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July 5, 2020 4:34 AM

Thomas Pynchon Predicted the Pandemic in ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’—Now Aren't You Sorry You Didn't Read It? by Tom LeClair
posted by chavenet (35 comments total)

The coronavirus rocket came down in New York City and other densely populated centers

Well, that's a cute metaphor, but it quickly breaks down. In GR, every grid square on the map had an equal probability of being hit by a V-2; the rocket strikes perfectly followed a Poisson distribution. With Coronavirus, not so much.....the professional class and those who were not compelled to expose themselves as "essential workers" were far safer.
posted by thelonius at 6:04 AM on July 5, 2020 [3 favorites]

In GR, every grid square on the map had an equal probability of being hit by a V-2

Well, except that in GR it seems that every time the main character hooks up with someone that's where the next rocket falls, in the place where the hookup took place. Or that's what I remember. It's a novel full of supposed coincidence and paranoia, and it does seem that Slothrop's sexual escapades are affecting where the bombs fall. Or that's how it's portrayed. Or something. I haven't read the book in a long while.
posted by hippybear at 7:01 AM on July 5, 2020 [3 favorites]

Thomas Pynchon Predicted the Pandemic in ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’—Now Aren't You Sorry You Didn't Read It?

Wow, Betteridge's Law of Headlines really does work!
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:09 AM on July 5, 2020 [44 favorites]

My recollection is that the whole V2 thing is built up out of someone's paranoid/obsessive searching for relationships and patterns where there very well may be none; this article seems like a similar stretch. Like this guy has done a lot of work on Gravity's Rainbow, let's try to loosely tie it to something topical!

Maybe MeFi's own reclusive novelist will weigh in.

As an aside, it's oddly jarring to see the Daily Beast (and HuffPo, I just checked) still exist - I dropped them both sometime around the time I stopped reading BoingBoing, for what in retrospect were similar reasons. Still feels and looks like the internet of the previous decade. Whereas I suppose this very website looks like the decade before that.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:20 AM on July 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

In GR, every grid square on the map had an equal probability of being hit by a V-2; the rocket strikes perfectly followed a Poisson distribution.

Except, didn't Thomas Gwenhidwy point out that more of the bombs were falling short, on poor parts of East London, than on the well-heeled West End? (I don't know how I remembered that detail seeing as it's been 25 years since I read GR).
posted by misteraitch at 7:23 AM on July 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

My recollection is that the whole V2 thing is built up out of someone's paranoid/obsessive searching for relationships and patterns where there very well may be none

Well, the entire structure of the novel is that the beginning is all random events happening which then slowly become more and more intertwined until it's all one giant paranoid conspiracy theory and then it all sort of unwinds itself again into random events. It's the entire trajectory of a V2 rocket... fired randomly upward, having a determinant tipping point, and then falling randomly... built into a novel.

I haven't read this in decades, but it left a very deep impression on me. I was reading it on a rather intensely long bus commute to work every day for weeks and by the middle of the book my entire life was one giant tangle of conspiracy theories and then by the end it all dissolved into white noise. I've had very few novels I've read ever affect my life like that before or since.
posted by hippybear at 7:29 AM on July 5, 2020 [15 favorites]

This reminds me of the numerologists who will learn a little about something else looking for things they can connect to their favorite pre-existing belief. If you attribute your career to a deep knowledge of Pynchon you’re going to be well-equipped to identify parallels but the logical error lies in attributing more than similarity to them. For example, this quote:

Pynchon even knew somehow about Trump and his administration, our current “They”: “'They have lied to us. They can’t keep us from dying, so They lie to us about death.’”

Trump is far from the first unqualified person in a position of power, and horrible as he is the death toll so far is much lower than the events which shaped Pynchon’s world. WWI, the Depression, WWII, and the Cold War all had examples of this but especially relevant is the 1918 flu which to this day is often referred to as the Spanish Influenza not because it was more prevalent in Spain but because the WWI combatants attempted to hide the news as a war secret. Unlike the V2 attacks, the flu also behaves like COVID and shares similar class disparities in the impact due to the same issues of housing density and ability to avoid contact with others while making a living.

Anyone looking for insight about our current situation would do much better reading history, especially to avoid repeating the author’s mistake of assuming this is unusual rather than how most of human history has gone. The mid-to-late 20th century was an anomaly from the diseases which regularly shaped human events, not to mention the quality of civic leadership.
posted by adamsc at 7:33 AM on July 5, 2020 [8 favorites]

Was excited to read this as GR is one of my favorite novels, but this is a bit of a mess. I have no doubt the author could lead a highly entertaining 45 minute lecture on this novel, preferably complete with Ektachrome slide show, but attempting to tie everything into our current moment is heavy-handed at best.
posted by q*ben at 8:15 AM on July 5, 2020 [6 favorites]

Except, didn't Thomas Gwenhidwy point out that more of the bombs were falling short, on poor parts of East London, than on the well-heeled West End? (I don't know how I remembered that detail seeing as it's been 25 years since I read GR).

