Gravity’s Rainbow

Maniacal maximalism with one of the best first sentences in English literature. The way I’ve started to think of this is as a single long scrolling encyclopaedia of mid-20th century culture.

Two: Un Perm’ au Casino Hermann Goering

Holy shit it‘s moving – an octopus? Yes it is the biggest fucking octopus Slothrop has ever seen outside of the movies, Jackson, and it has just risen up out of the water and squirmed halfway onto one of the black rocks. Now, cocking a malignant eye at the girl, it reaches out, wraps one long sucker-studded tentacle around her neck as everyone watches, another around her waist and begins to drag her, struggling, back under the sea.

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