Reddit reviews A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel

Have you checked out "A Gravity's Rainbow Companion" by Steven Weisenburger? The book does a great job of providing line-by-line references of the many obscurities of the book. If you are interested in the Qabalistic elements of GR something like Aleister Crowley's Liber 777 might be helpful.

Yep that's perfectly normal, just go with the flow and at some point it will start making (some) sense. The first part is a bit rough, it gets easier to follow (and more entertaining) from the second part on. Though honestly most things only clicked for me on the second read-through.

People often recommend the companion guide, and you can also use the page annotations on the Pynchon wiki. Haven't used either of them yet, but I'm due for another re-read anyway so I think next time I'll get the companion.

I should probably be more clear; I mean it's best to read The Crying Lot of 49 to get an idea of what constitutes heavily-thematic content that Pynchon created based on popular culture (the anarchist in/and Porky Pig, the Trystero play, literalizing Maxwell's Demon) and what constitutes content that Pynchon put in simply referencing popular culture for the fun of it (the mock-british boy-band, Dr. Hilarius' voices). Ultimately, I'm trying to draw a line between so a younger reader (ie, one who does need to hunt down the references) doesn't get bogged down by assuming everything is structural and nothing contingent.

I don't think this is too reductive a method...(feel free to tell me otherwise)

If I'm wrong, or just in any case, OP, there is Pynchonwiki if you're at a loss for research of any stripe. Try to avoid the "Reader's Companions". The only formal Pynchon Study still worth reading is Joseph Slade's.

Also, speaking of technology, have you (/u/winter_mute) ever read Hart Crane's The Bridge? If you are familiar Slade points out some really incredible parallels between them that really struck me...

It's not from Pynchon but THIS is a fantastic guide to the book which provides an overwhelming wealth of detail. In some ways this guide is as dense and as heady as GR itself.

I know he wrote it on engineering graph paper and was supposedly working on it in the late sixties and early seventies. Tons of Academic papers and books have information on his sources, but probably the easiest and most accessible for this type of information is The Gravity's Rainbow Companion https://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Rainbow-Companion-Contexts-Pynchons/dp/0820328073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519580469&sr=8-1&keywords=gravity%27s+rainbow+companion

Enjoy the read!

It's not a scholarly article, but Steven Weisenburger's A Gravity's Rainbow Companion is definitely something you'd want by your side.

You absolutely, positively, without question, must... must! Get the Stephen Weisenberger book that explains all the references to you and read it along with the book. Otherwise it sounds like meaningless ramble (which some of it is)...

http://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Rainbow-Companion-Contexts-Pynchons/dp/0820328073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324691753&sr=8-1

The companion is useful too.

I love it. It is a SLOW read, but it's wonderful. The deliberate manner of nearly every point in the book will make you able to ponder it for hours and hours on end.

I'd add that you should definitely read the book with some version of annotations (this one is great but you can find it online for free I'm sure, or you can try this website). I also like keeping up with these illustrations for each page of the book because it's fun to do so. Enjoy the book most of all, but don't get discouraged if it starts seeming like a bit of a chore.