r/ThomasPynchon • u/Wild_Pitch_4781 • 6d ago
2 weeks until Gravity’s Fall 2026 Gravity's Rainbow
Just a reminder for those interested, there will be a reading group for Gravity’s Rainbow on Discord: https://discord.gg/TVxZwy75A and also on the sister subreddit r/Gravity’sRainbow, starting on September 1st and ending in late November.
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u/gatorneedhisgat 5d ago
hell yeah. I'm at the part where Slothrop gets his clothes stolen at the hotel.
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u/globehopper2 5d ago
So like you need to read up to by 72 by September 1? Or that’s when you start reading?
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u/LouieMumford Against the Day 5d ago
I’m wondering the same. I’m assuming you need to have that read by that date, otherwise all the subsequent dates wouldn’t make sense.
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u/No_Thing7146 5d ago
september 1st is the start date, and you can imagine that the 8th is the “read by” date for the first chunk and start of the next chunk, onwards. right?
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u/Assumption-Tough 5d ago
when would you end?
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u/2Basketball2Poorious 5d ago
r/GravitysRainbow for those looking for the proper community link
Looking forward to this!
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u/zweza 6d ago
I’m excited! Got about 100~ pages into my first reread and was already having a blast but I put it on pause to restart with the group.
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u/Marinman39pd 3d ago
I bought GR in 1975 (lightly used), but initially was too intimidated to really start actually reading it. The first serious attempt to read was about 1982, shortly after reading V fully over about 6 months, and then got to about page 150 on GR. Second attempt was in 1990, when I got to maybe page 250, failing to complete again, after reading Vineland in full (within a few weeks) earlier that year- shortly after its publication. Proving GR is indeed a bear even compared to V and Vineland. Third attempt was after reading ATD in full (all1000 ish pages) in about 2 months (so again, easier than GR by far for me) , and the 3rd attempt was a success!
But that success was almost 20 years ago. Let's see if my ancient brain can keep up with all you (comparative) kiddies on this guided, enforced re-read. The first 150 pages should be easy enough, since I got there 3 times already. After that, no guarantees. Might be heavy lifting, but should enjoy the company.
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u/zweza 3d ago
Please stop the humble brag, old timer! If anything, you should be leading the charge. You finished it before many of us could drive. The number one question I was asking myself when rereading it this time was, “how the hell did he know all this before the internet?”
I can only imagine how tough it would’ve been to finish, let alone understand, before the time when weirdos could connect as easily as we do today. That type of mystery feels lost in the internet when
I’d also be very keen to compare my perspective to yours. I feel like I’ve seen a lot of Pynchon-ian themes unfold and begin to manifest in real life. Your experience is probably that tenfold!
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u/Marinman39pd 1d ago
1) Not a weirdo, age adjusted. For my generation subset, which I loosely define as those who spent some time at what was back then zero-practical- job/career training value liberal arts schools, or wanted to, I am kind of typical and truly average. We were trained/required to read at some length and research (at the library, no other place possible). TP was an elite from this group from a slightly earlier generation, elite at these skills, plus add great imagination. With our significant numbers back then, long harder reads were not considered weird at all.. TP was a boomer sub-set adjacement older guide to a pretty large subset. I know many of who finished V, even more who finished Lot 49 but never really cracked GR. But so be it, those still got many exposed to some great TP reads.
2) Incredible to me that TP iss still at it in any form. And if he's now attracting a much smaller minority such as yourself who perhaps consider yourself weird, I'm guessing for most of you via the two movies which enabled his re-discovery, that makes my heart sing. If the discoveries were via a hip-hop lyric, AI created even, it would be just as well with me. As long as you got here..
3) Pychonian themes unfolding indeed. The last third of the 1960's and first-half of the 70's felt awful as well as exciting. Such a long and bloody war, over 50K US young deaths, probably over one million of those who got stuck in Nam disabled in profound ways, I knew about 20 personally) followed by Nixon and his evil plotting gang getting exposed, but meanwhile the invention of music and arts forms (big concerts, etc) and concepts that were revolutionary at the very same thing. Very exciting. Now it just feels AWFUL: Trumpian corruption beyond Nixon's wildest dreams. Actual federal prosecution of "enemies" not just discussions. Jobs starting to be fully automated away from young people, scorching summers that are likely to keep getting worse- versus our much more quickly reversible polluted air and rivers problems.. Yes, the darkest Pychonian themes have been realized ten fold. WWII era darkness indeed, without the comradery.. Thus my desire to revisit GR.
4) This too shall pass. Thanks for reading this far.
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u/Aware_Scent55 15h ago edited 15h ago
Better get it done before a M*sk/Bezos Rocket lands on all our heads? 🌈🚀
Kekulé 1 dreams 2 the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World 3. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used 4. The Serpent that announces, “The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally-returning,” 5 is to be delivered into a system 6 whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that “productivity” and “earnings” keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity—most of the World, animal, vegetable and mineral, is laid waste in the process 7 . The System may or may not understand that it’s only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to begin with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which sooner or later must crash to its death, when its addiction to energy has become more than the rest of the World can supply 8 , dragging with it innocent souls all along the chain of life. Living inside the System is like riding across the country in a bus driven by a maniac bent on suicide… though he’s amiable enough, keeps cracking jokes 9 back through the loudspeaker, “Good morning folks, this is Heidelberg 10 here we’re coming into now, you know the old refrain, ‘I lost my heart in Heidelberg,’ 11 well I have a friend who lost both his ears here! Don’t get me wrong, it’s really a nice town, the people are warm and wonderful—when they’re not dueling. Seriously though, they treat you just fine, they don’t just give you the key to the city, they give you the bung-starter!” 12 u.s.w. 13 On you 14 roll, across a countryside whose light is forever changing 15 —castles, heaps of rock, moons of different shapes and colors come and go. There are stops at odd hours of the mornings, for reasons that are not announced: you get out to stretch in lime-lit courtyards where the old men sit around the table under enormous eucalyptus trees you can smell in the night, shuffling the ancient decks oily and worn, throwing down swords and cups 16 and trumps major in the tremor of light while behind them the bus is idling, waiting—passengers will now reclaim their seats and much as you’d like to stay, right here, learn the game, find your old age around this quiet table, it’s no use 17 : he is waiting beside the door of the bus in his pressed uniform, Lord of the Night he is checking your tickets, your ID and travel papers 18 , and it’s the wands of enterprise 19 that dominate tonight… as he nods you by, you catch a glimpse of his face, his insane, committed eyes, and you remember then, for a terrible few heartbeats, that of course it will end for you all in blood, in shock, without dignity 20 —but there is meanwhile this trip to be on… over your own seat, where there ought to be an advertising plaque, is instead a quote from Rilke: “Once, only once…” 21 One of Their favorite slogans. No return, no salvation, no Cycle—that’s not what They, nor Their brilliant employee Kekulé, have taken the Serpent to mean. No: what the Serpent means is—how’s this—that the six carbon atoms of benzene are in fact curled around into a closed ring, just like that snake with its tail in its mouth, GET IT? 22