Last summer, at an English bookshop in Sofia, Bulgaria, I come across a used paperback copy of Gravity’s Rainbow. Eyeing it, I felt haunted by two earlier-in-life attempts at reading Thomas Pynchon’s pièce de résistance. Both tries left me feeling like a literary version of a failed “Squid Game” contestant.
Gravity’s Rainbow belongs to a small club of books in modern literature that are among the most synonymous with reader abandonment. A list of such novels might include Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace), The Recognitions (William Gaddis) and Finnegan’s Wake (James Joyce). Bolstered by the confidence of having finished the last two - the first is said to require a scholar’s knowledge of ancient Irish mythology along with Joyce’s entire body of work - I took the paunchy but portable copy of “Gravity’s Rainbow” to the counter. The sticker price in Bulgarian Lev equaled about three US dollars. However, the true cost was in mental commitment: I was going back in, determined to make three a charm.
Over the next six and a half weeks, I read. In coffeehouses, on park benches, in wine bars, restaurants and hotel rooms. In Europe, Brazil and North America.
Global travel is one of the pros – or cons, depending on your point of view – of being a full-time touring musician. Occasionally, my nation-du-jour would conveniently line up with a scene in the book, such as England, Germany and France. Most often, I was in motion: On a tour bus, on trains, on ferries and several trans-continental flights. This felt especially fitting, as motion and its physical properties are an essential component of the novel.
Having safely completed my mission, I can now accurately report that reading this book is not comparable to reading any other. Neither is describing the experience.
II
To get through Gravity’s Rainbow, one must toss aside all typical reader expectations. For instance, most novels start out as strange new terrain until, after the first couple chapters or so, things usually become clearer. Any lingering confusion tends to dissipate as we read further along. The reverse is true in the case of this nearly thousand-page tome.
New characters are dropped in without introduction. Complex situations are narrated without orientation. Continuity from one section to the next is the exception, not the rule. Adding to the challenge is a consistent infusion of backstories. Even the backstories have backstories.
This all reflects Pynchon’s method across his work but especially in this controversial, National Book Award-winning epic.
Just as one should develop a taste for mild cocktails before diving into a strong single-malt scotch, one should orient the palette to Pynchon’s unique writing style before attempting to read Gravity’s Rainbow. A good place to start would be slightly arduous but far less formidable Pynchon fare, such as 2013’s eerily prophetic, post 9-11, dark web adventure, Bleeding Edge, as well as 2009’s Inherent Vice. Or, among his earlier novels, The Crying of Lot 49, which comes in at a more manageable 183 pages.
Incidentally, while there is probably less known about Pynchon than most authors, being someone who brings the term “reclusive writer” to levels previously unimaginable, here’s one of the few things we do know: He appreciates the films of Paul Thomas Anderson. So much so in fact, that Pynchon gave tacit approval, communicated stealthily via his literary agency, for Anderson to lend his filmmaking skills to “Inherent Vice” (2014). Anderson’s film is another proverbial toe to dip into the world of Pynchon. However, I cannot overstate how much of a difference it makes to have read the book as well as Bleeding Edge before taking on Gravity’s Rainbow.
One more prerequisite would be David Foster Wallace, one of Pynchon’s most notable enthusiasts. In lieu of Wallace’s larger works, there are short stories such as Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Of course, if one is feeling extra-ambitious, there is his aforementioned mid-‘90s magnum opus, Infinite Jest, which slogs along at a snail’s pace for hundreds of pages, twisting the brain into cruel Cirque du Soleil contortions until midway, when everything (almost) begins to makes sense and the story coagulates like previously mismatched jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Gravity’s Rainbow, however, has no such “Ah ha!” moments.
On occasion, I’d comfort myself by thinking “This isn’t rocket science.” Just then, the narration would veer into a lecture on jet propulsion theory, graduate-level statistics, parabolas, Poisson Distributions and other aerospace related topics with an MIT textbook-level accuracy. Literally, rocket science.
III
At this point, you may be wondering what, if any, purpose there may be to take on Gravity’s Rainbow, beyond book-bragging rights and overcoming the reader’s equivalent of a hot sauce eating challenge. There are several, starting with Pynchon’s deft use of language.
