A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion - Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel - 2nd ed., rev. and expanded

Sep 18, 2026

A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion provides sources and contextual material for Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, guiding readers through the novel’s cultural, intellectual, and historical background. The companion includes an acknowledgment history (1988 and updated 2006 versions), a structured introduction, and four main thematic parts: Beyond the Zero, Un Perm’ au Casino Hermann Goering, In the Zone, and The Counterforce. It concludes with a bibliography and index to support further study.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages433

Reading Time11 h 7 min

AccessFree to download

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments (1988)

Introduction

Part 1

Beyond the Zero

Part 2

Un Perm’ au Casino Hermann Goering

Part 3

In the Zone

Part 4

The Counterforce

Bibliography

Index

A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion This page intentionally left blank A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion Sources and Contexts for Pynchon’s Novel Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by Steven C. Weisenburger The University of Georgia Press Athens and London © 2006 by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602 All rights reserved Set in Trump Medieval by The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc. Printed and bound by Maple-Vail The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Printed in the United States of America 10 09 08 07 06 C 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 P 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weisenburger, Steven. A Gravity’s rainbow companion : sources and contexts for Pynchon’s novel / by Steven C. Weisenburger.—2nd ed., rev. and expanded. [p. cm](p. cm). Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13 978-0-8203-2811-9 (alk. paper) ISBN-10 0-8203-2811-1 (alk. paper) ISBN-13 978-0-8203-2807-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10 0-8203-2807-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity’s rainbow. I. Title. PS3566.Y55 G7395 2006 813 􀀂 .54—dc22 2006011956 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available Contents Acknowledgments (1988) / vii And More Acknowledgments (2006) / ix Introduction / 1 Part 1 Beyond the Zero / 13 Part 2 Un Perm’ au Casino Hermann Goering / 121 Part 3 In the Zone / 175 Part 4 The Counterforce / 319 Bibliography / 385 Index / 397 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments (1988) In manyways doing this book was fun. It meant readingsin American pop and material culture, the occult, varieties of pseudoscience, real science, vernacular geography, and forty-year-old news periodicals—to mention just a few ﬁelds I wandered into. A new discovery each week, at the peak of my research, sometimes tedious but always-enjoyable work because of friends and colleagues who took an interest. I am grateful to all who helped it along. Roger Sale, for two reasons: for showing that one could enjoy these serendipitous paths of scholarship and for sharing his reading of Gravity’s Rainbow when the novel was ﬁrst published. Malcolm Grifﬁth, for suggesting (in 1978) that I should write this book. I put the idea aside for four years, but once the project was under way it was helped by a number of friends and colleagues. Staff members at the M. I. King Library at the University of Kentucky provided invaluable assistance, and I especially want to thank Roxanna Jones and Barbara Wight of interlibrary loan, as well as Rob Aken, Dan Barkley, Brad Grissom, and Laura Rein of King Library’s reference department. Steven Moore, fresh from a similar project on Gaddis’s The Recognitions, made wise suggestions as I prepared the ﬁrst draft. Molly Hite gave suggestions and encouragement. To all of Pynchon’s scholarly readers, acknowledged in the notes and listed in the bibliography, I owe innumerable debts. Colleagues at the University of Kentucky answered what must have seemed the oddest possible salmagundi of queries and requests. For their help and encouragement I am especially grateful to Tom Adler, Gerald Alvey, Roger Anderson, Tom Blues, Joe Bryant, John Cawelti, Guy Davenport, Joe Gardner, and John Shawcross. Thanks to Bob Hemenway for supporting the work while he was chairman and, in particular, for helping me ﬁnd funds and time off from my departmental responsibilities at a crucial time. The research and preparation of the book were assisted by grants from the University of Kentucky Research Foundation. To complete the ﬁnal draft, I also managed to steal time from another project that was being assisted by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Janis Bolster did an epic job of copyediting, down to the last line-number reference. And at the University of Georgia Press, De

FAQs

What is the purpose of A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion?

It supplies sources and contextual material to help readers understand Gravity’s Rainbow.

How is the companion organized?

It is divided into an introduction, four numbered parts, followed by a bibliography and an index.

What sections are included in the main parts of the companion?

The main parts cover Beyond the Zero, Un Perm’ au Casino Hermann Goering, In the Zone, and The Counterforce.

Sep 18, 2026

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