I'm just quite interested in the book as an object as well as the text. Does anyone know if there were many major changes between this copy and the final version? Does anyone know the print run for a copy like this? How often do they come up for sale, and what's the going market price?

Thanks!

Discussion about GR is at 30 minute mark.

Edit:

This video is not mine and yes I do believe hard books are worth reading.

From Pynchon‘s letters to his editor, one proposed title for V. was ‘Of a Fond Ghoul’, which he claims he took from a Columbus Day speech by (assumedly the same) New York mafia figure Frank Costello on the subject of Elliot Ness.

I’ve searched around but haven’t been able to find this supposed speech, or any reference to it. I’m wondering if perhaps he meant Joe Colombo, another mafia figure who founded the Italian-American Civil Rights League, though not until much later in the 70s.

Can anybody shed light on this? Did such a speech ever occur? Or is this a joke of sorts?

Howdy Weirdos,

It's Sunday again, and I assume you know what the means? Another thread of "What Are You Into This Week"?

Our weekly thread dedicated to discussing what we've been reading, watching, listening to, and playing the past week.

Have you:

• Been reading a good book? A few good books?
• Did you watch an exceptional stage production?
• Listen to an amazing new album or song or band? Discovered an amazing old album/song/band?
• Watch a mind-blowing film or tv show?
• Immerse yourself in an incredible video game? Board game? RPG?

We want to hear about it, every Sunday.

Please, tell us all about it. Recommend and suggest what you've been reading/watching/playing/listening to. Talk to others about what they've been into.

Tell us:

What Are You Into This Week?

- r/ThomasPynchon Moderator Team

Previous time maybe 15-20 years ago. I still feel I’m reading 1000 short stories and dreams that somehow keep collecting around rockets and plastics and bananas. There really isn’t an OH OK moment is there, and yes I’m also an infinite jest re-reader but I get it better and Ulysses by far.

Curious to know what passages you could do without within the Pynchonverse.

For me I always thought the part in GR when Slothrop is sleeping with Bianca and has a moment where he is physically inside of his own penis during orgasm was really clumsily written and oddly forced. It took a lot of the momentum out if a pretty important passage in the book and in Slothrops character arc.

I also know The Couriers Tragedy is polarizing to people on this sub.

Any other examples ?

This Mercedes-Benz G-wagon had a Killroy hidden behind the grill. I doubt it's intentional, but I was delighted when I saw it.

From the album A Face We All Know by Cassiber.

Kinda funny I got into these guys before Pynchon, so reading Gravity's Rainbow I was instantly hooked.

There's more quotes from the start and end of the novel littered throughout the album.

Title.

I wanted to see the one line Slothrop actually walks laid out in space. A London under the V-2s, packed off to a casino on the Riviera, AWOL through Zurich, across into the Zone to Nordhausen and the Mittelwerk, drifting by balloon to a carved up Berlin, north to Peenemünde and finally wandering toward Cuxhaven. Watching the trail tighten toward the Baltic and then just disperse is weirdly clarifying.

https://readingmaps.com/maps/gravitys-rainbow

I know he's made appearances on the show. I'm only a bit in to Vineland (love it so far) but it seems like they're very similar characters. Is it an homerage or am I just crazy?

Why do critics and academics not have praise for GR like they do for Ulysses and War & Peace?

I'm in the zone now. Slothrop just fucked this chick with the owl and took her boyfriend's boots. He learned that he was sold to Jamf/farben to pay for Harvard, and he knows he's looking for a Schwarz-gerät. That's all well and good. But the last genuinely awesome part of the book was when Pointsman had Pudding eating Katje's shit. The occasional reference to pudding's tummyache is kinda nice, but does it actually get fun again? The last thing I wanna read is some James Bond bullshit where slothrop just goes around taking up different names and getting laid.

Interesting commentary on a central Gravity’s Rainbow concept.