Article on GR

[rich]

not available online but will try to see if the girlfriend can get me a copy

Thomas Pynchon: Gravity’s Rainbow. The Ideas of the Opposite.
Authors:Paz, Menahem
Source:Orbis Litterarum; Jun2009, Vol. 64 Issue 3, p189-221, 33p

Abstract:Thomas Pynchon’s highly complex novel deals with the personal
and social difficulty of accepting a new worldview. Set at the end of
World War II and in its aftermath, the protagonists find themselves at
the crossroads between Newtonian mechanics, epitomized by the V2
rockets, and the foreshadowed atom bomb, which is based on the theory
of relativity and quantum mechanics. The style of Gravity’s Rainbow
resembles the scene of a subatomic world: it is presented as an
ever-changing kaleidoscope of characters, places, events and
interactions, which are constantly redetermined in relation to each
other in an unpredictable manner. Pynchon manages to create a unifying
theme by making all the twists in the plot comprehensible as
manifestations of the underlying attempt to reconstruct selfhood. In
addition, he refers recurrently to the motif of light, both as a
physical entity at the center of modern physics and as a literary
symbol of classical stability. In the end, his main protagonist
himself turns into a mysterious source of light. [ABSTRACT FROM
AUTHOR]