Gravity’s Rainbow is a rich verbal stew that could double as course material on creative writing. Much like the more abstract lyrics of Bowie, Bush (Kate, that is) and other experimental songwriters – think of John Lennon’s lines from The Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus” – one doesn’t need to know exactly what’s going on to simply enjoy the words. It is hard not to appreciate Pynchon’s onslaught of acronyms, allusions and obscure but effective phrases plucked from the darkest corners of English and occasionally German, French and other international tongues.
Furthermore, moments of mental disarray are broken up by wildly entertaining left turns. On the one hand, scholarly scientific facts and PhD-worthy literary references abound. On the other hand, Pynchon seems equally appreciative of children’s television on a Saturday morning, particularly the Mel Blanc/Chuck Jones/Carl Stalling era of Looney Tunes animation. The author seems to be hinting as much, not only with Bugs Bunny-like slapstick, but a key character who has a distinctive tattoo of Porky Pig.
Mixed in with the cartoon-like craziness are inappropriate jokes and comedic songs worthy of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Additionally, there are awe-inspiring visualizations: Colorful skies, lush landscapes, translucent oceans and other natural elements uniquely portrayed with extraordinary vividness. Conversely, there are lewd scenes so shocking that they could rattle the most hardened readers.
On that note, if I had to pick the most disgusting scene of any book I've read, previously it might have been one involving a rat. Readers of American Psycho (Brett Easton Ellis) will know exactly what I’m referring to. However, that’s been displaced by the most infamous section of Gravity's Rainbow which – spoiler alert – involves a man crawling through the depths of a public toilet in search of a lost harmonica. Making matters (or matter) worse, the above is far from the only scene concerning bodily waste. However, most pages fail to rise – or rather, sink – to that level.
All of which is to say that in addition to extraordinary patience and a willingness to forgo any sense of instant gratification, potential readers of Gravity’s Rainbow are encouraged to bring along a strong stomach. However, there are far more substantive reasons to consider taking the plunge (if you’ll pardon the pun).
IV
Beyond being an artistic work of brilliance, albeit one patently offensive to the senses, Pynchon’s oversized pocket paperback functions as a lengthy, top-secret intelligence doc. Having worked in the high-tech inner sanctum of Boeing (the still dominant aerospace giant) and served in the US military – add these to the list of precious few facts known about the life of the author – Pynchon combined deft literary skills with firsthand knowledge of classified subject matter.
The result is an exposé that reads like the opening sequence to Monty Python’s televised sketch comedy: A kaleidoscopic, comedic collage of images both decipherable and nonsensical. Many of the book’s revelations are encrypted in countercultural code, to be explained shortly. Additionally, the book has all the ambiguity, and thus plausible deniability, of 1968’s game changer of a film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
While we’re on the subject of Stanley Kubrick’s space-tinged cinematic landmark – not to mention Monty Python’s debut on British television the following year in 1969 – here is some unsolicited advice for readers bold enough to embark upon the literary voyage of Gravity's Rainbow: It is useful to consider Pynchon’s masterwork in the context of arts and entertainment, from the highly prestigious to the critically panned, during the era surrounding its first printing. Gravity's Rainbow was published in 1973, a time marked by an omnipresent pushing of artistic limits of form, of style and of taste. Kubrick – arguably at his most groundbreaking in the mid ‘60s through mid ‘70s – represented a high water mark for movies. However, various levels of experimentation found their way into the hands of far less lauded practitioners than Kubrick. For example, let’s consider the borscht-belt flavored big screen stylings of Mel Brooks.
Case in point, and surprisingly relatable to Gravity’s Rainbow, is Brooks’ 1974 spoof of the American Western, “Blazing Saddles.” Although overshadowed by lowbrow moments – it is perhaps best remembered for an extended fart joke – Brooks’ badly-reviewed box office smash and Pynchon’s critically-acclaimed cult novel both contain more than their fair share of gross humor. In addition, they both have deeper qualities in common, beyond pushing the boundaries of taste.
One example is the experimental and, dare I say, artistic finale of Brooks’ Western satire which (spoiler alert) depicts key characters from the old West bursting through a modern day movie screen. One minute, the actors appear as small town settlers along the Western frontier of the 1800s. The next , they are transmogrified into out-of-place intruders on horseback, straight from America’s past, interrupting a Hollywood premiere in 1974: The debut of (naturally) “Blazing Saddles.” Pynchon’s post-Joycean Homeric undertaking contains a similar experiment (spoiler alert, again): At a later point in the novel, which primarily takes place on European soil in the 1940s, it is suggested that all the action observed so far is emanating from a cinematic screen roughly at the time of the book’s launch, a term used figuratively and literally (rocketry looming large throughout the story).
