Does anyone actually finish Gravity's Rainbow?

[Keith Orpen]

It seems I'm stuck in the middle of Gravity's Rainbow just like every
other Pynchon-person I meet.  It's becoming a sort of ritual greeting,
like "Hey, I see you're stuck in the middle of Gravity's Rainbow--what
a coincidence, so am I!" and so on.

I do wish I had the time to give to it, though.  I'm about 2/3 done
and some parts just killed me.  I really liked Grigori the Octopus
and the Kenosha Kid.  Also, the description of the German town of
"Bad Karma" was fantastic--"that mud would cure anything"!  The rocket
limericks are good fun for grossing out friends, too.

My German friend reads TP in translation, and he insists that not very
much is lost.  I don't know how many people have actually read both
the original and a foreign language translation, but it would be
interesting to hear an informed comparison.  Speaking with another
friend, I had mentioned the scene in GR where everyone on the boat
(Anubis?) is being seasick, and there are Russian sailors getting
blasted on vodka and hitting on tipsy chorus girls while escaped
chimpanzees run all over the place vomiting on everyone.  My friend
observed that chimpanzees vomiting all over everyone probably makes
the same impression in any language.  Yechh!

Keith