So I was talking to one of my brothers last night, and we agreed that this Pynchon book has bedeviled us long enough. Me, I’ve started Gravity’s Rainbow at least 3 times. And let’s just say I’m very familiar with the first 30 pages. OK, sentences. OK, consonants. Hell, I’ve never even finished The Crying of Lot 49 and that’s a damn pamphlet.
So we made a pact. We made a death pact. You know, minus the death. 50 pages a week, starting the first week in January. No stopping till we reach the other side. Then we thought: hey! There must be other folks out there who’ve been similarly confounded. Let’s see if we can gather together a tribe of like-minded long-suffers and tackle this beast en masse. Thus was born The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch.
We’d like to use this site as a forum, post an open thread once a week for shared thoughts, comfort. Mebbe I’ll even spring for some exciting incredibly cheap end-of-journey prizes for them what make it all the way through, and manage to check in each week, all depending on how many people are interested.
So that’s the shpiel. All are welcome — friends, foes, strangers, passersby. If you’re reading this, and if you’re interested in joining, drop a comment here, or send me an email. We’ll work out the details in the next couple of weeks.
I hear the clamor of boots, the clatter of coffee cups, the straightening of glasses. Today we order paperbacks and shuffle through dusty shelves for old unread college copies. For tomorrow we ride!
-Cecil
update: if you’re buying a copy, I’m told one handsome option is this swank Penguin edition. That’s the one I’ll be picking up, fwiw.
"…something like the supervisor of an entire team of political agents…"
Sure, count me in. Scary, but what the hell. I’ll post about it elsewhere a link in to here too to spread the word. Seems like a good post for Telegraph, and a link from memewatch and my personal blog?
I loved V and Lot 49 and Vineland and Slow Learner, and never read Gravity.
I seem to recall they did a marathon tag-team reading of G’s R at Princeton a few years aback.
i’m in too. at minimum, it’s an interesting experiment. and at the other end of the spectrum–prizes!! yay!!! oh yeah, plus another good book down the gullet.
Ack! Ackackackackack. ok. I’m in! I have no copy because I think it sank to the bottom of some flooded basement back in the ’70s.
I’m way in. This time it’s personal! There’s a brick wall somewhere out by page 150 and this time I WILL NOT be undone! It’s over or thru… tangents on relativity I’M COMING FOR YOU!
Thanks Cecil for putting a 20 year statue of limitations on this. I read it in ’82 as required reading to work at a Berkely bookstore (which shall remain nameless, due to my shame for working at a chain store.) But what did I know then? Hell, I hadn’t even seen the inside of a gal’s knickers at that point!
It’s well worth the read, and I’m honored to be so well accompanied in the attempt to hack into it again.
Count me in! What time do we meet and at what spot on the river? I will fly in at around 7 and then meet up with Butcher and his girfriend Wynona at the base camp. Should I bring enough beer for the week, or will we buy it at the small grocery near base camp? I have to rent a car, so if anyone needs a lift, let’s say halfway, email me. How exciting! Is someone taking care of bringing the , uhhhm, ya know the weed. If not we can hook up before base camp, into the city, and score some for the road dude! Anyway, I’ll bring the Pynchon and the Merlot , the beer, myself and some stories, also a few extra roles of toilet paper, beacuse there may be none on the river once we get started. If there is anything else, call me cell phone, email me, send me a text message, call me at home, or fed ex me a list of what we need before we begin. Cant’ wait. Somewhere over the rainbow (by Alren), on my ipod, gravity rainbow in my backpack. Oh yean, anyone bringing dogs or guns for some hunting?
the literary gauntlet has been thrown, and says pynchon in GR,
“A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.”
you are screaming, cecil, and i hear you. your call has been answered.
“We can lick GRAVITY, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.”
—Wernher von Braun
off to a great start. I count 15 people so far, with the folks here plus people who’ve emailed me on the side. A good mix of east coasters and west coasters, though we could use more representation from the middle of the country. Seattle is somehow a blank, which is shocking. And frankly, Canada is really dropping the ball on this whole endeavor. But there’s still time.
-Cecil
update: 19 now, and huzzah! Seattle’s in.
Count me (and Seattle) in!
The last time I tried, I got stuck halfway through….the cover. Read up to Gravity’, then was undone.
Hoping to do better this time.
Ack!!! I want to say Yes but I’m afraid I’m too stupid for Pynchon.
I read Lot 49 in kolej and thought I liked it until the professor began explaining it and I realized I had missed about 99.5 percent of the actual meaning of the book. I tried V but failed a good 50 pages in due to also feeling stupid. I *did* make it through Vineland and enjoyed it a lot, but my recollection of the reviews at the time was that that was a more user-friendly Pynchon.
So, I believe I’m saying yes, but I’m warning you: I’m too stupid for this book.
I’m game. In fact, I’m excited. *Really* excited, even.
Wait –
What’s that whistling sound?
Let me just go to the window and see…
Yaniv used his masculine wiles of beer and burned CDs to convince me that this was a great idea. But I’m in, dammit. Misery loves company, right?
up to 21 now.
for them on the march, check back on the main page Tuesday morning (PST) for a post with some details worked out re the how/what/when…..
This should be fun. Paged through a copy today and, you know, it ain’t so tough. Loaded with small words. Like “mustache.” What’s so hard about “mustache”? I can handle that.
Hi. It’s me, Audible, a minor character excised from draft three and about a fifth of GR, thus doomed to haunt the literary shadowlands ever since. I plan to join the march and will try to keep to a minimum any comments about how much sprightlier and more noble the work would be if I had been left within. My teenaged daughter, Gretchen “Tabasco” Thump (also eventually redlined from GR but smugger, based on her somewhat believable claims that Prairie Zoyd of Vineland is in fact a modernized avatar) actually read GR all the way through, this summer, providing me with extra shame-faced motivation.