The Three Equations in Gravity's Rainbow (Critical Essay)
Pynchon Notes 2000, Spring, 46-49
-
- $5.99
-
- $5.99
Publisher Description
Pynchon's references to mathematics and science attracted early notice among the first critics confronting the unsettling complexities of Gravity's Rainbow. Lance Ozier explicated the mathematical concepts underlying the Pointsman/Mexico dualism (AA) and the transformations of Slothrop and others (CT). Joseph Slade, in his pioneering book-length study, provided the template for much later discussion of Pynchon's interest in and thematic use of mathematics and science. Other critics writing soon after the publication of Gravity's Rainbow also remarked on Pynchon's heterodox preferences in both content and narrative structure. Pynchon's marshalling of film, music, history and religion as well as science, technology and mathematics contributes to the apparent pastiche of Gravity's Rainbow, which--diverse as its contents and methods are--critics increasingly argued was structured with uncommon artfulness. The purpose of this essay is not to add to the general discussion of how Pynchon uses mathematical concepts, but to focus specifically on the narrative function of the three equations actually inscribed in the novel. Drawing on our professional backgrounds in literature (Schachterle) and physics (Aravind), we aim to show how Pynchon turns mathematical expressions into rhetorical tropes which complicate the text by playing upon the authority the equations convey. Each of the three equations is a different kind--genre, if you like--of mathematical expression, each with a different role in the narrative. Each equation plays upon the expectations readers bring to the text--expectations about how both words and equations normally communicate and with what authority.