I have to admit, I don't remember that character at all. I was thinking of some exposition from , I think, Roger Mexico, early in the novel.
posted by thelonius at 8:22 AM on July 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

based on this article if i met this 'critic'

a screaming comes across this guy
posted by lalochezia at 10:17 AM on July 5, 2020 [7 favorites]

So...it's seems from this thread that there are a good many of us decades overdue for a re-read.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:39 AM on July 5, 2020 [6 favorites]

Republican lawmakers in 2020, remember please that Pynchon was writing his environmental novel 50 years ago.

yes, thank you because in 1970 there was no pandemic (so 1969) no Republican madman bombing multiple countries, no civil unrest, no illegal invasions, no german threat of moon incursions.

precient indeed... I need to inflate by H.G. Wells Dirigable.©
posted by clavdivs at 10:45 AM on July 5, 2020 [5 favorites]

Didn't finish the book in college and none of this discourse is making me wish I had.
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:15 PM on July 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

Symbols of globalism, industrialism, and monopolism, rockets also represent the human desire for transcendence, for death-denying immortality in the heavens that rockets pierce.

I am not convinced. (I've read it. I don't regret reading it. I'm not going to recommend it to strangers.)
posted by eotvos at 1:18 PM on July 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

You never did the Corona, kid.
posted by hototogisu at 1:31 PM on July 5, 2020 [10 favorites]

You never did, the Corona kid.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:37 PM on July 5, 2020 [7 favorites]

You! Never! Did the Corona kid?
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:38 PM on July 5, 2020 [7 favorites]

You? Never did the Corona kid.
posted by chavenet at 1:39 PM on July 5, 2020 [6 favorites]

This guy dropped the ball not making a Things That Can Happen In American Politics joke.
posted by Bigfoot Mandala at 2:10 PM on July 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

so is Gravity's Rainbow the new Infinite Jest or what
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:36 PM on July 5, 2020 [7 favorites]

Well, I tried this and one or two other Pynchons when I was a teen, and none of them stuck. I'd kind of forgotten about it I guess. Maybe it's time to take it for another spin.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:43 PM on July 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

If you want to sample a Pynchon, I suggest The Crying Of Lot 49 which is fairly short and concise but contains many of his themes of the interwoven nature of life and paranoia and is a very straightforward plot.

If you want to dive into a longer Pynchon like it's the deep end, I'd suggest Mason & Dixon, which is easily his most funny novel.

Also, the PynchonWiki is your friend. It's footnotes for everything, or at least for everything people felt like needed to be added to the wiki.
posted by hippybear at 5:02 PM on July 5, 2020 [8 favorites]

so is Gravity's Rainbow the new Infinite Jest or what

Both suck so, yeah. I admit, GR is funnier.

any Wallace work makes a fine book safe.
posted by clavdivs at 6:11 PM on July 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

Seconding hippybear's suggestions, and adding that Inherent Vice is also totally worth reading. It's a lot more casual than Gravity's Rainbow, but still very representative of Pynchon's themes.

Gotta re-read Gravity's Rainbow sometime. It's been 20 years.
posted by heteronym at 6:18 PM on July 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

I regret reading Gravity's Rainbow. I don't regret reading Infinite Jest.
posted by evilmonk at 8:26 PM on July 5, 2020 [3 favorites]

I have never regretted anything I've read. Mostly because I have agency to stop reading something before it's done if I'm not enjoying it.
posted by hippybear at 8:43 PM on July 5, 2020 [6 favorites]

I might be alone in saying this, but I think Inherent Vice the film is a stone cold classic (in fact I might like it more than the book). It helps if you think of it as (not my idea; no idea where it came from) fan fiction about The Dude before he met Walter.
posted by hototogisu at 9:21 PM on July 5, 2020 [3 favorites]

Gravity's Rainbow was one of my favourite books in my twenties, and I must have read it at least three times. Now I'm tempted to a reread, but rather afraid it may have been visited by the Suck Fairy, who retroactively spoils the favourite books etc. of your youth. Maybe I should try Mason and Dixon, which has been sitting on my shelves unread since the paperback came out.
posted by Fuchsoid at 10:43 PM on July 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

Nigh on four decades since The Year I Did GR. It was... an experience.

Any recommendations for a good audiobook version? Also for Inherent Vice?

I have never read any David Wallace.
posted by Pouteria at 11:55 PM on July 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

No.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:04 AM on July 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

I might be alone in saying this, but I think Inherent Vice the film is a stone cold classic (in fact I might like it more than the book).

I don't like it more than the book, but you're not alone in thinking it's a classic. What a vibe that movie has.
posted by heteronym at 6:11 AM on July 6, 2020 [4 favorites]

Betteridge's Law strikes again. There is no power under heaven that can make me sorry I threw that book across the room 75 or so pages in.
posted by holborne at 6:56 PM on July 6, 2020

hippybear

Hurray! Finally someone who thinks Mason and Dixon rules! It's easily my favourite but for whatever reason it seems like it gets short shrift to basically everything else. It's number one for me with most like Crying number 2 as well.
posted by wyndham at 8:06 PM on July 6, 2020

As for DFW, I thought The Pale King was a sprawling insane read that weirdly seems to work out better being cut short as it sadly is. I can't imagine how long it would have been if he lived to finish it. I'm sure it would have made IJ look like The Crying of Lot 49. As it is I love it.

I agree Broom of the System is mediocre though for sure.
posted by wyndham at 8:09 PM on July 6, 2020

Wyndham, make that 3! A regular M&D love fest over here. I’ve stopped recommending it to friends because I was worried about turning into Infinite Jest Guy but about singing dogs and stoner presidents.
posted by q*ben at 10:09 AM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]