Additionally, Mel Brooks and Thomas Pynchon, working only a year apart from one another, used satire-laced shock humor as a weapon to combat a difficult societal problem - racism. In both “Blazing Saddles” and Gravity's Rainbow, buffoonish Caucasian characters are depicted spewing racial epithets too taboo to quote here. These walking displays of Darwinian deficiencies are contrasted with intelligent, likable protagonists of color.
Consequently, some may take offense. It is also possible to laugh at such stylings for the wrong reasons. This is especially true in the case of “Blazing Saddles,” a film with legions of diehard, dialogue-quoting fans drawn to the film’s racially provocative humor but seemingly uninterested in recognizing the greater sociological points being made.
It is difficult to imagine a book as provocative as Gravity’s Rainbow receiving the same high-profile release by a major book publisher in 2022. Similarly, “Blazing Saddles” would likely not pass muster with any major Hollywood studio today. Likewise, if Stanley Kubrick were alive, the notion of him receiving carte blanche and a blank check to produce “2001: A Space Odyssey” in this day and age seems more fictional than the nebulous, slow moving space-saga he depicted on screen.
The above works of art were beneficiaries of a bold artistic atmosphere that marked the late ‘60s through the ‘70s but no longer holds true. Bold experimentation was, if not exactly embraced, at least accepted by audiences and artistic gatekeepers alike. It was put to great use by daring creators of books, films, photography, visual art and –not to be overlooked – music.
V
As someone musically-minded, Pynchon’s mini-mountain of print consistently caused me to think of Frank Zappa. In particular, I was reminded of an album considered quintessential by most Zappa fans: “Overnight Sensation,” which happened to be released during 1973, the same year as “Gravity’s Rainbow.”
“Overnight Sensation” is so “far out” and weird as to become borderline nonsensical at times, yet created with an engineer’s meticulousness and requiring methodical organization. This description equally applies to Gravity’s Rainbow.
Both Pynchon’s novel and Frank Zappa’s pair of LPs – 1974’s “Apostrophe” was culled from the same studio sessions as “Overnight Sensation” (the two are often packaged together) – combine merciless social commentary, blistering humor and shameless sex. It’s safe to say Zappa’s raunchy track “Dirty Love” could serve as a soundtrack to some of the novel’s saucier scenes.
Furthermore, these are products that purposely and purposefully go over the heads of most mainstream consumers. Yet both contain occasional outlier sections that are surprisingly accessible.
For instance, Zappa’s onslaughts of musical oddities are broken up by hummable fare such as “Cosmic Debris” (“Apostrophe”) and “Montana” (“Overnight Sensation”), both featuring toe-tapping grooves and stellar guest vocals by, yes, Tina Turner, whose album credit was removed under pressure from the angrily disapproving Ike Turner. Similarly, in 1979, Zappa would release a landmark double-album, “Joe’s Garage” that can be described as “challenging” and “bizarre” by most standards. However, its title track is a fun, repetitive earworm, so catchy that – as of this writing – it is Zappa’s #1 most streamed song on iTunes.
Meanwhile, mixed in with the madness of Gravity’s Rainbow are a few token easy-to-follow storylines. One example is an adorable but illicit affair between two young lovers, Roger Mexico and Jessica Swanlake, which seems to foreshadow a romcom in the style of any film starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney. Even more surprising, however, is that Gravity’s Rainbow includes more than a few Zappa-adjacent musical references.
For instance, one of the book’s characters, Gustav (likely named after Gustav Mahler), is a classical composer. Gustav and his colleagues bicker over the merits of post-war, contemporary classical music, particularly 12-Tone, serial composition (largely identified with “modern music” pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen). Not only are these scenes based on an actual decades-long debate that continues to simmer within the classical music community, but Frank Zappa – who incorporated 12-Tone techniques into his own compositions – was a vocal defender of the genre’s most influential practitioners.
Zappa’s modern classical cred was sealed when he once yelled “Sit down, assholes!” at a crowd of tuxedoed concertgoers fleeing for the exits in terror during a dissonant symphonic performance by Pierre Boulez, a preeminent serialist. Boulez would return the favor by conducting several of Zappa’s orchestral pieces.
