Gravity's Rainbow

By: Thomas Pynchon

Narrated by: George Guidall

Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the twentieth century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Like being belted in the head with a Swiss Alp

At last George Guidall has re-recorded Gravity’s Rainbow, and the result is magnificent. The tempo is a little slower, which is altogether to the good, but he recites instead of singing the songs, a loss (though thankfully he does vocalize the melody to Cielito Lindo recognizably (Ja, ja, ja ja! In Prussia they never eat p?ssy…)). Please, audiobook producers, have him record V., Pynchon’s first novel. And don’t skimp on Pynchon’s hilarious take on the Colonel Bogie March, let ‘er rip.

Concerning the novel itself, I’ve known intelligent people of good taste who simply couldn’t get through it. It’s very challenging, and not for everyone. I suggest trying Inherent Vice, or even The Crying of Lot 49 (which was my first), to test the waters. Just as one should read Portrait of the Artist before trying Ulysses. Then, prepare to be absorbed: study of this book will surely knock out a couple months of your life. In a good way.

Like Nothing Else

I don't know if I'd call this experience enjoyable, but I'm glad I stuck it out. There are two of the funniest sequences ever written. I had to relisten and reread over and over. The wallet in the toilet and the British candy saga. Otherwise it's worth the time just for the audacity of the thing. I didn't always understand what was happening but the writing is so good and so weird it didn't bother me.

unique is the word

Complicated and often jarring, this book presents a new story each page. George Guidall did an utterly fantastic job.

Pathologic, Dam you George Guidall were you here too?

There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said… the ending is as you would expect. It started with the rocket… and by god it will end In the rocket…. At the end of the day, we are all pedophiles, we are all incest infatuated, we are all perverted shit lovers. We are all molesters of the peace, and though we want peace desperately, inevitably we will never get it. This book doesn’t teach you to love the bomb but rather, become the bomb. Become magnesium, become phosphate, become the plastics and oils that will cover you to were you no longer remember color, black and white, red and white, and blue and white.

If you weren’t a paranoid schizophrenic going into this book, you will going out, but ask not how you got here, but ask why? Ask why? Like a Pavlovian Freudian Jungian: ask why are you here? Watching dogs get tortured, why we build bombs, why we goto war over drugs, why it’s embarrassing to bring up sado masochism, why we’re afraid to fart and pee in public. Why did we allow nazis to build rockets, which contributed to nasa space rockets, why we lie to ourselves as if we had a moral obligation to do the right thing when our world doesn’t expect us to do it, we as people just do it. And I guess why? Well it’s all about timing Slothrop, timing and place and simply put, “you would have had to be there”…. Well in this case you don’t want to be in the 0, when it reaches the zone.

37 Hours of an elderly voice.

Don't get me wrong here George Guidall is very talented reader and was great in the difficult task at hand. This being said he could have used some younger voices and at least a female voice for the female parts, of which were many. Otherwise, just use someone with a more neutral voice.
Having an audible version of this book is a great entry to reading this mammoth book. And it certainly a way to get in a "first read" as this book is worth multiple readings of the actual hardcopy.
I'm not in love with the cover art thats used as I prefer the classic cover design used on the first edition. This newer design seems to push the rocket theme of the book which is one of the main story lines that thread its way through this Herculean novel.
In conclusion- there aren't, at this time any other options here on Audible for this wonder almost Pulitzer Prize unwinning novel. So tell me what you think.