A review by runkefer
Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon

2.0

I was disappointed in this latest tome from Pynchon. It read like a mashup of Jonathan Lethem's CHRONIC CITY and Neal Stephenson's REAMDE, and to some extent SNOW CRASH, all of which I liked much better. I'm not averse to the techno-paranoia genre at all, but BLEEDING EDGE was populated by so many characters that I began losing track almost immediately, and the through-line was, well, where was it? There were so many funny lines, clever turns of phrase, great puns, but these were the only things that kept me reading. That and my obsessiveness about finishing books. There was no real arc, no real character development. It is a vehicle for delivering wordplay. I'm sure he'll be accused of anti-Semitism, if he hasn't been already. National Book Award? are you kidding me?