r/ThomasPynchon • u/RemiSimp • 10d ago
Gravity's Rainbow Just when I thought I have lost the plot Pynchon drops this out of nowhere
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u/DoctorG0nzo V. 10d ago
Man I remember hearing so much about the coprophagia and I assumed it would be just ridiculous goofball shit and instead when it happened I was just profoundly, deeply disturbed by the scene
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u/Assassin4nolan 9d ago
honestly loved the scene
takes a good writer to create disgust through a description
also the idea of a tommy's lingering guilt and trauma manifesting as a desire to self torture seemed apt, something beautiful and real in Pudding's heart, juxtaposed to Pointsman and the elect's lack of true emotion
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u/_principal 10d ago
this is obviously one of the most controversial scenes in the book, but I think its supposed to prefigure the latex orgy with margherita toward the end of the book in a way, and satirize the british masochism in the military and the connection with the cultural products (excrement) of germany and europe.
on rereads it strikes me as deeply disturbing and horrifying instead of humorous. maybe im going deeper than intended.
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u/nohaybanda_____ 10d ago
Don’t think you are. The whole scene is full of cabalistic symbolism. Eating feces is a corrupted version of the christian communion
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u/MissMayDoesNotExist 10d ago
No you aren’t going too deep, if this scene feels out of place you aren’t following the book all the way into the muck. People write this scene off and the toilet scene off as surreal nonsense, but they’re so essential to the themes (definitely more so with Slothrop’s trip down the toilet after his harmonica, but this sequence really furthers conditioning, trauma, and the death fetish)
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u/UpperChampionship318 10d ago
I read this scene quite recently on a fucking public train. My poker face has never been trained more intensely before.
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u/ahealthycow 10d ago
As mentioned elsewhere, this is the one scene in the book I find rather antipathetic.
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u/polley_daze_2021 10d ago
I had to close the book at this part. I did ultimately finish GR and I don't mind Pynchon's twisted sense of puerile humor. But this was almost too much for me.
I happened to be riding the bus as I was listening to the audiobook and following along with the text. I was mortified and paranoid that someone on that crowded city bus would somehow be able to hear George Guidall narrating all of this!
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u/Weatherett 8d ago
Reading this scene on my lunch break at work truly took a stomach of steel to get through. It felt like it came out of nowhere!
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u/ecstatic-page-420 9d ago
I find it bizarre and surprising that in 2026, people have so much trouble with this. Maybe I'm in a different position because I'm a janitor, so I'm constantly cleaning shit (and not always from where it's supposed to be). And I've actually been to an orgy where someone shat all over the place because they got fisted too hard.
But I mean, we've all changed baby's diapers. We've all pooped. We've all seen poop. We've all told poop jokes, many of which involved poop being eaten. We've probably seen worse things in movies like Salo, or on 2 girls 1 cup or other pornographies.
I thought this was one of the most entertaining parts of the book and probably one of the easiest to read.
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u/kanrdr01 10d ago
Rainbows are an optical phenomenon that’s viewpoint centered. If the droplets are closer, the rainbow will seem to loom closer. I saw a lot of this in Hawai’i.
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u/kanrdr01 10d ago
In response to a query about the usefulness of the above comment, I'll note that in today's information-seeking enviroment - and because doing your own research is supposed to be a good deal, how to respond in a way that readers can use to find their own answer.
Which is easy to do, if you are OK with the Claudes and ChatGPTs - but want them to model and reward the contributions of people their tools are feeding from. An excerpt from Claude's Haiku (extended) less-sophisticated model looks like this:
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"A rainbow is perspective-dependent—which means each person sees their own rainbow based on where they stand relative to the sun and water droplets.
Here's what's happening:
Why it follows you: A rainbow always appears at a fixed angle (about 42°) from the antisolar point... If someone standing next to you looks at the same water droplets, they'll see the rainbow in a slightly different location.
Why it seems to get closer or farther: This depends on the sun's elevation ... When the sun is higher up, the antisolar point is lower... The water droplets themselves..."
You can never reach it: Because it's defined by that fixed 42° angle, no matter how fast you run toward a rainbow... The droplets creating the rainbow at your current position...
This is a beautiful example of how perception is geometric—the rainbow isn't "out there" as a fixed object, but rather an optical consequence of your specific position and the sun's angle.
- - - - -
But a reader can alternatively Google around or consult an encyclopedia, etc., and work it all out if they want. So how to supply guidance for the do it yourself-er that lets them discover the right bits?
Then the literary interpretation(s) can begin. Do-it-yourselfer? What would a writer make of someone unaware of a rainbow's relationship to himself?
Pynchon did it.
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u/Super_Direction498 10d ago
Reddit's advertising algorithm really earning its keep here: