Books: V. Squared

Gravity's Rainbow

by THOMAS PYNCHON 760 pages. Viking. $15. Paperback $4.95.

The novels of Thomas Pynchon seem to take place in a vast, unfathomable cyclotron. Characters, ideas, metaphors, styles, pains, ecstasies, assorted objects from the Pyramids to paper clips all whirl about at enormous velocity. They collide, split into new forms, or suddenly decay, leaving behind only enigmatic smiles.

This is not a surprise to anyone who read Pynchon's celebrated 1963 novel V. That book presented Herbert Stencil, Benny Profane and the Whole Sick Crew. It encompassed alligator hunts in the sewers of New York; a native uprising in South West Africa in 1922; the siege of Malta, circa 1942. The whole thing was wrapped in an unresolved quest for V, a woman who never revealed herself.

Three years later came The Crying of Lot 49, which seemed to be about the search for a 16th century postal service believed to be secretly operating in 20th century America. Random clues flowered into leads that might or might not have had anything to do with the truth.

And now Gravity's Rainbow, which is V. squared and 49 cubed. It is a funny, disturbing, exhausting and massive novel, mind-fogging in its range and permutations, its display of knowledge and virtuosity—a metaphysical, phenomenological, technological Mad Comic. The author seems to have read and understood everything from quantum mechanics, probability theory and engineering manuals to the labels on bottles of 1920 Schloss Vollrads, Tarot cards and rock lyrics. This, and much more, Pynchon catalogues and tickles into fantasies so elaborately detailed that most of his readers will come away feeling illiterate in the terms of the 20th century.

Even more than Pynchon's previous novels, Gravity's Rainbow is about man the symbol-making animal desperately trying to build a protective system of meaning over his head while at the same time blind technology increases the odds that something will bash his head in. Pynchon begins, appropriately enough, in wartime London, with German V rockets (V1 and V2) raining random destruction on the city.

Characters with typical Pynchon names cope in various ways. Pirate Prentice, a source of sentiment and life's small pleasures, whips up a batch of fried bananas. Elsewhere, Statistician Roger Mexico plots the distribution pattern of the rocket strikes according to a probability equation. But his data is no help. The odds of getting killed remain constant. "Each hit is independent of all others," Roger explains. "Bombs are not dogs. No link. No memory. No conditioning."

Other characters seek refuge from anxiety in airless logic, superstition, nostalgic memories, magic or endeavors like Film Critic Mitchell Prettyplace's 18-volume study of King Kong. There is a plot of sorts. The antics of Pynchon's odd crew cover a conspiracy to build their own V rocket and fire it off. Aimed at what and for what purpose? Who knows? Making a rocket from scrounged parts seems to be like making a philosophical system or a mystic cult. It is something humans simply have to do.