By referencing 20th Century serial composition, and capturing the dialogue surrounding its controversy, the author seems to be acknowledging at least two parallels between this area of music and his own work:
1) Just as the serial compositions of Boulez, Stockhausen, Edgard Varèse and other heroes of Frank Zappa (not to mention Zappa’s own orchestral pieces) are difficult for most listeners, the writing of Thomas Pynchon – and this novel in particular – is challenging for most readers.
2) Modern classical’s removal of conventional norms – from melodies based on familiar patterns (scales, triads etc) to traditional chord movements (particularly cadences that resolve dissonance into consonance) – seems to mirror the removal of conventional cause and effect within the pages of Gravity’s Rainbow.
Additionally, Pynchon’s surprisingly deep knowledge of music extends beyond classical. For instance, there are a number of blues, jazz and folk references, as well as original lyrics that feel like pub singalongs. Meanwhile, there are inside jokes that musicians will especially appreciate, such as detailed descriptions of nonsensical notation and impossible key signatures. My personal favorite: A chaotic live performance of Joseph Haydn’s Concerto for Kazoos (Haydn lived and died centuries before the invention of the kazoo).
In fact, there are likely enough musical references in Gravity’s Rainbow to fill an average book chapter. At the same time, it is just one of a myriad topics explored purely in passing. Such subjects function like an entertaining but unessential bit player in a movie.
So if not music, what exactly is the “main focus” of this novel?
VI
It’s no stretch to say that Gravity’s Rainbow effectively challenges the political and societal norms of Western civilization in the Modern age.
Much of Gravity’s Rainbow is a strange mashup of the 1940s and 1960s. Amid fear of a secretive German rocket, the Sexual Revolution, decades before the Summer of Love, is in full bloom: Wild orgies, deviant sadomasochism and promiscuousness without much use for limits. LSD, hashish and other narcotics are used at a level that would put ‘60s counterculture icons such as Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters to shame.
Rather than the Woodstock generation being shown at their most libertine excess, however, such hedonistic escapades are carried out by the fictional parents (and in some cases, grandparents) of the Baby Boomers, under the shadow of World War II. Sex and drugs, before rock’n’roll.
LSD plays a particularly sizable role in the book. One example is a human character named Säure Bummer; “Säure” being the German word for acid, while “bummer” - still widely in use - is street slang for something bad. This translates, of course, to “bad acid.” Additional LSD references include vivid hallucinations, psychic mediums and even a fantasy surrogate. Sometimes these depictions veer in and out of “reality” and it is difficult to tell whose perspective we are witnessing.
In this sense, it can feel as though Pynchon is playing mind games with the reader. This is right on par with one of the main subplots of the book: The process of behavioral psychologists experimenting on human subjects. In fact two of the novel’s most memorable characters include a Nobel-Prize obsessed, Pavlov-worshiping head of a British psych lab, Dr Pointsman and his subject since birth, the American soldier Col. Tyrone Slothrop (arguably the main character of the novel).
It is hard not to wonder if the saga of Slothrop may have provided inspiration for the 1990s film “The Truman Show” (starring Jim Carrey). Both are human lab rats straight from the cradle. Both are watched over by behavioral psychiatrists with lucrative government research grants. Both have had the rights to their entire lives sold by their parents to the highest bidder. Both become aware of their covert captivity once they reach adulthood, followed by adventure ensuing with wild escape attempts from their respective protectors (who are, in reality, their captors).
The story of Slothrop, his captors and eventual escape is similarly laced with psychedelic hallucinations, adding to the challenges of distinguishing “reality” from hallucination and imagination. Far more important than what is imagined, however, is what is not.
VII
Gravity’s Rainbow busts the myths of the Second World War – a conflict widely reported at the time via slick US Govt. approved newsreels – as a simple case of the “good guys” versus the “bad guys.” Only in the new millennium has there been anything comparable in widely read popular fiction.
Case in point: As Philip Roth reminded us in a more recent and more traditionally comprehensible work of fiction (2004’s The Plot Against America), there was no shortage of US industry titans, Henry Ford most notably, who would have been all too eager for America follow the example set by Germany’s Third Reich. Meanwhile, virulent antisemitism existed among highly influential Americans such as popular radio host and priest Father Coughlin and aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh.
