Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973), set in an alternative-universe version of World War II, has been called a modern "Finnegan's Wake" for its challenging language, wild anachronisms, hallucinatory happenings, and fever-dream imagery. With "Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow," artist Zak Smith at once eases and expands readers' experience of the book. A leading exponent of punk-based, DIY art, Smith here presents his most ambitious project to date -- an art book exactly as long as the work it's interpreting: 760 drawings, paintings, photos, and less definable images in 760 pages. Extraordinary tableaux of the detritus of war -- a burned-out Konigstiger tank, a melted machine gun -- coexist alongside such phantasmagoric Pynchon inventions as the "stumbling bird" and "Girgori the octopus." Smith has stated his aim to be "as literal as possible" in interpreting "Gravity's Rainbow," but his images are as imaginative and powerfully unique as the prose they honor.
"The end result of his endeavor is less an illustrated novel than a series of eerie, high art interpretations." Marcela Valdes, Washington Post
"The drawings are surprisingly detailed, colorful and contemplative, adding new layers to the text and potentially earning Pynchon some new fans." -Whitney Matheson, USA Today "[Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow] can be enjoyed on its own or read simultaneously with the 1973 novel, putting smith's art next to those discursive, intricate, elusive, overwritten sentences." -Jeff Baker, The Oregonian
"He draws a lurid and intoxicating netherworld, complete in its own right
an illuminating companion to the novel." Emily Barton, Los Angeles Times