Ever Pirate a Slothrop?

Artist Zak Smith has taken upon himself to create one piece of art – for the most part pen on paper illustrations - for every page of Thomas Pynchon’s post-modern masterpiece, Gravity’s Rainbow. For The Modern Word, Creon Upton writes the following about the book:

Illustrating Gravity’s Rainbow is like putting Ezra Pound’s Cantos to music, or writing the novel of a grandmaster showdown—from the point of view of the chess pieces.

Now that chess fiction would be quite something, wouldn’t it? I have always wondered if the Knight feels randy when galloping over a Bishop to snag a Pawn…

One cannot help to feel a wee bit charmed when reading Smith’s reason for illustrating the novel:

So I illustrated Gravity's Rainbow-- nobody asked me to, but I did it anyway.

I wonder if Gus Van Sant was offered to direct his Psycho remake or just did it anyhow….