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Chapter 4 - Gravity’s Rainbow

Immachination at the End of the Line

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2023

Tore Rye Andersen
Affiliation:
Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
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Summary

Chapter 4 proceeds to the first published, but chronologically last, installment of the trilogy, Gravity’s Rainbow, and begins with an analysis of the multiple temporalities of that novel, which are discussed in dialogue with the historiographical theories of Reinhart Kosseleck. It then examines Pynchon’s both bleak and desperately funny depiction of how modernity reached its dark apogee in World War II, where humanity’s romantic affair with technology was finally fully consummated. In particular, this theme is traced through a meticulous analysis of the theme of immachination, which runs through all three novels but reaches its natural (or unnatural) culmination in Gravity’s Rainbow. In dialogue with important critical work by Ali Chetwynd as well as Luc Herman and Steven Weisenburger, the chapter concludes by revisiting the pervasive metaphor of the crossroads and the related theme of complicity in order to discuss whether the novel – and the global trilogy in general – is as relentlessly negative as they argue or whether it poses possible alternatives to the status quo.

Type
Chapter
Information
Planetary Pynchon
History, Modernity, and the Anthropocene
, pp. 94 - 128
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Gravity’s Rainbow
  • Tore Rye Andersen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Planetary Pynchon
  • Online publication: 24 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009377607.005
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  • Gravity’s Rainbow
  • Tore Rye Andersen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Planetary Pynchon
  • Online publication: 24 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009377607.005
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Gravity’s Rainbow
  • Tore Rye Andersen, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Planetary Pynchon
  • Online publication: 24 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009377607.005
Available formats
×