Class Description
Fall 2025 marked a banner season for the writer Thomas Pynchon: the publication, at age 88, of his first novel in over a decade, Shadow Ticket, as well as the release of a film adaptation, One Battle After Another, based on his novel Vineland (1990). Join in the Pynchon-mania by tackling one of the most celebrated, influential, and notoriously difficult American novels of the twentieth century, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), in a seven-part discussion-based seminar.
In the bombed-out wastelands at the end of WWII, Lt. Tyrone Slothrop is on a quest to find the truth about a rocket that seems to hold the key to his identity, and, perhaps, to a vast global conspiracy. Together we will untangle the hundreds of oddly-named characters and zany plots while tracing major themes and surveying recent scholarship as we consider Pynchon’s legacy as a literary artist and political philosopher, and reflect on the relevance of the novel for us today.
Content warning from the instructor: This novel is not for everyone. As a sometimes squeamish reader myself, I think it’s worth detailing what you’re in for: Gravity’s Rainbow contains not just passing mentions, but major plots and scenes centered around conspiracy theories, boner jokes, drug use, S&M, the occult, childhood sexual abuse, paedophilia, coprophagia, orgies, sexism, racism (& slurs), and the history of slavery and genocide, not to mention plenty of Nazi depravity. Furthermore, the writing is dense and confusing, and the tone can be strange: silly when we’d expect it to be serious, serious when we’d expect it to be silly. It is also, I think, transcendent.
Dylan Zavagno is an award-winning humanities educator at the Deerfield Public Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast, where he interviews authors, artists, and academics from Chicagoland and around the world.
What to Expect
Format: In Person
Class Capacity: 18
Class Style: Mostly discussion; participation-based
Materials List
Required
- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow. Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, 2006. ISBN: 978-0143039945
Recommended
- Steven Weisenburger, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel, 2nd Edition, Revised and Expanded. Georgia University Press, 2006 ISBN: 978-0820328072
- Some Things that "Happen" (More or Less) in Gravity’s Rainbow by Michael Davitt Bell
- gravitysrainbowguide.com by John Semley
- Deerfield Public Library Podcast #66: Dr. Jo Freer on Thomas Pynchon & Gravity’s Rainbow (Apple) (Spotify)
First Reading
- For our first session, please read Part 1, sections 1-12 (pages 1-85 in our Penguin Deluxe Classics Edition) of Gravity's Rainbow.
A Brief Syllabus
- Part 1, sections 1-12. Introductions.
- Part 1, sections 13-21. Love as politics.
- Part 2. Music.
- Part 3, sections 1-10. Racism.
- Part 3, sections 11-19. Personal responsibility.
- Part 3, sections 20-32. Pynchon today.
- Part 4. The postmodern, the post-postmodern, and where we are now.
Cost and Registration
7 Sessions, $280 ($252 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.
We offer our classes at three different price options: Regular ($280), Community Supported ($260), and Sponsor ($300). Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.
To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.
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