In the whodunnit mystery film “Knives Out,” Daniel Craig’s verbose detective character Benoit Blanc has a habit of pontificating. While interrogating Ana de Armas about a potential murder, he makes an offhand reference to the notoriously pretentious 780-page novel “Gravity’s Rainbow” by reclusive author Thomas Pynchon.



Armas knows the book, but admits to not having read it. Craig quips back that no one has.



No one except writer/director Rian Johnson.



“I’ve read it twice now all the way through,” Johnson told SFGATE in an exclusive interview Thursday. “I also just keep it around and will flip open to random spots and start reading. But I’ve kind of stopped recommending it to people. It’s hard to recommend it without feeling like an a—hole, because you’re handing them a mountain to climb.”

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The length of “Gravity’s Rainbow” makes it an arduous read, plus it spans the entire globe and features literally hundreds of characters. The book was a contender for the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, but was so divisive amongst judges that they opted not to give out an award that year.

“It seems like this big challenging thing, but it's actually the most entertaining book that's ever been written. And it's a book where you will experience literally every possible emotion.”



Although not a traditional mystery writer, Pynchon himself would make a great topic for a detective novel. Over his 55-year writing career, he hasn’t given an interview or allowed himself to be photographed. His 2009 novel “Inherent Vice” was adapted for a film by Paul Thomas Anderson, but none of his other works have crossed into other mediums.

Pynchon’s thinnest novel and best entry into his work is “The Crying of Lot 49,” a paranoid novel set partially in the Bay Area that actually has more connections to “Knives Out” than “Gravity’s Rainbow.” Like the film, it revolves around the mysterious intentions of a deceased eccentric.



“It’s funny, I didn’t think about it while writing ‘Knives Out,’ but [The Crying of Lot 49] does have some similarities. There is definitely a similarity in there, with the executing of the will. And it just has the greatest ending.”



Johnson also took loose inspiration from the 1990 Pynchon novel “Vineland,” which revolves around a hippie informant and her family.



“The way that family is portrayed in that book. Talking about the soup of stuff that’s in your head, the way that ‘Vineland’ pulls no punches in terms of the way family can really f— you up — that gets to the heart of what’s important about it.”

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For Pynchon obsessives, Johnson did leave a couple Easter eggs. “Gravity’s Rainbow” opens with a V-2 rocket falling through the sky of WWII-era London. The shelves of Harlan Thrombey’s office in “Knives Out” look like they’re filled with literary awards, but the statues are actually rocket models.

Despite the fact that Johnson loves the book enough to include such abstruse references to it, he’s hesitant to discuss the book with those who haven’t read it.



“In what context can you talk about having read ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ without sounding like you’re just trying to be pretentious? I think that’s something that everyone who’s a fan of the book struggles with.”

That was a sentiment shared by Daniel Craig, who actually had his own theory about the “Gravity’s Rainbow” joke. A detective as skilled as Benoit Blanc wouldn’t name-drop a novel he hasn’t read, but also wouldn’t want to alienate a source by coming off as too elitist.



“Daniel had a very interesting take on it,” says Johnson. “which was, ‘I think [Blanc] has read ‘Gravity’s Rainbow.’’

Dan Gentile is a digital editor at SFGATE. Email: Dan.Gentile@sfgate.com | Twitter: @Dannosphere