SOURCE: "Deconstructing the Enemy of Color: The Fantastic in Gravity's Rainbow," in Studies in the Novel, Vol. 18, No. 1, Spring, 1986, pp. 74-86.

In the following essay, Olsen examines elements of postmodern fantasy in Gravity's Rainbow.

      Oh, THE WORLD OVER THERE, it's
      So hard explain!
      Just-like, a dream's got, lost in yer brain!
 
      —Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow)

I.

Gravity's Rainbow—what one reviewer frustrated by its length, structure, and seeming lack of control tagged "a magnificent necropolis that will take its place amidst the grand detritus of our culture"—was probably the most unread best seller in America during 1973, and perhaps ever. It teetered at the bottom of the New York Times Book Review list for two weeks late in April and another two early in May before it toppled off altogether to make way for the likes of Susann's Once is Not Enough, Forsyth's The Odessa File and, of...