Rainbow & Parabola (was NP)

[jbor]

>> Point here being that, yes, the V-2 rocket's arc is
>> a (if not the) primary referent of the novel's title,
>> but that as with those other phenomena to which it is
>> connected in the text: the curve of a banana or an
>> erect penis,the earth's orbit around the sun, S-shaped
>> spokes and architecture, a theatre's proscenium arch,
>> running water warping the square holes of a harmonica
>> or the passage of human life and death, and more; it
>> is a literary conceit which makes it so.

on 27/7/04 4:22 AM, Malignd wrote:
 
> It has been mentioned here before--but, I think, not
> in this thread--that Gravity's Rainbow also refers to
> the creation beneath the surface of the earh of coal
> tars and their subsequent role in creating dye.

Yes, I'd forgotten that, and it's a nice point.

Just in pondering the "a grave parable" theory regarding the title it
occurred to me that the whole text of GR can be read as an epitaph on a
grave. There's the fatal rocket screaming across the sky at the outset, and
the "hymn" inscribed on the final page as we approach the apocalypse. RIP
Planet Earth; Pynchon as pomo Emily Dickinson. Of course, if we did manage
to obliterate our world then there wouldn't be a headstone left behind to
commemorate it either, which might be part of the reason why the novel
appears as if it is falling apart in the final section, the author suddenly
seeming more and more acutely self-conscious about the futility of it all.

best