Subversive Texts, Randomness & Fright, and the Narrative Deconstructure of Thomas Pychon's Gravity's Rainbow

Abstract

Our inability to paraphrase and reconstruct this book's 11 story, 11 however, is not simply a product of its length and complexity. Rather, the book is structured in such a way that it makes this kind of coherent recall utterly impossible. When we begin to understand how this book is designed and how Pynchon expects us to read it, we also begin to key in on Pynchon's primary thematic concerns. In effect, Pynchon "cons" us into understanding his view of the world: we expect his book, an American "novel" set in the second World War, to cohere in terms of cause and effect interpretation, and we also expect the same thing of our own lives; but Pynchon's work subverts this tendency, as does the mad, sprawling, comic, and horrifying world according to Thomas Pynchon. How do we, then, approach this intimidating text? We will divide our inquiry into three primary areas of interest, all of which, when taken together, represent the compass coordinates of Pynchon's text. First, we will look at Gravity's Rainbow's five-part plot structure; next, we will examine his view of language and his use of a Derridian "absent center;" and lastly, we will address Pynchon's subversion of cause and effect analysis and his resultant view of history and fiction. All of this is done with an understanding that this book is ultimately inexhaustable; with Gravity's Rainbow, one must simply find an area or direction of interest and be content for the time being with a mapping of that terrain. If these three maps lead to further exploration, so much the better. [From Introduction]