Thomas Pynchon's Gravity’s Rainbow published this year

First posted 6/17/2020; last updated 7/6/2020.

Gravity’s Rainbow Thomas Pynchon

First Publication: 1973 Category: fiction – postmodern epic Sales: ?

Accolades:

About the Book: “Considered by many critics to be one of the greatest American novels ever written,” WK “Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first.” AZ “Lengthy, complex, and featuring a large cast of characters,” WK “its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.” AZ “The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II, and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device named the ‘Schwarzgerät’ (‘black device’), slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number ‘00000.’” WK The book was selected for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction by a three-member jury, but rejected by the 14-member board, who described the novel as “‘unreadable,’ ‘turgid,’ ‘overwritten,’ and in parts ‘obscene.’” NY No Pulitzer Prize was awarded for fiction that year. Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon NY New York Times (5/8/1974). “Pulitzer Jurors Dismayed on Pynchon” by Peter Kihss WK Wikipedia