Gravity's Rainbow

De: Thomas Pynchon, Frank Miller - cover design

Narrado por: George Guidall

Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.

©1973 Thomas Pynchon (P)2014 Penguin Audio

Fixed!

I'd just like to point out that as of currently (Dec 2017) the audiobook has been fixed, and the repeated sections have been edited out.

If any readers were holding out because of what other reviews have mentioned, you no longer need to worry, as the audiobook has been properly re-edited.

Perfect for A Few

There are three books that changed my life after I read them. The first was The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano, the second was Moby Dick by Herman Melville and the third was - yeah you guessed it - this one. Gravity's Rainbow is funny, beautiful, gross, ridiculous, wistful, heartbreaking, evocative, rebellious ... any word you can think of describes it. Except for short. Not a day goes by where this book doesn't come into my thoughts. This audio version is very well read. One of the masterworks of American fiction. Check it out

This is a hard book to listen to it

George Guidall does a great job of narrating this complicated novel, but I found it challenging to follow the plot of the novel. If you want to really understand this book I think reading it visually is a better strategy. However, I still enjoyed the book and accepted that I would be confused a lot. It's a strange, compelling, and frequently disturbing story, and Pynchon does not tie up a lot of the threads he introduces. I found that it gets much more engaging after the war ends and the story becomes much more colorful.

Psychedelic Romp

It would take an entire book to accurately describe what this book is about. As one reviewer put it, "every sentence is a research project."

I found it nearly impossible to figure out wtf was going on most of the time without a guide; even then, you can't have a guide for every sentence.

I gave it 5 stars because it is a brilliant work of art, but that certainly doesn't mean it will appeal to everyone - many will hate it or simply give up on it.

Despite the inherent difficulties of narrating this beast of a book, I didn't care for the staccato style presentation. The chapter breaks seemed random.

Interesting and dark Cold War novel.

Sort of a mash-up of Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five, with maybe some Lolita thrown in.
For those who didn’t live through the era, it says a lot about how the tension and ecstasy of victory in WWII turned almost instantly into the Cold War, with a killer that would get you without warning.

Beyond the 5 Star

Good lord. If you want a difficult, thought provoking, funny, relevant and timeless story- pleeeease pick up a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow. Take notes, talk about it with friends. What a ride

Like being belted in the head with a Swiss Alp

At last George Guidall has re-recorded Gravity’s Rainbow, and the result is magnificent. The tempo is a little slower, which is altogether to the good, but he recites instead of singing the songs, a loss (though thankfully he does vocalize the melody to Cielito Lindo recognizably (Ja, ja, ja ja! In Prussia they never eat p?ssy…)). Please, audiobook producers, have him record V., Pynchon’s first novel. And don’t skimp on Pynchon’s hilarious take on the Colonel Bogie March, let ‘er rip.

Concerning the novel itself, I’ve known intelligent people of good taste who simply couldn’t get through it. It’s very challenging, and not for everyone. I suggest trying Inherent Vice, or even The Crying of Lot 49 (which was my first), to test the waters. Just as one should read Portrait of the Artist before trying Ulysses. Then, prepare to be absorbed: study of this book will surely knock out a couple months of your life. In a good way.

Great performance : technical note

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Because the narrator nails it; intonation, accents, everything. It's especially useful to listen to the book with the text in front of you.

Any additional comments?

As Tyson Allan pointed out (on April 7, 2015), the content of chapter 33 is repeated in chapter 34 & 35. Additionally, there is repeated content in chapters 38&39. It's easily remedied by skipping ahead to chapter 40, but hopefully the digital file will be fixed.

Like Nothing Else

I don't know if I'd call this experience enjoyable, but I'm glad I stuck it out. There are two of the funniest sequences ever written. I had to relisten and reread over and over. The wallet in the toilet and the British candy saga. Otherwise it's worth the time just for the audacity of the thing. I didn't always understand what was happening but the writing is so good and so weird it didn't bother me.

unique is the word

Complicated and often jarring, this book presents a new story each page. George Guidall did an utterly fantastic job.