Coincidentally, in 2022, there have been two high-profile media broadcasts along these lines: “Ultra,” and “The U.S. and the Holocaust.” Both bring to the surface very real but largely buried 1940s plots to influence and even overthrow the US Government on behalf of Hitler’s agenda. Yet prior to Rachel Maddow’s podcast and Ken Burns’ latest documentary, with the backing of NBC and PBS respectively – not to mention Roth’s novel and the recent HBO series it spawned – the lack of awareness of these events among the general public was chilling. Only Gravity’s Rainbow seemed to provide clues, however abstractly.
Even as I write this, high profile Hitler-appreciating, Holocaust-denying Americans are in the news. Had there been more awareness of Nazi Germany’s influence extending to these shores in decades past, it might not be such a shock to see it rearing its ugly head in 2022. Thomas Pynchon – years before Maddow, Burns and Roth – in a manner that required far more decoding - was one of the only public figures willing to offer a source of light shined upon such taboo territory.
VIII
Gravity’s Rainbow cleverly and covertly referenced real life conspiracies, little known to the general public. For instance, Nazi scientists co-opted into the burgeoning US Space Program (“Operation Paper Clip”); The US government sanctioning the study of unwitting US soldiers dosed with LSD (“Edgewood Arsenal Experiments”). Such stories are easily confirmable and researchable today. However, in 1973, revealing such information would place one on a US Government watch list and potentially in danger. Perhaps this helps explain why Pynchon chose to conduct his writing career, with the exception of using his real name, entirely under cloak of anonymity?
Additionally, there are consistent references to IG Farben, the titan of German industry, military and medicine, which had a massive presence in daily life, not unlike Amazon.com today. IG Farben manufactured both Bayer aspirin – from which it made a fortune off US markets during the war – as well as gas for German concentration camp victims.
IG Farben is far from the only example of secretive wartime deals between the US military/industrial complex and Nazi Germany; another is General Electric. Only recently, GE announced it was splitting up into several smaller companies. Had many of us been aware of GE’s activities and associations during the war, it might cause us to think twice about purchasing their snazzy televisions, refrigerators or microwave ovens over the years.
By exposing so many secret revelations of WWII, Pynchon seemed to be indirectly indicting the war that was raging throughout this novel’s birth and publication: Vietnam. As many Vietnam War activists can attest too, speaking out publicly against the conflict, especially with a national publication, could easily place one in the crosshairs of the FBI and/or the CIA. This makes Pynchon’s mysteriousness all the more understandable.
While the Vietnam War was graphically and independently reported (contributing to its unpopularity), Gravity’s Rainbow is one of the few well known examples of WWII receiving proper scrutiny for activity on both sides of the Atlantic.
Even to this day, the typical depiction of WWII by Hollywood has been largely heroic and uncomplicated. Which brings us the subject of film as a medium and its influence on the masses.
IX
Here lies a common link between Gravity’s Rainbow and Infinite Jest: Both feature an independent filmmaker so bizarre and eccentric that Werner Herzog seems boring by comparison.
In each book, the director character (Gerhard von Göll and Dr, James Incandenza, respectively) is a brilliant but highly damaged genius whose work has a lasting negative effect on those directly involved with his films, as well as viewers. Through these characters, Pynchon and Wallace seemed to foreshadow our current moment of mass meltdown by moving image. Gravity’s Rainbow in particular serves as a reminder that the seeds of our current predicaments of division predate the internet.
It seems that the spy-like mystery surrounding Pynchon’s whereabouts, appearance, background and more, as well as his writing in a style difficult for even the most academic of readers to comprehend, may have served as protection against the mass-scale manipulation he was exposing. It is understandable that the sharer of such knowledge could fear for their safety, having risked being seen as one who “knows-too-much” and not wanting to end up like a figurative JFK or Malcolm X (both of whom make appearances in later passages of the novel).
After all, the oddball book known as Gravity’s Rainbow was a virtual whistleblower. This was back when print was the main means of conveying information, long before email or the search engine, although these technologies were in their dawn of development and, according to some theories, hinted at in its pages.
X
Along with hard-to-believe, yet easily confirmable facts pertaining to government, industry and academia, Gravity’s Rainbow contains numerous references to pop culture belief systems that might be described as (to be charitable), “magical thinking.” The Illuminati, tarot cards and astrology make an appearance. So does the I-Ching, an ancient Chinese Taoist text used to predict fortunes and especially popular during the “Age of Aquarius.”
