num_pages: 887
description: Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), "a screaming comes across the sky," heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, "Gravity's Rainbow", refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. Soon Tyrone is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany. "Gravity's Rainbow", however, doesn't follow such a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. "Gravity's Rainbow" is a blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes.
language: English
title: Gravity's Rainbow
titlecomplete: Gravity's Rainbow
characters: Lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop, Pig Bodine, Edward W.A. "Ned" Pointsman, Katje Borgesius, Captain Blicero, Pirate Prentice, Roger Mexico
genres: American, Unfinished, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Science Fiction, Literature, Classics, War, Fiction
ratings_count: 42929
places: Germany, London, England, France
awards: awardedAt: 94723200000
name: Nebula Award
category: Novel, awardedAt: 126259200000
name: National Book Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 157795200000
name: William Dean Howells Medal, awardedAt: 1420099200000
name: Tähtivaeltaja Award, awardedAt: 1609488000000
name: Deutscher Hörbuchpreis
category: Bestes Hörspiel, awardedAt: 1420099200000
name: Mikael Agricola -palkinto
publisher: Bantam Books