Gravity's Rainbow is most likely the most metaphor- and meaning- saturated book of the 20th century (next to Ulysses). I'd like to give a brief introduction to its style. Just to skim over, here are a few of the motifs/themes/recurring structural elements:
- The 00000 is a penis. From Slothrop's sexual attachment to the rocket, to the climactic (in all senses) scene at the end, the book is an extended sexual metaphor. This could be interpreted another way, too--the rocket as a replacement for the penis. Cf. the limericks about having sex with machines and the song about Slothrop's penis being spirited away.
- The astute reader notices that the whole book is imitating 40s popular culture--it has constant allusions to famous movies and songs of the time, as well as bringing in the obsession with superheroes; note how Byron the Bulb appears over the heads of the characters in some scenes (like the *idea* symbol)!
- The idea of genocide is also enormously prevalent. The apparently otherwise meaningless descriptions of the destruction of the dodo, as well as the lightbulbs, and the peculiar situation of the Schwarzkommando.
- The characters have various curious characteristics -- note Ensign Morituri (sounds Japanese; means "those who are about to die" in Latin--kamikaze) and Geli Tripping (Gaily Tripping, as in happily skipping--something from HMS Pinafore, I believe); Bodine, who appears in V. as well; the aforementioned Malcolm X; even Mickey Rooney makes a cameo.
Of course, these are merely some superficial elements. The book is much deeper than that, and even flipping through it gives one spectacular ideas. Incidentally, I didn't think the ending was a downer at all; it's very orgastic.
What did Caesar really whisper to his protege as he fell? Et tu, Brute, the official lie, is about what you'd expect to get from them--it says exactly nothing. The moment of assassination is the moment when power and the ignorance of power come together, with Death as validator. When one speaks to the other then it is not to pass the time of day with et-tu-Brutes. What passes is a truth so terrible that history--at best a conspiracy, not always among gentlemen, to defraud--will never admit it.
(from Gravity's Rainbow)