It’s hard not to think about all this in light of our current “post-truth” era, in which large swaths of the population have been made to believe in fictions - cultural, commercial, political, religious and otherwise. Not the least of which is that they should place trust in a fictional dark web figure, Q, who could have fit right into a Pynchon novel.
Adding to the mystique of Gravity’s Rainbow is, as alluded to earlier, Pynchon’s refusal to do interviews, shunning of publicity, avoiding radio and television (other than an animated cameo on The Simpsons - further proof of the revered writer having a passion for cartoons); he doesn’t even have a publicity photo. For this reason, one can only speculate on the author’s motives and intentions.
That said, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Pynchon seemed to be theorizing that much of the general population possess an inability to tell fact from fiction. As a result, systematic perpetrators of real life conspiracies have been able to pull the collective wool over the eyes of millions, causing unnecessary deaths and division while raking in massive profits.
XI
A few final thoughts: In some ways, Pynchon seemed far ahead of his time, not just in terms of exposing political and military/industrial complex associations only recently being brought to light, but also sociologically.
As described earlier, he challenged notions of race relations through slapstick comedy (a quality shared by Mel Brooks). Gravity’s Rainbow also dives deep into nearly forgotten but historically important events, such as Germany’s colonization of Southwest Africa in the late 1800s. I admit not being previously aware that Germany’s much more famous attempt at genocide during WWII was foreshadowed by its near extinction of the African Herero people, in what is now Nambia (this is a historical conflict well worth reading up on).
Also remarkable – especially when considering the fact that we do know Pynchon is a cisgendered, Caucasian male who is straight (he is married to his literary agent, Melanie Jackson, and they have a son, Jackson Pynchon) from a suburban upper middle-class background raised in an era when words like “progressive” and “woke” were literal terms – the LGBTQ characters in Gravity’s Rainbow are exceptionally humanized. The occasional homosexual relationship between characters is portrayed as normal, and even unremarkable. The lack of stigma is more befitting of our own time than the time period surrounding the book’s publication, let alone the 1940s, when much of the story takes place.
Conversely, and on a disappointing note, the novel’s female characters are shallow, one dimensional and in some cases, interchangeable. This became even more evident while reading my follow up book, Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak which, despite being published more than a hundred years ago, includes female characters whose sociopolitical and philosophical intellect is on the same level as any of the men. However, it should be noted that Pynchon seemed to be attempting to make up for this discrepancy in the aforementioned later novels, Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge, both of which feature strong and memorable female protagonists.
One last minute word of advice to daring readers: Much like I always transcribe music by ear, without the aid of someone else’s notation and interpretation (which often seems incorrect), the same is true of study aids; I generally prefer to interpret books completely on my own. However, in this case, I couldn’t help at least glancing at a few reader guides from time to time. This seems especially justified when it comes to the giant cornucopia of content that makes up Gravity’s Rainbow.
There are insightful threads about the novel on Reddit as well as a PynchonWiki, and a Gravity’s Rainbow Study Guide by Course Hero. I found the latter especially useful, simply for its list of characters. After all, this is a novel that outdoes War and Peace in terms of characters with hard to remember and/or multiple names and the challenges of simply remembering who’s who.
Beyond leaving the reader with bragging rights at book clubs and more questions than it answers, Gravity’s Rainbow provides something far more important: A better understanding of the ways of the modern world. By exposing the lack of ethics lurking in the depths of industry, advanced academia, medicine, educational facilities, governments, armed forces and other Western systems, Pynchon’s epic undertaking reveals an inconvenient truth regarding the systematic organizations that define life in the 20th and 21st Centuries. That truth is defined by human-run institutions suffering from an all too common side-effect: Dehumanization.
Thank you for reading! TBH, I’m not sure how often I’ll be writing full length pieces like this but feel free to subscribe and share. NOTE: In a weird coincidence, just as I was taking the last steps towards hitting “publish” this piece, this came out in today’s NY Times: THOMAS PYNCHON, FAMOUSLY PRIVATE, SELLS HIS ARCHIVE
Great article Alex. Your balanced, nuanced and thoughtful perspective on the novel, its themes and wider placement of Pynchons work in his time is especiallly trenchant. I really loved your musicians take as well, I always collapse in hysteric laughter reading the passage re Hayden’s Kazoo piece performance. I had not linked Zappa efforts with what Pynchon was attempting.
Remarkable Alex-your intellect and keen insights into literature and art match your astounding musical prowess-kudos... respect...