Heresy time

Wait here while I pull down the shades, turn out the lights and turn up the stereo a bit, just in case anybody’s listening. I wouldn’t want this to get around. Okay, you ready?

Here goes. I really don’t think Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow is all that. If Woody Allen’s Academy of the Overrated ever does get built, Gravity’s Rainbow will get a wing all to itself. In fact, the book itself could serve as the cornerstone to the freakin’ building. I like V and The Crying of Lot 49 just fine, but Gravity’s Rainbow inspires much the same respectful indifference I reserve for Peter Greenaway, whose films similarly demand an appreciation for elaborate games and historical arcana all out of proportion to the meager rewards they offer.

In fact, Greenaway’s films and Pynchon’s post-Gravity’s Rainbow novels share another quality: the reactions they generate are usually far more interesting than the works themselves. Certainly I have read and heard some truly dazzling arguments for why Gravity’s Rainbow is a landmark of twentieth century fiction — so dazzling that when I return to the book for another go-round, Pynchon’s writing seems dim by comparison.

And in that company, this illustrated summary of Gravity’s Rainbow is one of the most dazzling yet.