meaninglessness in life (ultimately leading to an obliteration of identity, a fate awaiting the protag. Tyone Slothrop, who becomes figuratively "blasted" and "scattered" across occupied Germany (hence rocket metaphor)), surrendering to the Gravity of despair, transcending the pull of that Gravity with what else but transcendental love, companionship, faith in others, non-solipsism and last but not least a radical disregard of ***postmodernity itself***. .... People claim that Pynchon's a postmodernist, but I actually believe he's a critic of postmodernism through postmodernism itself. He shows us in GR, among other things, what happens to someone who takes postmodernity as a serious stance: they lose any ground to stand on, experience too much existential pain, and turn to the last remaining pillar of support -- that is, they surrender to some other grand narrative entirely. (Calvinism, fatalism, Nazism, Behaviouralism are exemplified in various characters like Katje, Blicero, Pointsman especially). While it mught seem like Pynchon is saying you can choose to see either a grand narrative, or no narrative at all, it's a false dichotomy and a bad reading. There IS a way out. So, there are tons of points. Anon doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about.
>fucking
I guess there's some fucking in GR.
>meme book
Meme, but not in a negative sense. For it to be a meme in a bad sense, it would have to hold no substance. But it holds substance, stacks of it. Anon has either not read GR, or, having read it, did not understand a sprinkling of what they read, then showed dick-headedness and arrogance by claiming GR is pointless. What the absolute fuck. then again, I guess this is /lit/, isn't it.
>>9492348 is not true, ofc.
>>9492434
>You don't want to read literature.You want to read philosophy.
GR fulfills both of these.

rockets dont scream do they? arent they relatively silent.
on here it suggest that maybe he was discusing the sirens
http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_3-7

>>9492329
sure is reddit in here
>>9492297
Just read the damn book

>>9492329
CRASH

>>9492297
i dunno, the sound has happened so often that now its not something you can compare it to, you now compare other things to it. growing accustomed to the sounds of rockets shredding through air.

>>9492814
Hey, I never did consider that it was the sirens. This is good information.

>>9492510
Den er skrevet på norsk, og er veldig rar og "postmoderne". Fått meg noen bra ligg på den, da.

>>9492802
But what did they compare it to before?

>>9492811
OP again. What did you think of "V"? I adored it, but have a hard time explaing why. Cyborg-woman, Kilroy, animal in Antarctis, Malta - something about the conspiracy just completely drew me in.

>>9492811
This is really similar to my reading. I got the feeling after CoL49 Pynchon was really critiquing post-modernism and his focus on paranoia was an emotional response to what the uncertainty of the movement was doing to him.

>>9492811
Incredible post

>>9492963
It's presumably a V2 rocket, which was a new development at the time (I think), but was definitely a new development from the V1, which might have been the more common sound to listen for, among other ballistics. The V2 were supersonic. You were exploded, and THEN you heard them coming apparently. So there is nothing to compare the sound to (where the sounds available for comparison consist of ballistic missiles you could actually hear before they arrived).

Unless, of course, >>9492814 is right and the "screaming" is just the sound of the air-raid sirens.

>>9492986
So, with the V2-rockets, you would already be dead of the explotion, and then naturally wouldn't be able to compare it to other rockets screaming (or do anything by that matter)?

>>9492998
Yeah, perhaps.

>>9492960
Schysst. Kul att du blivit publicerad!

>>9492984
Crying was the first Pynchon I read, but while it was entry level, I didn't understand half a 5 c. piece of it. Having read Bleeding Edge and GR afterwards, I started to get more of a retrospective idea.i should re-read Crying.

>>9492975
I haven't read V. For some reason I don't feel so keen on it... I get the premonition (I don't know if this is the right feeling to have or not) that it's just going to be a G's-Rainbow-lite. Would you say it's worth it? I was going to read Mason &Dixon next, regardless of the fact I'm not even an American, but an Australian...

>>9493027
Takker. Må ha vært litt flaks. Forleggeren sa at manuset gjorde ham sint fordi han ikke kunne avgjore om det var genialt eller bare noe tull, men heldigvis satsa han på genialitet istedenfor, haha.

>>9492349
Yes, that is correct. The sentence implies there was something to compare it to before. I haven't read the book so I can't tell you what it is, but your grammatical intuition is correct.

>>9492814
Rockets are incredibly loud, where the fuck did you get the idea that they're silent?

>>9493032
It was my first Pynchon, read it before the days of common internet, when everything still felt adventorous, so I just have a love for it. I even went to Malta because of the book, and fucked my girlfriend in the Adriatic sea. Something about the world history, philosophy, the mystery of the conspiracy and the "v" combined with my own adventures was so damn compelling.

