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The Gravity's Rainbow Handbook
- A Key to the Thomas Pynchon Novel
- Narrated by: Stephen Paul Aulridge Jr.
- Length: 1 hr and 50 mins
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Publisher's summary
Thomas Pynchon has a reputation as a "difficult" author - but he doesn't have to be! With this new guide, Gravity's Rainbow can be understood by the average listener. Included are: a chapter-by-chapter summary and commentary on the story, a thorough description of all major characters, a biography of Pynchon, suggestions for essay topics, and much more. This guide is guaranteed to help you finish and make sense of Gravity's Rainbow - all in a concise and easy format. Whether you are totally new to the book or just want to deepen your understanding, this guide will save you hours of struggle and frustration.
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In this exhilarating book, we accompany Umberto Eco as he explores the intricacies of fictional form and method. Using examples ranging from fairy tales and Flaubert, Poe and Mickey Spillane, Eco draws us in by means of a novelist's techniques, making us his collaborators in the creation of his text and in the investigation of some of fiction's most basic mechanisms.
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big ideas presented simply
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The Book of Yokai
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Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, listeners will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries on more than 50 individual creatures.
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Pt 2 was delightful (+no cringey pronunciations!!)
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On the Natural History of Destruction
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On the Natural History of Destruction is W.G. Sebald's harrowing and precise investigation of one of the least examined "silences" of our time. In it, the acclaimed novelist examines the devastation of German cities by Allied bombardment, and the reasons for the astonishing absence of this unprecedented trauma from German history and culture. This void in history is in part a repression of things - such as the death by fire of the city of Hamburg at the hands of the RAF - too terrible to bear.
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William Faulkner was the greatest American novelist of the 20th century, yet he lived a life marked by a pervasive sense of failure. Throughout his career, he remained haunted by his inability to master a series of personal and professional challenges: his less-than-heroic military career; the loss of his brother in an airplane crash; a disappointing stint as a Hollywood screenwriter; and a destructive bout with alcoholism.
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Miss.'s BCS-Bundren.Compson.Snopes/Sutpen/Sartoris
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A tour de force of black humor and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Eerie and fascinating
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William Blake vs the World
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A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake.
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Best book ever
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The Written World
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Martin Puchner leads us on a remarkable journey through time and around the globe to reveal the powerful role stories and literature have played in creating the world we have today. Puchner introduces us to numerous visionaries as he explores 16 foundational texts selected from more than 4,000 years of world literature and reveals how writing has inspired the rise and fall of empires and nations, the spark of philosophical and political ideas, and the birth of religious beliefs. Indeed, literature has touched generations and changed the course of history.
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Powerful and illuminating!
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life
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In his novels and short stories, Gabriel García Márquez has transformed the particulars of his own life and the lives of his fellow Colombians into wondrous fiction. While telling the story of the sloppily dressed, skinny young man who rose from obscurity as a provincial journalist to international fame as the progenitor of a new literature, Gerald Martin also considers the tensions in García Márquez's life between celebrity and the personal quest for literary quality, between politics and writing, and between the seductions of power, solitude, and love.
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Great content, somewhat disappointing narrator.
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The Great Escape
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The stunning story of the breathtaking journey of nine extraordinary men from Budapest to the New World, what they experienced along their dangerous route, and how they changed America and the world. In a style both personal and historically groundbreaking, acclaimed author Kati Marton (born in Budapest) tells the tale of their youth in Budapest's Golden Age of the early 20th century, their flight, and their lives of extraordinary accomplishment, danger, glamour, and poignancy.
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very interesting, well-narrated
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C. S. Lewis - A Life
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In honor of the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis' death, celebrated Oxford don Dr. Alister McGrath presents us with a compelling and definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis, the author of the well-known Narnia series. For more than half a century, C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series has captured the imaginations of millions. In C. S. Lewis - A Life, Dr. Alister McGrath recounts the unlikely path of this Oxford don, who spent his days teaching English literature to the brightest students in the world and his spare time writing.
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Awakening my curiosity and desire to read more!
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Existentialism and Excess
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Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the undisputed giants of 20th-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism, combined with his creative and artistic flair, have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high-profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion.
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a capitalista biography of Sartre
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What listeners say about The Gravity's Rainbow Handbook
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Arthur
- 10-07-18
Gets it about right
The Gravity's Rainbow Handbook tries to cut up the epic GR into bite-sized chunks. It starts out with some general comments (this was my favorite part, spot on!) and gives a much-needed list of characters. There are also some trigger warnings which some people may appreciate before trying to tackle GR. The main portion of the Handbook reads kind of like a list of things that happen in the novel. It finishes with some essay questions and answers.
If you have trouble following the story...like me...then this will probably help. The book gives you a play-by-play, but doesn't do too much of the thinking for you. I like very much. It acknowledges how much of Gravity's Rainbow is ambiguous or vague, and doesn't pretend to give easy answers that don't exist. However, it also doesn't really connect the dots for you. Some important connections were overlooked, and the most difficult themes (such as the corporate conspiracy themes) weren't really tackled in the Handbook.
Also, there are a few points I believe the Handbook gets flat wrong. Specifically:
1) The relationship between Franz and Ilse,
2) the relationship between 00000 and 00001, and
3) the meaning of "beyond the zero" as it pertains to pavlovian conditioning.
But, these are minor points. If you've read Gravity's Rainbow I don't think they will bother you very much.
This handbook recommends that you read it before you tackle GR, but I disagree. I think a summary of events in GR is even harder to follow than the book itself. I suggest you read GR first and then use this to fill in any gaps.
Finally, I didn't enjoy the narration very much. Some of the pronunciations made me cringe. There is a very minor character in GR who can't pronounce vowels with umlauts. I believe this character may be our narrator in disguise.
A star review system is tricky. I hope Mine aren't seen as too negative. The handbook is worth the money and is trying to strike a difficult balance on a difficult piece of work. Just don't expect this (or anything else) to "explain" GR or make it easy. After all, if climbing the mountain is easy, what's the point?
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- Anonymous User
- 01-19-18
A Solid Summary
The author has a clear and interesting focus, but it goes to show how malleable the content of the actual novel is. The approach here is a somewhat cynical one, which, in my humble opinion, is not the wholistic nature of Gravity’s Rainbow. In fact, I think there’s quite a bit of optimism to be found, even (or especially) in the closing pages. Granted, it all depends on what major thematic lens you place atop the text i.e. religion, politics, technology, humanity, connection, war, etc. The only real issue I have is that SPOILERS he did not address the theatre’s bombing at the very beginning of the novel being paralleled and exemplified at the very end, which is massively important in supporting the thematics of the story and solidifying the book as the “postmodern masterwork” it’s constantly acclaimed to be.
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4 people found this helpful
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- philip
- 07-23-18
A pretty concise plot summary which is no easy task
I read Gravity’s Rainbow once a couple of years ago. I had a reading buddy with whom I held a weekly call to discuss the previous weeks reading and that helped immensely, though I would never have said that I truly ‘got’ the book or understood half of what was going on but I loved it nonetheless. This handbook is something I wish I had when I first read it and I’m thrilled to read this again the next time I read GR.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-01-22
Time Saver...
This is a key to Gravity's Rainbow. Even at best it can only be as good as the book itself. While being purposely difficult in writing style, it's just a trough full of anything Pynchon could think of to make you squirm, Joyce he is not. Add another star if this book helps you get through Gravity's Rainbow or better yet skip the 760 pages of drivel entirely.
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