GR Article--Thomas Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow. The Ideas of the Opposite

[rich]

I got a copy of this pdf if anyone would like a copy

(Mr Paz has written about contemporary physics and postmodern
fiction--(current motif of light--surely some insights into AtD, too)

Author: Paz, Menahem

Source: Orbis Litterarum, Volume 64, Number 3, June 2009 , pp. 189-221(33)

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.