Diagramming GR

[Henry]

http://www.steamthing.com/2008/06/slow-learner.html 

"This post isn't really about Heliodorus at all. It's really about Thomas
Pynchon, and the five-page diagram, along the same lines but on a much more
grandiose scale, that I drew while reading Gravity's Rainbow. I think I drew
the Pynchon diagrams a year or two before the Heliodorus one; as you will
see if you dare to click, the Pynchon diagrams are a bit more passionate, if
not outright mad. Today there are reader's companions to Gravity's Rainbow,
but there weren't at the time. I'm not sure the diagrams will be useful to
any other readers, but they were useful to me back then, partly as a memory
aid, but mostly in the way of channelling and venting what felt like a
possession. If you haven't read Gravity's Rainbow, and you wish you knew the
human intermediaries that connect "Grigori (octopus)" to "Milton Gloaming
(statistician)"; or if you happen to be in the midst of reading the novel,
and it would help to be reminded that "Geli Tripping (balalaika, witch)" is
in the harem of "Vaslav Tchitcherine"; or if you just want to admire the way
all the lines converge on Slothrop-then by all means knock yourself out."

Caleb Crain published on June 16, 2008

Henry Mu