Wanted: a rubber raft

Here's a quote from Mark Richard Siegel's book Pynchon: Creative Paranoia in Gravity's Rainbow:

'The critic's role is not to restrict the varied responses of readers...My first aim in writing this study of Gravity's Rainbow is to open the floodgates of meaning for the reader, while at the same time offering a rubber raft to prevent him [or her, presumably] from being overwhelmed and swept away'.

Siegel is talking about literary criticism, but the point holds for history, sociology, political analysis, my PhD thesis on EP Thompson - you name it...

I only wish I could find my rubber raft...