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

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.

Pathologic, Dam you George Guidall were you here too?

There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said… the ending is as you would expect. It started with the rocket… and by god it will end In the rocket…. At the end of the day, we are all pedophiles, we are all incest infatuated, we are all perverted shit lovers. We are all molesters of the peace, and though we want peace desperately, inevitably we will never get it. This book doesn’t teach you to love the bomb but rather, become the bomb. Become magnesium, become phosphate, become the plastics and oils that will cover you to were you no longer remember color, black and white, red and white, and blue and white.

If you weren’t a paranoid schizophrenic going into this book, you will going out, but ask not how you got here, but ask why? Ask why? Like a Pavlovian Freudian Jungian: ask why are you here? Watching dogs get tortured, why we build bombs, why we goto war over drugs, why it’s embarrassing to bring up sado masochism, why we’re afraid to fart and pee in public. Why did we allow nazis to build rockets, which contributed to nasa space rockets, why we lie to ourselves as if we had a moral obligation to do the right thing when our world doesn’t expect us to do it, we as people just do it. And I guess why? Well it’s all about timing Slothrop, timing and place and simply put, “you would have had to be there”…. Well in this case you don’t want to be in the 0, when it reaches the zone.

37 Hours of an elderly voice.

Don't get me wrong here George Guidall is very talented reader and was great in the difficult task at hand. This being said he could have used some younger voices and at least a female voice for the female parts, of which were many. Otherwise, just use someone with a more neutral voice.
Having an audible version of this book is a great entry to reading this mammoth book. And it certainly a way to get in a "first read" as this book is worth multiple readings of the actual hardcopy.
I'm not in love with the cover art thats used as I prefer the classic cover design used on the first edition. This newer design seems to push the rocket theme of the book which is one of the main story lines that thread its way through this Herculean novel.
In conclusion- there aren't, at this time any other options here on Audible for this wonder almost Pulitzer Prize unwinning novel. So tell me what you think.

Wonderful

A great book beautifully read. One day f the few books/readings I wish would never end. My third time through GR. Hopefully not the last.

Adventures of Slothrop

An amazing book. Complex and difficult, but worth it! George Guidall does a tremendous job with Pynchon's colorful prose, multiple languages, names, song lyrics, etc.

I’m not sure what I just read

The weird subject matter, including incest, coprophilia, etc., I can get by with OK. The completely disjointed storyline and tangents were not OK.

Amazing fever dream in prose

There's no way to describe what this book is. It's just a strange fever dream, acid trip, voyage into the mind of a lunatic. Somehow war becomes sex. Obscenity becomes comfort. Life is reduced to nothingness while at the same time revealed as the connection to everything in existence.

One of the best books ever written. While at times incomprehensible, it's more about the experience than the journey. There's no real plot. It's just how the words weave their spell, in such beautiful and eloquent ways, the prose re-wires your brain. Endlessly inspiring.