>>9493034
An the question still stands, what was the "something" that doesn't exist today.

hasn't anyone in this thread ever puzzled out the meaning of a sentence? hasn't anyone read poetry? this is what it's all about. the ambiguities of syntax. you don't enjoy literature if you denigrate the OP's question. you're no better than the YA fans you complain about: all you care about is plot and character representation. you want cozy bullshit to project yourself into, and you've never felt the unease of reading a sentence that confronts you with the alienating function of all language. you take everything you read for granted, and probably just read for show, if at all.

that said: OP, you're right. this is a strange sentence, because it seems to me that the whole terror of the rocket is precisely that it eliminates all sensory data with which it might be compared: the screaming occupies the whole of your hearing. but pynchon implies a prior moment where this wasn't the case. i wonder of that refers to previous rockets, or to an instant of the screaming previous to the start of the book. of course the latter is illusory; there is nothing previous; the screaming is like a big bang, behind which we cannot peak. yet the text opens with a projection of just such an anterior.

i think you're on to something, OP. i would keep reading with this in mind.

>>9493045
I don't want you to feel weird or anything, but reading the first half of your post gave me the most intense headfucker of a deja-vu moment I've ever experienced in my life. I actually physically sat back in my chair and blinked. I swear to got I've read what you typed somewhere recently. Whatever...

V. sounds as good as anything Pynchon has written. Well I guess I'll give it a go, at some point.

>>9493058
this is agreeable

>>9493058
In the off chance you're genuine, thanks for the reply! I'm honestly just puzzled by the meaning like I sometimes are with poetry, yes.

>>9493076
Haha, wtf. Well, Malta and fucking a girl in the sea will for ever be my connotations to Pynchon. And now maybe my atustic question about screaming bombs.

>>9492297
Because it's taking place in a dream

>>9493092

i study postmodern american lit and the romantics so i'm deadly serious. language is all i have left

Nice thread. Would you guys recommend just jumping into GR? TCoL49 is the only Pynchon I've read.

>>9493830
OP here. Gonna get my copy tomorrow actually! From what I understand it would aybe be best to stat with "V".

>>9493552
Who would you recommend other than Pynchon?

>>9492297
The scream is the sado-masochist scream of the people who die and kill in war. War has existed as long as civilization, but the V2 rocket was unlike anything made my man prior, hence "it has happened before, but never like this". The ironic part of all this is how really the V2 rocket was just a footnote to the atomic bomb (notice how slothrop finds a newspaper saying Hiroshima was bombed near the end of the book). Notice the Warner Von Braun quote saying that things can't be destroyed, but only transfered. Von Braun was a nazi scientist used by the Americans after the war to create the rockets to send the world into the cold war. Hence the V2 threat doesn't die, but is only reincarnated into something even worse. The boom was written at the height of the cold war, so it is ironic how the characters of the book see the V2 as the ultamate weapon, while Pynchon readers knew that wat was comming down the road was infinitely worse.

>>9493039
Dammit... the V2 flew and fell supersonically, meaning that you wouldn't hear it before it fell. It would strike and explode (loud) and in that explosion the sound of its approach would also strike. I'll guess that you've not read GR, but this phenomenon, of silent death suddenly hitting, is the subject of numerous meditations.

>>9493830
It's fine. Don't start with V.

>>9492297
This is the equivalent of consulting the strategy guide immediately after pressing start at the title screen.
Try reading further dipshit.

>>9493830
I jumped into GR after I'd read TCoL49 twice. Just be prepared to be in over your head. Don't bother trying to suss out every detail or grasp everything that's happening, or it'll be too much. Just read with persistance and try your best. It helps to keep notes of character names and when they appear, since some will be introduced and then not be encountered again for hundreds of pages. I found the NYT review from 1973 helpful in understanding some of the ideas (http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-rainbow.html) but didn't have a lot of other helps in reading it.

I mean, read it like any other novel... for all the criticism of Pynchon writing flat and emotionless characters, I still had the feeling like I "knew" a number of them, and I was often deeply moved by their plight.

I compare it to any other difficult text that has a mountain of scholarship behind it (say, Paradise Lost or Ulysses). The burden to grasp everything as you read it the first time will be overwhelming and the experiences will not be worthwhile. Read it first with your heart, then with your head. There's more pleasure that way and I think you'll be able to genuinely enjoy the book more and then return to sort out the details.

>>9493033
>>9493027
>>9492960
You guys like Turbonegro? I was talking to a friend the other day how absolutely unknown they are in our country but it must be considered sheepish to like them in Norway, like, it's the equivalent to listening to washed out pop rock, if you can understand me.

>>9493039
From the book itself, where one of the constant things that get bought up about the rocket (and elsewhere) it's that you can only hear it after it hit.

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>>9494276
>gaming analogies

>>9493039

In September 1944, the Germans started sending V2 rockets to London. The V2 was like a modern ballistic missile. It was much bigger than a doodlebug and was more dangerous but it was not as scary as the doodlebug because it was so fast that you never saw it or heard it - until it landed with a loud "whomf" noise. If it landed on you, you would not have heard it - you would be dead anyway

umm i got it from history, even the one before it only made the noise of a lorry engine hardly a screaming sound

>>9493933

DeLillo is the granddaddy, but if you want someone who is inheriting and working over the postmodern problematic check out Tom McCarthy. He's British but still working in this tradition, I think.

