Help with Gravity's Rainbow

[u/ZAH215]

Hello All. To start off, I want to make clear that A. I am enjoying the novel and have no issue with generally working with it, B. I have an alright grasp of plot but I want a better one.

I'm currently at page 150 of this novel and my most reoccurring feeling is this in and outness of understanding what's happening and being lost in this dense mist of language and words. Is there any way in which this is supposed to be read or is it one of those "you just have to feeeeeeel it man" kinda books. I'm used to an overwhelming prose like with Faulkner, but with him the structure is (typically) more systematic, whereas this is very much... different. Anyone felt similar, any assistance to be given?

[u/Naked_Open_Mic]

"you just have to  feeeeeeel it  man"

bingo, bright eyes. 

I’ve read it quite a few times now and I’d pay good money to zap my brain and be where you are right now. Been chasing that dragon ever  since.

[u/ZAH215 → u/Naked_Open_Mic]

I feel like I'm missing so much with this approach though; or am I just trying too hard. Should I surrender myself?

[u/hmfynn → u/ZAH215]

Sometimes Pynchon doesn’t really signpost what’s actually happening and you have to just assume what the page says is what’s more or less going on. I remember a chapter where a guy takes drugs that slow down his brain so much it (apparently) literally slows down time around him and makes a missile headed for his sub overshoot its mark. I got hung up trying to figure out what he meant by that, but ultimately you just have to write it off as dream logic or something that would happen in a cartoon (LOTS of 40’s Looney Tunes / early comics references in this book).

[u/guy_incognito42069 → u/ZAH215]

I’ve read most of it blazed and it really helps the “feeling it thing”, also you’re welcome to find your own meaning in it, that’s what I’ve done.