A day late and a dollar short, sorry, but ...

[Dave Monroe]

February 28, 1973
Thomas Pynchon   (1937 - )
Gravity's Rainbow Appears
by Gary Baldridge, Guest Contributor


On this day in 1973 Thomas Pynchon's third novel, Gravity's Rainbow,
entered American bookstores and split the literary world. Pulitzer
Prize jurors unanimously recommended it, but Pulitzer advisory board
members called it "unreadable" and "obscene." The novel seduced many
critics but found few readers who would finish its 760 pages on the
first attempt. Meanwhile, the author stayed out of the public eye,
just as he had at the publication of his first two books. His fan club
continued to grow, intrigued by the most camera-shy writer since J. D.
Salinger.

Featuring U.S. Army Lt. Tyrone Slothrop, Gravity's Rainbow describes
the soldier's search for a mysterious World War II rocket as sinister
forces chase him across Europe. He meets incredible characters,
virtually all with crazy names and stories, such as in this scene at
the Odeon cafÃ(c) in Zurich:

Slothrop finds he has enough spare change for coffee. He goes sits
inside, choosing a seat that'll face the entrance. Fifteen minutes and
he's getting the spy-sign from a swarthy, curly-headed alien in a
green suit a couple tables away. Another front-facer. On his table is
an old newspaper that appears to be in Spanish. It is open to a
peculiar political cartoon...and somehow this cartoon here is supposed
to be some kind of a touchstone, this fella in the green suit, who
turns out to be an Argentine named Francisco Squalidozzi, is looking
for a reaction....The paper is fifteen years old. There is no telling
what Squalidozzi is expecting from Slothrop, but what he gets is pure
ignorance. This seems to be acceptable, and presently the Argentine
has loosened up enough to confide that he and a dozen colleagues,
among them the international eccentric Graciela Imago Portales,
hijacked an early-vintage German U-boat in Mar de Plata a few weeks
ago, and have sailed it back across the Atlantic now, to seek
political asylum in Germany, as soon as the War's over there.

'You say Germany? You gone goofy? It's a mess there, Jackson!'

'Not nearly the mess we left back home,' the sad Argentine replies.

So it goes in scores of slapstick scenes, including one in which a
Polish undertaker tries his best to be struck by lightning after
reading about Benjamin Franklin's experiment, another in which
Slothrop rescues a girl from an octopus whose mental health he
questions, and still another in which the hero wears a costume and
cape and is caught and drugged by Russians.

The New York Times called the novel "one of the longest, darkest, most
difficult and ambitious novels in years...bonecrushingly dense,
compulsively elaborate, silly, obscene, funny, tragic, poetic, dull,
inspired, horrific, cold and blasted." Pulitzer juror Benjamin DeMott
said, "No work of fiction published in 1973 begins to compare in
scale, originality and sustained intellectual interest with Mr.
Pynchon's book." A Pulitzer advisory board member, however, admitted
he had managed only to finish the first third of the novel. As a
result of the deep division, no Pulitzer Prize for fiction was
awarded. Gravity's Rainbow did share the National Book Award that
year. Pynchon, however, declined to appear at the ceremony.

Now 67 Pynchon still prefers to walk incognito through Manhattan,
where he lives with his wife, a literary agent, and a teenage son. He
appeared in the Jan. 25, 2004, episode of The Simpsons television show
with a paper bag over his head, inviting passers-by to meet the
reclusive author and receive free autographs. It was one of the few
times his voice has ever been heard in the media. Legend has it that
Pynchon jumped out of a window in Mexico to avoid a Time magazine
photographer after his first novel, V., got a warm reception. Websites
devoted to him record every scrap of gossip or alleged sighting, while
graduate seminars discuss the symbols in his half-dozen novels.

http://www.todayinliterature.com/today.asp?Search_Date=2/28/2008