Various Quotes from "Gravity's Rainbow" (with a little discussion)
About midway through my reading of "Gravity's Rainbow", I decided to start marking pages where I read something that I felt was a little quotable nugget of knowledge, so my apologies to anyone who is a "Gravity's Rainbow" fanatic who stumbles across this entry and realizes that all these quotes come from the last half of the book. I did include probably the most widely quoted section of this book, since in a way it is the central tenet of the book. If I feel like it, maybe I'll discuss some final thoughts on this book, though I've been getting pretty involved in the latest Terry Pratchett book. I may decide to continue reading that...
NOTE: All page numbers for quotes come from the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of "Gravity's Rainbow" first published in 2006 if you want to read along, haha...
"The first thing he learns is how to vary his index of refraction. He can choose anything between transparent and opaque. After the thrill of experimenting has worn off, he settles on a pale, banded onyx effect." p. 360
"Nur... ein... Op-fer! Sehr ins Vakuum, Wird niemand ausnut-zen mich, auch? Nur ein Sklave, ohne Her-rin, (ya-ta ta-ta), Wer zum Teufel die Freiheit, braucht?..." p. 421 (Note the interesting paragraph on 420 about the realization that we can manipulate molecular structure to create new materials)
"Personal density," Kurt Mondaugen in his Peenemunde office not too many steps away from here, enunciating the Law which will one day bear his name, "is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth." p. 517
Elaboration: "'Temporal bandwidth' is the width of your present, your now. It is the familiar '[delta-]t' considered as a dependent variable. The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are. It may get to where you're having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes ago, or even-as Slothroop now-what you're doing here, at the base of this colossal curved embankment..." p. 517
"Her head, as always, is bent forward, away, the bare nape he's never stopped loving, will never see again, unprotected as her beauty, her innocence of how forever in peril it moves through the World. She may know a little, may think of herself, face and body, as 'pretty'... but he could never tell her all the rest, how many other living things, birds, nights smelling of grass and rain, sunlit moments of simple peace, also gather in what she is to him. Was. He is losing more than single Jessica: he's losing a full range of life, of being for the first time at ease in the Creation. Going back to winter now, drawing back into his single envelope. The effort it takes to extend any further is more than he can make alone." p. 642
"A former self is a fool, an insufferable ass, but he's still human, you'd no more turn him out than you'd turn out any other kind of cripple, would you?" p. 673
"'The basic problem,' he proposes, 'has always been getting other people to die for you. What's worth enough for a man to give up his life? That's where religion had the edge, for centuries. Religion was always about death. It was used not as an opiate so much as a technique-it got people to die for one particular set of beliefs about death. Perverse, natuerlich, but who are you to judge? It was a good pitch while it worked. But ever since it became impossible to die for death, we have had a secular version-yours. Die to help History grow to its predestined shape. Die knowing your act will bring a good end a bit closer. Revolutionary suicide, fine. But look: if History's changes are inevitable, why not NOT die? Vaslav? If it's going to happen anyway, what does it matter?'" p. 715
"'Little sigma, times P of s-over-little-sigma, equals one over the square root of two pi, times e to the minus s squared over two little-sigma squared.'
'Good Lord.' Laughing, hastily checking out the room.
'It's an old saying among my people.'" p. 723
In response to Christian asking how we protect themselves from the rocket: "It comes as the Revealer. Showing that no society can protect, never could-they are as foolish as shields of paper..."..."They have lied to us. They can't keep us from dying, so They lie to us about death. A cooperative structure of lies. What have They ever given us in return for the trust, the love-They actually say 'love'-we're supposed to owe Them? Can They keep us from even catching cold? from lice, from being alone? from anything? Before the Rocket we went on believing, because we wanted to. But the Rocket can penetrate, from the sky, at any given point. Nowhere is safe. We can't believe Them any more. Not if we are still sane, and love the truth." pp. 742-743
"This is magic. Sure-but not necessarily fantasy. Certainly not the first time a man has passed his brother by, at the edge of the evening, often forever, without knowing it." p. 749
"We drank the blood of our enemies. That's why you see Gnostics so hunted. The sacrament of the Eucharist is really drinking the blood of the enemy. The Grail, the Sangraal, is the bloody vehicle. Why else guard it so sacredly? Why should the black honor-guard ride half a continent, half a splintering Empire, stone night and winter day, if it's only for the touch of sweet lips on a humble bowl? No, it's mortal sin they're carrying: to swallow the enemy, down into the slick juicery to be taken in by all the cells. Your officially defined 'mortal sin,' that is. A sin against you. A section of your penal code, that's all. [The true sin was yours: to interdict that union. To draw that line. To keep us worse than enemies, who are after all caught in the same fields of shit-to keep us strangers.
