Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon is a novel set in New York City during the time of the dotcom bust and the aftermath of 9/11. The story follows Maxine, a Jewish mother and fraud investigator, as she navigates through a complex web of intrigue involving game development, international spying, and attempts to take over the world. Pynchon creates absurd contemporary characters and explores themes of technology, paranoia, and control in a computer-run world, all while capturing the essence of a changing New York City.
Genres:
Tropes/Plot Devices:
Topics:
Notes:
Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Triggers include themes of violence, loss, and trauma related to 9/11, as well as discussions of conspiracy theories.
Has Romance?
The book includes romantic elements, particularly in the protagonist's relationships, but the focus remains on broader themes and plots.
From The Publisher:
A New York Times besteller!
It is 2001 in New York City, in the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11th. Silicon Alley is a ghost town, Web 1.0 is having adolescent angst, Google has yet to IPO, Microsoft is still considered the Evil Empire. There may not be quite as much money around as there was at the height of the tech bubble, but there's no shortage of swindlers looking to grab a piece of what's left.
Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics-carry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people's bank accounts-without having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom-two boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-ex-husband Horst, life as normal as it ever gets in the neighborhood-till Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm and its billionaire geek CEO, whereupon things begin rapidly to jam onto the subway and head downtown. She soon finds herself mixed up with a drug runner in an art deco motorboat, a professional nose obsessed with Hitler's aftershave, a neoliberal enforcer with footwear issues, plus elements of the Russian mob and various bloggers, hackers, code monkeys, and entrepreneurs, some of whom begin to show up mysteriously dead. Foul play, of course.
With occasional excursions into the DeepWeb and out to Long Island, Thomas Pynchon, channeling his inner Jewish mother, brings us a historical romance of New York in the early days of the internet, not that distant in calendar time but galactically remote from where we've journeyed to since.
Will perpetrators be revealed, forget about brought to justice? Will Maxine have to take the handgun out of her purse? Will she and Horst get back together? Will Jerry Seinfeld make an unscheduled guest appearance? Will accounts secular and karmic be brought into balance?
Hey. Who wants to know?
The Washington Post
"Brilliantly written… a joy to read… Bleeding Edge is totally gonzo, totally wonderful. It really is good to have Thomas Pynchon around, doing what he does best." (Michael Dirda)
Slate.com
"If not here at the end of history, when? If not Pynchon, who? Reading Bleeding Edge, tearing up at the beauty of its sadness or the punches of its hilarity, you may realize it as the 9/11 novel you never knew you needed… a necessary novel and one that literary history has been waiting for."
The New York Times Book Review
Exemplary… dazzling and ludicrous… Our reward for surrendering expectations that a novel should gather in clarity, rather than disperse into molecules, isn't anomie but delight." (Jonathan Lethem)
Wired magazine
"The book's real accomplishment is to claim the last decade as Pynchon territory, a continuation of the same tensions - between freedom and captivity, momentum and entropy, meaning and chaos - through which he has framed the last half-century."
Ratings (3)
Loved It (2) | |
It Was OK (1) |
Reader Stats (13):
Read It (3) | |
Want To Read (8) | |
Not Interested (2) |
1 comment(s)
I grabbed this book even though it is rather outside my typical readings. I really needed it for one of my more specific reading challenges and I saw that it was also tagged as mystery - a genre that I really like. I had some doubts but I generally like this book.
I would not call this book a typical mystery although there are a lot of suspense threads, puzzles and murders here. And they are quite interesting.
What definitely makes this book stand out is its very specific writing style. On the one hand, it's kind of torn, full of understatements and allusions. Sometimes you get the impression that some words are missing in a sentence, but you still understand the general meaning. Scenes change quickly, you jump from one to the other. This is not unpleasant, although it probably may not suit everyone.
The second issue is onirism, the boundaries between the real and the unreal world are blurred. You don’t know where reality ends and where fantasy and dream begin. Which is of course the author's deliberate intention. Maxie, the main character, herself has problems distinguishing what is real and what is only the computer world of DeepArcher.
To some point, the entire story is based around various conspiracy theories regarding the 9/11 attacks. Maxie is simultaneously at the center of these events and a little to the side. Other cases that she leads mix with those potentially related to 9/11.
I have some serious problems gathering my feelings about this book enough to write a consistent review. On the one hand, this story is rather beyond my comfort zone, on the other hand, I am surprised how easily and quickly I read it. I thought I would struggle with this book for a long time, it is not short after all. But it didn't happen, I didn't have much trouble reading it. What's more, I may read this author's other book in the future, maybe not yet, but one day.
What can you read after
Bleeding Edge?
About the Author:
Thomas Pynchon is the author of V.; The Crying of Lot 49; Gravity's Rainbow; Slow Learner, a collection of short stories; Vineland; Mason & Dixon; Against the Day; and, most recently, Inherent Vice. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.
When you click the Amazon link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commision, at no cost to you.
