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A review by davidveloz
Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon
3.0
Bleeding Edge has mostly been stabled with the almost-ran ponies in the Pynchon lite barn, and while it is not a complex anti-linear quarterhorse like Gravity's Rainbow, it's not a lopey mule like Vineland either. For one, Maxine Tarnow is one of his best protagonists in recent years: a mother of two, an untethered jew, a disgraced fraud investigator-turned-private eye -- she's part Rhoda Morgenstern, part Sam Spade, sexy, guilty, determined, smart, and she almost seems like a real character in a real book. That's rarely the case in Pynchon's work (by design), and I was happily surprised. Second, much has been made of Bleeding Edge as a love letter to New York before 9/11 or as a meditation on the human connection with chaos and how one cannot live without the other. Neither view resonates with me.
When the planes crash into the towers Bleeding Edge, it happens "off camera", and it is almost a non-event. Pynchon doesn't milk a single drop of emotion from the attacks, nor does he minimize them. The paranoia and irrationality that pervade the book almost slip away into something close to calm for a moment before returning in full force. It reminds me of a line in the film Cutter's Way: "You know, the routine grind drives me to drink. Tragedy, I take straight." The use of 9/11 in Bleeding Edge might be the single most original thing Pynchon has done in twenty years, and that's a high compliment.
But the paranoia, the lazy-jazz writing, the late capitalism-as-rhizome structure and invention are all slightly comforting -- it's good see old Tom still at it! -- rather than startling or disturbing. By the end the entire thing seems to disappear back into sand, and even if that were "the idea", success only leaves nothing to talk about.
When the planes crash into the towers Bleeding Edge, it happens "off camera", and it is almost a non-event. Pynchon doesn't milk a single drop of emotion from the attacks, nor does he minimize them. The paranoia and irrationality that pervade the book almost slip away into something close to calm for a moment before returning in full force. It reminds me of a line in the film Cutter's Way: "You know, the routine grind drives me to drink. Tragedy, I take straight." The use of 9/11 in Bleeding Edge might be the single most original thing Pynchon has done in twenty years, and that's a high compliment.
But the paranoia, the lazy-jazz writing, the late capitalism-as-rhizome structure and invention are all slightly comforting -- it's good see old Tom still at it! -- rather than startling or disturbing. By the end the entire thing seems to disappear back into sand, and even if that were "the idea", success only leaves nothing to talk about.