Honey West meets The Matrix. That was my first thought while reading Thomas Pynchon’s loony new novel, Bleeding Edge. The story takes place in and around New York City in the year before the events of September 11. Maxine Tarnow operates a fraud investigation business and becomes involved in the possible terrorist conspiracy. Plenty of secret agents, drugs, computer hacking, and paranoia. For those of us who read Pynchon’s V. back in the Sixties, Bleeding Edge resembles a semi-sequel without the alligators in the sewers. I’m not sure who the audience for this book is. It’s too long–477 pages–for my students to bother with (and it doesn’t have any dwarfs or dragons). The rambling plot is sure to frustrate the casual reader who isn’t attuned to Pynchon’s tricks. Pynchon still displays his brilliance, but few and few readers are going to appreciate it. GRADE: B
But did YOU enjoy it?
Thanks for ereminding me, I gotta get back to V one of these days…..
Rick, I enjoyed parts of BLEEDING EDGE but on the whole I found long stretches tedious.
I think I’ll pass–Gravity’s Rainbow was enough for me.
I didn’t expect I would like this and your review confirms it.
Deb, GRAVITY’S RAINBOW is Pynchon’s magna opus. Nothing he has written since then comes close.
Patti, BLEEDING EDGE was a bit of a slog for me…and I’m a Pynchon fan!
No alligators in the sewers? I’m out.
I knew you would say that, Bill.
I’m going to read V. instead.
Sorry, Bill. No gators in BLEEDING EDGE.
Jeff, you would enjoy all the inside NYC references in BLEEDING EDGE. It’s really a love letter to New York City.
I breezed through GRAVITY’S RAINBOW in a day and a half, and had been hoping for something a littler meatier. I don’t think the great novel of September 2001 has yet been written and this doesn’t sound like it. I’ll skip.
Rick, I’m guessing my students (who were 7 or 8 when 9/11 happened) would not get all the references Pynchon makes to video games of that time or the current events of 2000. Some Ph.D. student will earn a doctorate annotating BLEEDING EDGE for younger readers.
Goodness, how quickly they forget. Was it always this way? Seems to me history classes taught us abut the past, ancient and recent, and we knew even if we didn’t personally remember.
Probably not… I doubt there’s much history on those blasted state mandated tests. Someone, somewhere probably thinks it doesn’t need to be taught because “they can look it up on line”. * S I G H *
Rick, you’re right: history isn’t being taught because it isn’t on The Test.
Rick, my students live in the present. Right now, they’re obsessed with the new iPhone 5S and GRAND THEFT AUTO 5. Events 12 years ago are as remote as the Ancient Greeks.