Cuttin' to that Chase ...

[Dave Monroe]

... well, a whole lotta stuff that's been on my mind at LEAST since I
first read Gravity's Rainbow coming together here.  As stated afore,
agree (with some here, at least), that Gravity's Rainbow--by virtue of
how it presents such elements, by which situations and with whom they
are associated, by the effects they ultimately seem to have, have had--I
don't know, takes to task various romanticisms, gnosticisms, mysticisms,
platonisms, spiritualisms, scientificisms, even, anything that
emphasizes the gnostic over the kenotic, the Resurrection over the
Incarnation, the afterlife over life, the otherworldy over the
thisworldly, whatever, notions of, say, cyclicity, return (and there's
where that emphasis on Abraham and Isaac over, say, Odysseus might be
relevant), all of which might serve to assuage, elide, forgive very real
fears, dangers, culpabilities.  All those broken, uncompleted,
uncompletable circles, starting with that title (mybe theoretically,
that rainbow is a circle--or, rather, an ellipse (...)--but it tends to
run into cold, hard facticity), and ending with that dash, that break,
that perhaps even apocalyptic End of Time....