We drank the blood of our enemies. The blood of our friends, we cherished.]" p. 754
"A wine rush: a wine rush is defying gravity, finding yourself on the elevator ceiling as it rockets upward, and no way to get down. You separate in two, the basic Two, and each self is aware of the other." p. 758
"He is the father you will never quite manage to kill. The Oedipal situation in the Zone these days is terrible. There is no dignity. The mothers have been masculinized to old worn moneybags of no sexual interest to anyone, and yet here are their sons, still trapped inside inertias of lust that are 40 years out of date. The fathers have no power today and never did, but because 40 years ago we could not kill them, we are condemned now to the same passivity, the same masochist fantasies they cherished in secret, and worse, we are condemned in our weakness to impersonate men of power our own infant children must hate, and wish to usurp the place of, and fail... So generation after generation of men in love with pain and passivity serve out their time in the Zone, silent, redolent of faded sperm, terrified of dying, desperately addicted to the comforts others sell them, however useless, ugly or shallow, willing to have life defined for them by men whose only talent is for death." p. 762
"'You mean someone's actually found the Bodenplatte? The Pole?'
'The delta-t itself. It wasn't made public, naturally. The 'Kaisersbart Expedition' found it.'
A pseudonym, evidently. Everyone knows the Kaiser has no beard." pp. 768-769
Some final thoughts about "Gravity's Rainbow": Though this isn't my favorite book, and I would whole-heartedly argue that this book is not the "greatest post-WWII American novel" as some have suggested, I have to admit that despite the the issues I had with parts of the book, people need to read it. In some ways it is a bit forward-thinking in its assessment of the war, the discussion of how war itself has changed and how the second World War defined this change. When looked at through the context of the Cold War, this novel makes a lot more sense, especially with its obsession with The Rocket as an image. In the end, it further points out the futility with which we try to effect change in the world around us, that unity will always be undermined by humanity's love of self-destruction, that we would sooner use things for personal gain than to help others. Now doesn't that make you all feel better?
NOTE: All page numbers for quotes come from the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of "Gravity's Rainbow" first published in 2006 if you want to read along, haha...
"The first thing he learns is how to vary his index of refraction. He can choose anything between transparent and opaque. After the thrill of experimenting has worn off, he settles on a pale, banded onyx effect." p. 360
"Nur... ein... Op-fer! Sehr ins Vakuum, Wird niemand ausnut-zen mich, auch? Nur ein Sklave, ohne Her-rin, (ya-ta ta-ta), Wer zum Teufel die Freiheit, braucht?..." p. 421 (Note the interesting paragraph on 420 about the realization that we can manipulate molecular structure to create new materials)
"Personal density," Kurt Mondaugen in his Peenemunde office not too many steps away from here, enunciating the Law which will one day bear his name, "is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth." p. 517
Elaboration: "'Temporal bandwidth' is the width of your present, your now. It is the familiar '[delta-]t' considered as a dependent variable. The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are. It may get to where you're having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes ago, or even-as Slothroop now-what you're doing here, at the base of this colossal curved embankment..." p. 517
"Her head, as always, is bent forward, away, the bare nape he's never stopped loving, will never see again, unprotected as her beauty, her innocence of how forever in peril it moves through the World. She may know a little, may think of herself, face and body, as 'pretty'... but he could never tell her all the rest, how many other living things, birds, nights smelling of grass and rain, sunlit moments of simple peace, also gather in what she is to him. Was. He is losing more than single Jessica: he's losing a full range of life, of being for the first time at ease in the Creation. Going back to winter now, drawing back into his single envelope. The effort it takes to extend any further is more than he can make alone." p. 642
"A former self is a fool, an insufferable ass, but he's still human, you'd no more turn him out than you'd turn out any other kind of cripple, would you?" p. 673
"'The basic problem,' he proposes, 'has always been getting other people to die for you. What's worth enough for a man to give up his life? That's where religion had the edge, for centuries. Religion was always about death. It was used not as an opiate so much as a technique-it got people to die for one particular set of beliefs about death. Perverse, natuerlich, but who are you to judge? It was a good pitch while it worked. But ever since it became impossible to die for death, we have had a secular version-yours. Die to help History grow to its predestined shape. Die knowing your act will bring a good end a bit closer. Revolutionary suicide, fine. But look: if History's changes are inevitable, why not NOT die? Vaslav? If it's going to happen anyway, what does it matter?'" p. 715
"'Little sigma, times P of s-over-little-sigma, equals one over the square root of two pi, times e to the minus s squared over two little-sigma squared.'
