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A review by bonnieg
Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon
4.0
Okay, first things first, DO NOT get the audiobook. You cannot begin to imagine how bad a reader can be. I regret every negative thing I have ever said about a reader because all up to now have been geniuses compared to Jeanne Berlin. I took the audio back to the library after 4 of 17 disks and got the book. Turns out, once I was out of Jeanne Berlin induced hell, the book was pretty delightful.
No mistake about it, this is Pynchon-lite, as so many have mentioned. I loved V and Gravity's Rainbow as much as the next girl, but I don't always look for that level of challenge from my reading choices. This book requires much less, though still a fair bit, from the reader. Written in Pynchon-speak with sub-references and digressions aplenty the book takes a smart and broadly well-informed reader. I enjoyed the silly dig at 9-11 conspiracy theorists. I was delighted by the nod to our need for villains, the central casting part moving from Boris & Natasha type Russians, to Muslims, to tech billionaires. I laughed at the pretty dead-on portrayal of the modern Upper West Side Jewish mother, and her Workman's Circle era parents. I take off a star for a few lengthy digressions that messed with the pace of the book (and with noir, pacing really matters) and which a judicious editor would have done away with, and for some repetitive "jokes" that show that sometimes even Thomas Pynchon, whose mind and writing skill surpass most all other comers, is not as clever as he thinks. Highly recommend this one.
No mistake about it, this is Pynchon-lite, as so many have mentioned. I loved V and Gravity's Rainbow as much as the next girl, but I don't always look for that level of challenge from my reading choices. This book requires much less, though still a fair bit, from the reader. Written in Pynchon-speak with sub-references and digressions aplenty the book takes a smart and broadly well-informed reader. I enjoyed the silly dig at 9-11 conspiracy theorists. I was delighted by the nod to our need for villains, the central casting part moving from Boris & Natasha type Russians, to Muslims, to tech billionaires. I laughed at the pretty dead-on portrayal of the modern Upper West Side Jewish mother, and her Workman's Circle era parents. I take off a star for a few lengthy digressions that messed with the pace of the book (and with noir, pacing really matters) and which a judicious editor would have done away with, and for some repetitive "jokes" that show that sometimes even Thomas Pynchon, whose mind and writing skill surpass most all other comers, is not as clever as he thinks. Highly recommend this one.