Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

3 reviews

ollie_again's review

challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Drug use, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Slavery, and Excrement

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

b_caligari's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Vomit, and Grief

Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Excrement, Police brutality, Medical content, and Trafficking

Minor: Animal cruelty, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Blood, and Abortion

mathew's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Pynchon has a style, phrases, short phrases, sentence fragments, one after the other, some familiar, some not, fragments of plot, bits of description, stream of consciousness, rocket facts, inner monologue, across the page, down and down, one huge paragraph, still they come, comma spliced ad infinitum, clauses on a string like anal beads. Or hey lets write vernacular like sudden and not so grammatical, from another character's perspective. By which is to say that it took the reader quite a while to get used to the style and immerse himself in the plot. The Pulitzer Board considered it 'unreadable', 'turgid' and 'overwritten', and Lt Barry Quaid thinks they had a point.

The book was structured like a parabolic trajectory. It started off fast, but as it neared the peak of its arc (or rainbow) we perceived it slowing down, beginning to drag, about to go into free fall, the main protagonist's consciousness fragmented, replaced by a cacophony of protagonists from the cast of yes over 400 characters no kidding.

But there's a lot to enjoy here. Humor, wit, paranoia from the good old days when conspiracy theories weren't mainstream political opinion, and gritty historical detail which makes the overall portrayal of World War II as mass sexual perversion seem more worthy of serious consideration. Sometimes the weirdest details and the names which sound like jokes turn out to be real, making the fantasy seem disturbingly believable.

Definitely an amazing novel and a work of art, but also sometimes sadly ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Sexual content, and Excrement

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Confinement, and Sexual violence

Minor: Racial slurs