'Good Lord.' Laughing, hastily checking out the room.
'It's an old saying among my people.'" p. 723
In response to Christian asking how we protect themselves from the rocket: "It comes as the Revealer. Showing that no society can protect, never could-they are as foolish as shields of paper..."..."They have lied to us. They can't keep us from dying, so They lie to us about death. A cooperative structure of lies. What have They ever given us in return for the trust, the love-They actually say 'love'-we're supposed to owe Them? Can They keep us from even catching cold? from lice, from being alone? from anything? Before the Rocket we went on believing, because we wanted to. But the Rocket can penetrate, from the sky, at any given point. Nowhere is safe. We can't believe Them any more. Not if we are still sane, and love the truth." pp. 742-743
"This is magic. Sure-but not necessarily fantasy. Certainly not the first time a man has passed his brother by, at the edge of the evening, often forever, without knowing it." p. 749
"We drank the blood of our enemies. That's why you see Gnostics so hunted. The sacrament of the Eucharist is really drinking the blood of the enemy. The Grail, the Sangraal, is the bloody vehicle. Why else guard it so sacredly? Why should the black honor-guard ride half a continent, half a splintering Empire, stone night and winter day, if it's only for the touch of sweet lips on a humble bowl? No, it's mortal sin they're carrying: to swallow the enemy, down into the slick juicery to be taken in by all the cells. Your officially defined 'mortal sin,' that is. A sin against you. A section of your penal code, that's all. [The true sin was yours: to interdict that union. To draw that line. To keep us worse than enemies, who are after all caught in the same fields of shit-to keep us strangers.
We drank the blood of our enemies. The blood of our friends, we cherished.]" p. 754
"A wine rush: a wine rush is defying gravity, finding yourself on the elevator ceiling as it rockets upward, and no way to get down. You separate in two, the basic Two, and each self is aware of the other." p. 758
"He is the father you will never quite manage to kill. The Oedipal situation in the Zone these days is terrible. There is no dignity. The mothers have been masculinized to old worn moneybags of no sexual interest to anyone, and yet here are their sons, still trapped inside inertias of lust that are 40 years out of date. The fathers have no power today and never did, but because 40 years ago we could not kill them, we are condemned now to the same passivity, the same masochist fantasies they cherished in secret, and worse, we are condemned in our weakness to impersonate men of power our own infant children must hate, and wish to usurp the place of, and fail... So generation after generation of men in love with pain and passivity serve out their time in the Zone, silent, redolent of faded sperm, terrified of dying, desperately addicted to the comforts others sell them, however useless, ugly or shallow, willing to have life defined for them by men whose only talent is for death." p. 762
"'You mean someone's actually found the Bodenplatte? The Pole?'
'The delta-t itself. It wasn't made public, naturally. The 'Kaisersbart Expedition' found it.'
A pseudonym, evidently. Everyone knows the Kaiser has no beard." pp. 768-769
Some final thoughts about "Gravity's Rainbow": Though this isn't my favorite book, and I would whole-heartedly argue that this book is not the "greatest post-WWII American novel" as some have suggested, I have to admit that despite the the issues I had with parts of the book, people need to read it. In some ways it is a bit forward-thinking in its assessment of the war, the discussion of how war itself has changed and how the second World War defined this change. When looked at through the context of the Cold War, this novel makes a lot more sense, especially with its obsession with The Rocket as an image. In the end, it further points out the futility with which we try to effect change in the world around us, that unity will always be undermined by humanity's love of self-destruction, that we would sooner use things for personal gain than to help others. Now doesn't that make you all feel better?