Reading from Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow"

Page 137-139, Penguin softcover edition. Text is too long to have the full thing. Here's a snippet:

"Is that who you are, that vaguely criminal face on your ID card, its soul snatched by the government camera as the guillotine shutter fell--or maybe just left behind with your heart, at the Stage Door Canteen, where they're counting the night's take... Everybody you don't suspect is in on this, everybody but you: the chaplain, the doctor, your mother hoping to hang that Gold Star, the vapid soprano last night on the Home Service programme... It's a long walk home tonight. ... even if they are not spokesmen for your exact hopes, your exact, darkest terror, listen. Surely for as long as there have been nights bad as this one-- something to raise the possibility of another night that could actually, with love and cockcrows, light the path home, banish the Adversary, destroy the boundaries between our lands, our bodies, our stories, all false, about who we are: for the one night, leaving only the clear way home and the memory of the infant you saw... Whether you want it or not, whatever seas you have crossed, the way home..."

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• thomas
• pynchon
• gravity's
• rainbow
• reading
• tyrone
• slothrop

[wildereemoss]

I take it you've spoken to the big Myth-man himself and he said, 'my name is pronounced this way'.

Some 'expert' geek told me that Flann O'brien's name was pronounced 'O'briin' when it isn't, I've heard Pynchon pundits pronounce his name both ways, but obviously you know better than us first-class degree plebs.

[toReasonWhy]

Or, to better suit your complaints, not appearing, but actually being snobby. Are you appeased?

[FeelOfFriction]

This book is fucking epic.

[LOUISELIBERTINE]

This is a good reading, in fact it has made me want to read this book. Nice one :-)

[Laker34]

Dude fuck this book, so many characters!!!!!!!!!

[TommyTomato93]

SLOOWWW DOWWNNN

[huffnat]

I'm reading this right now. It's amazing, but very disturbing at parts. Also would just like to say excellent reading by the way.

[adrianvino]

haha.

[AcePilot101]

One of the most important novels written in the 20th century.

Thanks for posting this!

[alarmclocks]

hey man, don't read into this like i'm trying to butt heads together. but are you familiar with the house of seven gables by hawthorne? the house is known as the old pyncheon manor. the family in the book is fictional but the history of the house is accurate, and these pyncheons were, in fact, the ancestors of thomas pynchon. i don't know when the spelling changed, but with the old spelling Pyncheon, when you visit the house in Massachusetts they will tell you the pronunciation as "Pinchin"

[toReasonWhy]

@fodao42

Did you read me say that I get them? I've never read them. Let me tell you what's happened here: you came to someone else's video and made a snide comment about their being elitist. You are the one who needs to think about getting over himself. Cheers.

[toReasonWhy]

@fodao42

Aw, it's not nice to take out your resentment on other people. I might agree with you if it was Joyce, or that guy who wrote Dhalgren, or William Gaddis or something. It does not take any more intelligence to read pynchon than any other great but "easier" author, like Kafka or Fitzgerald or Tolstoy. The only thing you need to add for pynchon is some coffee.

[Scott89119]

I just bought that edition, but haven't started it yet. The book freaks me out, but I heard if you take your time and go with it it's readable.