>>9494411

Also E. L. Doctorow's novels shed light on a very overlooked aspect of the American postmodern, its grappling with history despite and anxiety over its absence. Homer & Langley is a newer novel that deals with this, but Ragtime is the classic of the postmodern from scholars call "historiographic metafiction."

>>9494276
Calm down. Maybe I wasn't clear, but I was intrigued by a sentence of a book I (then) had not starded to or intended to read.

>>9494282
For me they are mostly like a joke, but it may be because I'm not a fan of hard rock.

>>9494281
Well put! It's what I did reading Ulysses and my first Shakespeare (A midsummernight's dream).

>>9494411
Thanks. I've read White noise, but nothing pf McCarthy.

>>9494850
Yeah, I'm more into their punk era but I've grown to like the flashier stuff (I still see them as largely a joke though, meta-rock'n'roll I guess?). Sorry for derailing the thread, it's just that the only other norwegians I have any contact with are through the Turbojugend group.

>>9492329
>Balzac
>Muh deep chubby coffeebean cruncher

>>9492297
I think it's about the obliteration of anything but the moment: it has happened before, but that moment cannot be accessed now for comparison because there's a rocket screaming, promising total annihilation. To be fair, this is a reading based on knowing what comes throughout the book, but I think the sentences are supposed to confuse you, to make you feel uncertain about anything but the presence of the rocket, that's the impression I think you're bound to get if you just read it as if it were an action happening (as in, if you were to read it and not allow yourself to analyse it).

>>9494875
No problem. Seems like a lot of cultural export from Norway are strange for me but well known in other countries. That said, the stories about the band members are kinda interesting I think.

>>9494929
Nice. Thank you! looking forward to read Rainbow. It was later on my reading list, but I have to start it now!

>>9494973
Only things I'm aware of is norwegian punk rock and black metal and I like both things to different extents. What are some good norwegian authors?

>>9492811
Great post. Keep on going.

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>>9492297
S I R E N S
I
R
E
N
S

THE SCREAMING IS NOT A ROCKET, BUT THE AIR RAID SIREN, WHICH IS RAISED AS A RESULT OF ROCKETS FALLING RATHER THAN AIRPLANES DROPPING BOMBS, THE TWO EXPERIENCES BEING INCOMPARABLE DUE TO THE SILENCE OF THE ROCKETS VS THE NOISE OF THE AIRPLANES/AIRPLANE BOMBS

>>9495704
This is correct

>>9495197
I only read the classics form Norway. People are praising Knausgård and My struggle, but for me it's just a very long Facebook-selfie. Hamsun is my absolute favorite, perhaps because I love Dostojevski.

>>9495704
To the point and interesting. (Maybe drop the caps lock, though)

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>>9492329

>he thinks dostoevsky is better than pynchon

>>9498495
Please tell me this isn't Bloom

>>9498511
nabokov senpai

>>9498561
That makes more sense, I've read that Russians don't really rate Dosto and can't understand why we Westerners all freak out about him

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>we Westerners

I'm on the last 100 pages and fuck this shit has gotten crazy, why is slothrop everywhere, why did a monkey try to bomb him, why was he dressed like a woman, who the fuck are all these characters

>>9492811
hi thomas, hb

>>9496765
Oh fuck I forgot about Hamsun and Ibsen. Only read Hunger, I remember really enjoying it but it's been a while. Ibsen is great, but then again, I'm the biggest of plebs when it comes to dramaturgy.

>>9499750
If you go back to Hamsun, my favorite is Pan. And Ibsen's Peer Gynt is batshit insane, in the good way. I have no idea how they sound in english, though. Would be fun to read Peer Gynt in english.

>>9499610
(You)

>>9492811
>>9493058
More people like this should be on here posting more often,please post more often anons

Gravity's Rainbow is a book

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>>9492297

>>9501548
Whoa.

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>>9501445
Agree. Nice to see my question led to some interesting perspectives

>>9500673
>Peer Gynt chronicles the journey of its titular character from the Norwegian mountains to the North African desert. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, "its origins are romantic, but the play also anticipates the fragmentations of emerging modernism" and the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones."[1] Peer Gynt has also been described as the story of a life based on procrastination and avoidance

This seems like my kind of thing, I'll be reading it as soon as I finish one of the books I'm reading

>>9502388
Prepare for a wild ride and to meet the Knappestoper (the Button-molder).

>>9502347
Great thread bar the autists desu

Somewhat related and maybe a theme for a new thread is lines that fills you with awe or mysterious wonder, but have a hard time explaining why. An example from music is this verse:

A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!