Strikethrough

Gravity's Rainbow
by Thomas Pynchon
Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition

After all that fuss, I’m going to have to say “fuck Thomas Pynchon.” I became terribly nauseated trying to read Gravity’s Rainbow on the subway and I had to set it down.

Obviously he’s a virtuoso writer with a stunning intellect, but aside from that I’m not gaining anything from Gravity’s Rainbow. The historical setting feels like a cardboard backdrop. Pynchon's narrative is leading me down an ever-narrowing alley of extravagant minutiae and semi-wacky character traits. He's one of those guys who won’t let you get a word in edgewise, even though you have no idea what he’s talking about.

Here is the paragraph that almost made me void my stomach on a stranger’s shoes.

"St. Veronica’s Downtown Bus Station, their crossroads (newly arrived on this fake parquetry, chewing-gum scuffed charcoal black, slicks of nighttime vomit, pale yellow, clear as the fluids of the gods, waste newspapers or propaganda leaflets no one has read in torn scythe-shaped pieces, old nose-pickings, black grime that blows weakly in when the doors open…)."

Those are Pynchon’s ellipses, not mine.

So goodbye, Gravity’s Rainbow. I don’t believe in seeing a bad book through to the end. We’ll meet again if you can stanch the disgusting word-hemorrhage and stop grossing me out.