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A review by mescalero_at_bat
Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon
4.0
went back to this one after not connecting the first time - the book really picks up mid-way, and i think, in my case, it just took a while to connect with the voice and the prose.
pynchon, as his readers know well, dives deep into the place and time he is writing about, and this particular chapter of new york isn't one i was deeply familiar with - i was also probably coming off a big AGAINST THE DAY high, and the prose here just felt hushed, repressed, stunted ...
but of course, that's what this novel needed, the compression one feels in new york city, being surrounded by so many people, it's easy to feel invisible, not there, not noticed. there's a good bit of keeping things under wrap in this book - especially the sections after THE BIG EVENT.
SPOILERS:
and but so, yeah, nyc after 9/11 ... like most of america, people seemed to just want to get back into whatever swing of things they were used to - and act like nothing ever happened. there was a war, of course, but on the soil of another country - a very dirty war that enabled most americans to keep their hands clean and keep most of the horrors at a distance. most americans like the idea of "justice" - whatever that means in this particular case - but don't like to get their hands dirty.
the internet seems like a perfect alter-ego for the story line. there is the surface web - where shopping and beautiful (cosmetically enhanced) images abound - and then there is the deep web, where the hackers and covert stuff is running the games that keep the surface reality in place.
this all fits so well together in BLEEDING EDGE - and on this second reading i really came to appreciate that. not my favorite pynchon, but damned good, i think.
pynchon, as his readers know well, dives deep into the place and time he is writing about, and this particular chapter of new york isn't one i was deeply familiar with - i was also probably coming off a big AGAINST THE DAY high, and the prose here just felt hushed, repressed, stunted ...
but of course, that's what this novel needed, the compression one feels in new york city, being surrounded by so many people, it's easy to feel invisible, not there, not noticed. there's a good bit of keeping things under wrap in this book - especially the sections after THE BIG EVENT.
SPOILERS:
and but so, yeah, nyc after 9/11 ... like most of america, people seemed to just want to get back into whatever swing of things they were used to - and act like nothing ever happened. there was a war, of course, but on the soil of another country - a very dirty war that enabled most americans to keep their hands clean and keep most of the horrors at a distance. most americans like the idea of "justice" - whatever that means in this particular case - but don't like to get their hands dirty.
the internet seems like a perfect alter-ego for the story line. there is the surface web - where shopping and beautiful (cosmetically enhanced) images abound - and then there is the deep web, where the hackers and covert stuff is running the games that keep the surface reality in place.
this all fits so well together in BLEEDING EDGE - and on this second reading i really came to appreciate that. not my favorite pynchon, but damned good, i think.