Back قوس قزح الجاذبية Arabic Гравитационна дъга Bulgarian Die Enden der Parabel German El arco iris de gravedad Spanish رنگینکمان جاذبه Persian Painovoiman sateenkaari Finnish L'Arc-en-ciel de la gravité French Súlyszivárvány Hungarian L'arcobaleno della gravità Italian 重力の虹 Japanese
.jpg) First edition cover design | |
| Author | Thomas Pynchon |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction, satire, encyclopedic novel, science fiction, paranoid fiction |
| Published | March 14, 1973 (Viking Press) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 760 |
| 813.54 | |
Gravity's Rainbow is a 1973 novel by the American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device, the Schwarzgerät ("black device"), which is slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000".
Traversing a wide range of knowledge, Gravity's Rainbow crosses boundaries between high and low culture, between literary propriety and profanity, and between science and speculative metaphysics. It shared the 1974 US National Book Award for Fiction with A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer.[1] Although selected by the Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Pulitzer Advisory Board was offended by its content, some of which was described as "'unreadable', 'turgid', 'overwritten', and in parts 'obscene'".[2] No Pulitzer Prize was awarded for fiction that year.[2][3] The novel was nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award for Best Novel.[4]
Time named Gravity's Rainbow one of its "All-Time 100 Greatest Novels", a list of the best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005[5] and it is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest American novels ever written.[6]
- ^ "National Book Awards 1974". National Book Foundation. (With essays by Casey Hicks and Chad Post from the Awards' 60-year anniversary blog. The acceptance speech by Irwin Corey is not reprinted by the National Book Foundation.). Retrieved March 29, 2012.
- ^ a b Kihss, Peter (May 8, 1974). "Pulitzer Jurors Dismayed on Pynchon". The New York Times. Retrieved April 20, 2017.
- ^ McDowell, Edwin (May 11, 1984). "Publishing: Pulitzer Controversies". The New York Times. p. C26.
- ^ "1973 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved July 6, 2009.
- ^ "ALL-Time 100 Novels". Time. October 16, 2005. Retrieved October 15, 2009.
- ^ Almansi, p. 226: "piu importante romanzo americano del secondo dopoguerra, Gravity's Rainbow di Thomas Pynchon (romanzo mai pubblicato in Italia, con grande vergogna dell'editoria nazionale)." English translation: "most important American novel of the second post-war, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (a novel never published in Italy, to the great shame of the national publishing industry)". Almansi's comment is from 1994. Gravity's Rainbow was translated and published in Italy in 1999.