Abstract

The idea was born in 1998, at the conference "Gravity's Rainbow: The First 25 Years," in Antwerp: to tour the zone, following Slothrop's footsteps and visiting some of the places mentioned in Gravity's Rainbow. It took two years to realize, but in June 2000, the "Into the Zone" tour got underway. Some obstacles could not be overcome–because of the inexplicable ignorance and obstinacy of various officials, the recalcitrance of reality or the inflexible German laws. Thus we were unable to obtain a balloon for the trip from the Brocken to Berlin, there were no hotels to be found, much less any rooms available, in Bad Karma, the director of the Greifswald zoo stubbornly refused to provide any chimps for the boat trip to Peenemünde, and it was impossible to get a permit from the German authorities to sample six kilos of hashish for strictly literary purposes. But we pushed on in the face of adversity.

How to Cite:

Vanderbeke, D. & Arich-Gerz, B. F., (2002) “Introduction: Into the Zone 2000”, Pynchon Notes , 9-13. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.66