Gravity's Rainbow

Gravity's Rainbow is a novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published in 1973.

Public reaction

The novel is regarded by some as one of the great postmodern works of 20th century literature, while others have declared it unreadable. Most people begin the novel without finishing it, and most who do will require some form of assistance to sieve through the numerous allusions, such as a literary guidebook.

Related Topics:
Postmodern - 20th century - Literature

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The three-member Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction unanimously supported Gravity's Rainbow for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. However, the other eleven members of the fourteen-member Pulitzer board overturned this decision, calling the book "unreadable", "turgid", "overwritten", and "obscene", with at least one member confessing to having gotten only a third of the way through the book.

Related Topics:
Pulitzer Prize - 1974 - Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

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The book, however, won the National Book Award for 1974.

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The novel inspired the 1984 song "Gravity's Angel" by Laurie Anderson. In her 2004 autobiographical performance The End of the Moon, Anderson said she once contacted Pynchon asking permission to adapt Gravity's Rainbow as an opera. Pynchon replied that he would allow her to do so with one condition: the opera had to be written for a single instrument, the banjo. Anderson said she took that as a polite "no."

Related Topics:
1984 - Laurie Anderson - 2004 - Opera - Banjo

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It also was the inspiration for the title of Pat Benatar's 1993 album "Gravity's Rainbow" http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_music_benatar.html.

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Reportedly, a scene in the film Trainspotting (1996) is an homage to a passage where Tyrone Slothrop dives into a toilet http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/trivia. The novel also features in the animated television series The Simpsons; in the thirteenth-season episode "Little Girl in the Big Ten", Lisa Simpson spies a college girl's recreational reading material. Awestruck, she asks, "You're reading Gravity's Rainbow?" To which the college student replies, "Well, re-reading." This exchange may have motivated Pynchon to guest-star in two later episodes, both of which preserve (and satirize) his anonymity by animating him with a paper bag over his head. The Japanese anime series Boogiepop Phantom also makes Rainbow allusions.

Related Topics:
Trainspotting - 1996 - The Simpsons - Lisa Simpson - Anime - Boogiepop Phantom

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A German film, Prüfstand VII (Test Stand 7, 2002) is based upon Gravity's Rainbow. Starring Inga Busch as Bianca and Jeff Caster as Pointsman, it was nominated for the 2003 Adolf Grimme Award in the area of "outstanding individual achievement" (recognizing its writer/director Robert Bramkamp).

Related Topics:
German - Prüfstand VII - 2002 - 2003 - Adolf Grimme Award

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New York artist Zak Smith created a series of 755 drawings entitled, "One Picture for Every Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow" (also known by the title "Pictures of What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow")

Related Topics:
New York - Zak Smith

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http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/zak_smith/title.htm. Occupying eleven rows and over nine meters of wall space, the drawings attempt to illustrate, as literally as possible, every page of the book. The piece includes palm trees, shoes, stuffed toys, a lemon meringue pie, Richard Nixon, Sigmund Freud, an iron toad wired to an electric battery, a dominatrix, and other exotic images from the novel. The series had a successful reception at New York's 2004 Whitney Biennial event, and it gained a reputation "as a tour de force of sketching and concept" (Abbe 2004).

Related Topics:
Richard Nixon - Sigmund Freud - Dominatrix

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David Lowery has stated that the Camper Van Beethoven song All Her Favorite Fruit is based on a subplot of Gravity's Rainbow.

Related Topics:
David Lowery - Camper Van Beethoven

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