Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon: Part One: Trepidatious First Steppery

I stopped reading The Familiar for some reason and never picked it back up. Probably because I decided to wait until every book of the series was published and/or I was dead. You might be thinking, "You just didn't understand it, you coward!" But my rebuttal to that is "Now I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow and I'm definitely not going to understand that so who's the coward now?!"

Whenever I begin reading a book, I like to come to grips with the title. Like when I was reading The Grapes of Wrath, I was all, "Oh, this book will be about angry grapes." Then when the book wasn't about angry grapes, I was all, "What the hell? How was I supposed to understand the title was a Biblical and/or Shakesperian allusion! Or maybe T.S. Eliot?" And then when I was reading House of Leaves, I was all, "Oh! This is about a house that nobody wants to remain in." And then when I finished that book, I was all, "Yep! Nailed it! Also it's a book. A house of leaves is a book. I get it. I'm smart." But now I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow and I'm going to admit something I don't usually admit: What?!

Was that an admission? I don't know.

I did some high school physics in — you guessed it! — high school and I scored barely passing grades. It's possible we learned what gravity has to do with rainbows but you know the problem with learning physics? You have to remember the first things you learn to understand the second things and so on and so forth! It's like a pyramid scheme of learning and I was a terrible salesperson. From what I remember from the class, gravity bends things and rainbows are bent at both ends. So there's probably something there, right?

Although it's unlikely, it's possible there's a character named Gravity in this book since there are characters named Pirate, Slothrop, Mexico, and Moonmoss. If that's the case, I totally understand the title! It's just a statement about some jerk's possession!

You might be wondering how I know some of the names of characters already. Well, I've already read 80 pages of this book. That would normally make it hard for me to discuss the pages I've already read but guess what? This book is so complicated that I'm reading it twice and at the same time! Yes, I've already started rereading it and let me tell you: the second time through is marginally easier to understand!

Judging on some of the sentences in this book that go on so long that I forget where they were headed when they began, I'm probably going to need some help understanding certain passages. And since I'm not taking a class on this book, I'm hoping some non-troll Internet residents will help me understand this thing! Post your smart but not smart ass comments in the comment section! And no spoilers because I probably won't understand them anyway.