Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon: My Notes

The following notes contain spoilers! You have been warned!

"gravity's rainbow": a rainbow is a parabola and a parabola caused by gravity implies ballistics, as in the V-2 rockets that fall on London.

Opens with a dream of a train. Freud says that a train symbolizes death in dream imagery. Death is coming in the form of a V-2.

Sprocket holes in between the sections of the book are meant to evoke a film reel. Gravity's Rainbow is really a movie that we (the readers) are watching, not reading.

"Dominus Blicero": literally means "Lord Death"; Capt. "Blicero" (whose real name is Weissman) is a stand-in for Wernver von Braun.

The White Visitation: PISCES HQ

"The Book": Pavlov's text book, kind of a Bible for all the psychologists at PISCES

Pointsman fantasizes about using a child in his behavior experiments. Is he a pedophile?

Malcolm/"Red": really Malcolm X!

Kenosha, WI: hometown of Ernest Hemingway, a nod to one of Pynchon's favorite writers? also the birthplace of Orson Welles

"Kenosha Kid": sodium amytal hallucination of Slothrop's while being probed at PISCES about American racial problems

"incoming mail": phrase used by Pirate to describe the incoming V-2 because it contains an encrypted message by Katje. Pirate goes to the missile wreckage and picks up the Kryptosam message from Katje. Kryptosam 71 is used to encrypt messages. Such messages are decrypted by rubbing male ejaculation on them?

"Operation Black Wing": a demoralization scheme devised by DJ Myron Grunton who invented a black army of ex-colonials from South-West Africa (Südwest) in Germany who've formed a secret army known as the Schwarzkommando.

Blicero/Enzian and Blicero/Katje relationships: a metaphor for Germany's relationship with African colonies and the Dutch in WWII (respectively).

Spectro E : the notation translates as "Spectro via the medium Eventyr."

Carrol Eventyr's spirit guide (control) is Peter Sascha.

Page 148: a conversation between two melanocyte cells?

Ronald Cherrycoke is a psychometrist, a person who can see what happened to an object in the past by touching said object.

Group Captain "Basher" St. Blaise sees an angel while raiding Lübeck, Germany => Angel of Death? The firebombing of Lübeck is what prompted (supposedly) Hitler to start the V-1/V-2 program.

Angels in GR are like Rilke's angels or the angels in Wings of Desire.

Peter Sascha: killed in Germany in 1930; he was having an affair with Leni Pökler who is married to Franz Pökler

Leni Pökler: Is she Jewish? Maybe, but there is probably more evidence that she isn't. I think she is not. She is definitely Marxist though, and the Nazis treated Marxists much as they treated Jews.

Franz Pökler: known as "the cause and effect man." He joins the rocket society.

coal tar: a waste by-product of making steel, mauve color

Grigori's staged attack on Katje is very much like a sci-fi B-movie.

Katje and Slothrop: two ends of a parabola with the V-2 connecting them

Page 297 (top): The description of these space helmets sounds just like Darth Vader's helmet from Star Wars!

Geli Tripping: First name is pronounced like "gaily."

Pages 397-433: Greatest chapter in the history of American literature? Franz Pökler's story that ends where it begins is often imitated.

Der Springer: translates as "The Knight" => von Göll

Rocketman: very much like "The Rocketeer" comic book by Dave Stevens!

Hauptstufe: translates as "blast off" or "lift off"

Schwarzgerät: translates as "black instrument", black as in top secret.

Page 495: Der Springer is a movie director, so he is something of an omniscient character. Perhaps, like Hitchcock, he is the director of the GR movie and is making his cameo.

Pages 530-532: Note that nobody recognizes Slothrop in his Russian uniform. Could Greta be the one that forces Slothrop to find Bianca's body. Greta probably killed Bianca.

Page 538: Kurt Cobain is rumored to have read this. The text here seems to match Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"!

Pages 537-549: Pirate is having a fantasy (one of his for a change). He goes to Hell because he feels guilty for manipulating these people and perhaps causing their deaths. But he wants redemption and finds it in the form of Katje.

Jewish mysticism teaches that God is actually split into ten vessels, also known as the Ten Sefirot.

Anubis: Could it be a ghost ship of sorts? Everyone on the ship seems to be doomed or already dead. When Slothrop returns to Anubis, he is forced by someone to discover Bianca's dead body. By process of deduction, it would appear this person is Greta. Curiously, no one on the Anubis seems to recognize Slothrop.

Page 636: Roger Mexico barges in on a meeting of Them?! Is this a Pirate-managed fantasy or is it really happening?

Page 644: Byron invades the dreams of the colonel (Skippy) to spread the ideas of Them?

Zhlubb: Nixon perhaps? "Arms in inverted peace sign" is Nixon's classic pose.

The Orpheus Theatre on Melrose: where we the "reader" is watching the GR film. The Rocket then crashes into the theater.