New Pynchon Novel! Part 4

Musing Outloud about Thomas Pynchon's writing

Welcome back to my round-up of Notes posts on Pynchon’s writing in anticipation of Shadow Ticket coming out Oct 7, 2025.

At this point am I just writing a memoir?

You can read my previous dailies on Pynchon starting here:

Photo by Pacific Austin on Unsplash

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Day 20 of new Pynchon novel coming out, a quick note that my experiences discussing Gravity’s Rainbow has led me to determine that everyone has their own Gravity’s Rainbow, by which I mean we all agree on the umbrella, global synopsis, but discussing the book usually leads to very personalized takes and memories of scenes.

As such sometimes it’s a little difficult to discuss it with people simply because each person is talking about something different. Normally the discussion coalesces around the quality of the writing itself. However I’ve learned to also just listen to people’s descriptions of GR as if it’s a book I’ve never read.

The book is dense enough I don’t think a regular human brain can overall absorb it in its completeness — if that’s even possible of any book. At least from the first read, people tend to glom onto very specific scenes that others have mentally glazed over.

Borges' has this quote I love about “A man would be lucky to read 1000 books in his entire life, and even then would be lucky to read one book in all its fullness” (paraphrased from memory). He was referring to his obsession with A Thousand and One Nights.

As mentioned previously, Gravity’s Rainbow is picaresque enough to be read as a series of short stories, too. Browsable. Like Borges’ “one book in its fullness,” I suppose Gravity’s Rainbow could be my A Thousand and One Nights or how Finnegans Wake reads to some people. An eternal volume that opens up to different pages every time.