John Dugdale is the
Guardian's associate media editor. One of his ten hottest highbrow books for the beach:
Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon
A wartime Côte d’Azur holiday for Lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop is actually a means for the creepy British scientists observing the American to make him fall on the beach for a sexy Dutch spy (a giant octopus supposedly menacing her is part of this bizarre honey-trap). This French opening to part two, which nods to Proust, transforms Pynchon’s second world war epic from a London novel to a European one - Slothrop escapes, and heads north towards Germany.
Read about
the other books on the list.
Gravity’s Rainbow is
a book Chuck Klosterman would have parents read to their children.
Gravity’s Rainbow inspired the song “Whip It” by Devo.
--Marshal Zeringue
