Abstract

"History," Pynchon writes in Gravity's Rainbow, "is not woven by innocent hands." According to Pynchon, history--or historical reality as a system of commonly agreed upon "facts"--is a manufactured product, an act of conscious creation similar to the creation of art; in fact, Pynchon treats the creation of art as the first step in the fabrication of reality. The contrived "realities," plots, and insidious grand designs in Gravity's Rainbow are actually the artifices of a ubiquitous "Them," who manipulate lives by producing illusory realities which become accepted as the empirically "real."

How to Cite:

Smith, M., (1982) “The Paracinematic Reality of Gravity's Rainbow”, Pynchon Notes 9, 17-37. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.446