Gravity's Rainbow
Many years ago, I read a piece in the newspaper the writer of which claimed that Gravity's Rainbow had been a life-changing read. I made a mental note, and eventually got around to getting a copy.

I don't like leaving books unfinished once started, so trawled through it dutifully. I tried to figure out what was meant by the adenoid the size of London; I squirmed at the testicle-removal; I boked at the coprophagy; I wondered whether the Schwarzkommando ever existed. I neither understood nor enjoyed it.

And yet... I was hooked. The blurb on the back cover placed the novel in a tradition that included the Bible, Moby-Dick and Ulysses; I therefore read all three of these as a preparation to having another crack at Rainbow.

I still didn't get it. I still didn't enjoy it.

But I was still hooked.

Slowly, I began to investigate other Pynchon books. V was a touch more accessible, and almost enjoyable. The Crying of Lot 49 was bordering on the conventional - there are fewer sung interludes, for example. Slowly, slowly, I am being drawn towards a third attempt at Gravity's Rainbow, about which I make the following prediction: once again, I will neither understand nor enjoy it. But I will read it at least twice more in the coming decade. And with every turn of the page, I will ask myself this question: WHY?

To this extent, Gravity's Rainbow has been a life-changing book. It'll never leave me.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 19 May 2008, 11:40, 16 replies)

couldn't finish it
I figure if a book is that dense and complex, I have no obligation to continue. Unless I'm studying it. There's some great ideas there, but I maintain even the greatest mind should be able to manage a story.
(frankspencer, Mon 19 May 2008, 11:45, closed)

^
I couldn't get all the way through it...

I think there's something slightly perverse about forcing yourself to finish every single book that you start, although that doesn't stop me trying.

And I really did want to finish this one, I just found myself unable to keep reading.
( Moey, Mon 19 May 2008, 11:49, closed)

@Gunther...
There's only a couple that've ever defeated me completely: I tried to read Spycatcher when it came out, but was mystified by it (although I was only 11, in fairness). I also gave up on Felix Holt by George Eliot and on tristram Shandy, which I've attempted twice. Gah!

But there's something about Rainbow that keeps pulling me back. Very odd...

EDIT: It's the Gravity!
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 19 May 2008, 11:52, closed)

I have always intended to give it another try
I think I may have been a bit too young when I first tried it, so didn't have the patience to persevere.

It's generally books that haven't challenged me enough that I've given up on (got bored with), but this one just left me confused and lost.

He's a strange man though, Mr Pynchon, and GR is a true reflection of that.

EDIT: Tristram Shandy sits unfinished by my bed too... but I will finish it, one day, honest.
( Moey, Mon 19 May 2008, 11:57, closed)

Tristam
I'm not sure that 'finishing' is a pertinent term with Shandy. It doesn't seem to have a beginning or end - it just is. I pick it up and read bits at random.
(frankspencer, Mon 19 May 2008, 12:03, closed)

@frankspencer
It certainly doesn't seem to matter how long it is between visits; I find it very easy just to read odd bits here or there without losing the plot, as it were.
( Moey, Mon 19 May 2008, 12:09, closed)

I find the same thing
with Catch 22. It's neither easy to read nor particularly enjoyable, yet it's hard to put down. Very strange.

You may like to investigate the works of Neal Stephenson. His books such as Cryptonomicon have been compared to GR but are a hell of a lot more fun to read and accessible!
(MrC. Having the most boring username on b3ta since 2004, Mon 19 May 2008, 12:11, closed)

...
I'm halfway through Gravity's Rainbow, but then I've been halfway through it for a while. I like it, I just don't know why I like it.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Mon 19 May 2008, 12:34, closed)

well
I didn't make it 10 pages into this book. Mason & Dixon is amazing though, and I'm currently trying to plough through* Against The Day.

*by this i mean slowly, under my breath and at the rate of a page a month.
( WHTRZ Corp dosen't like the sound of Rupert watching porn, Mon 19 May 2008, 12:37, closed)

There's a whole other qotw here....Books I've never finished and why
I'll add Proust's Swanns Way, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities...I could go on and on.

Why haven't I finished them? I was drawn away to something else that was quick and entertaining at the time. A very poor excuse I know, but I've not given up on any of them. I *will* read them before I die...unless I'm knocked over by a bus later.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 19 May 2008, 12:43, closed)

I've never
started a book and not finished it. And I can't read several books concurrently, as some people tend to do.

For me, reading is a serial process. Start a book, read it to the end, start another, and so on.

Just the way my brain's wired up.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 19 May 2008, 12:46, closed)

Never finished Plato's 'Republic'
Although I am planning on returning to it at some point
(Pavlov's Frog figures no-one really reads sigs anyway, Mon 19 May 2008, 13:14, closed)

@Pavlov...
I've used to teach on The Republic, but, while I get the Cave analogy and even get some of the jokes*, the "parable of the Line" loses me every time...

*Yes, there are jokes in Plato - mainly puns and wordplay. Can't think of any offhand, of course...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 19 May 2008, 13:30, closed)

Books I've never finished and why.
One of mine is Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle. A friend who thought it sounded like my rants about how we were all being taken over by pop-culture recommended it to me. While the premise of the book is interesting, I just found it really heavy going and not the sort of thing I'd like to read when I just wanted to read a good book (I pity the poor translator who translated it from it's original French).

There are others I've not finished either - usually because I found something else to do and forgot about it.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Mon 19 May 2008, 14:24, closed)

The only book I have never finished
Is the Sword of Shanara trilogy Terry Brooks. It is a giant of a book (yes, I got the all in one version) and I started reading it last October. Since starting it I have read 3 star wars books, reread Belgarath the Sorcerror and finished Grand Theft Auto 4 (I know its not a book, but its long :P) I am now about 4/5ths of the way through Sword of Shanara. I suspect I will be finished it by this coming October (fingers crossed) Good read, but its like digging through a mountain with a tea spoon.
(Teran Thinks Pogonophobia is funny, Mon 19 May 2008, 15:33, closed)

Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle
I don't think this is one for reading cover to cover - I've dipped into it in the same way that I dip into Baudrillard and Sartre - not exactly bedtime reading, more reading with a Purpose.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 19 May 2008, 18:17, closed)