The study analyzes Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow it in terms of Rilke's Duino Elegies, a text which was a major influence on Pynchon's novel.

Born in Alexandria (Egypt) in 1947 Charles Hohmann studied English, French and Spanish languages and literatures at the universities of Fribourg, and the Universidad de Chile (Santiago), where he also held a post as a lecturer in Applied Linguistics for several years. From 1982 - 1986 he worked as an assistant for literary studies at the English department of the University of Zürich. 1987 he joined Unisys as an IT Instructor and became Educational Manager in that company in 1988. Since 1993 he teaches modern languages and computing at Institut Montana, Zugerberg (Switzerland).