Pynchon Wiki: Bleeding Edge

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Welcome to the Bleeding Edge Wiki!

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Order Bleeding Edge (Amazon)

This is the Wiki for Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge. Besides using the Alphabetical Index and the page-by-page annotation, you can also take a look at Bleeding Edge cover analyses, read the reviews, or entertain some theories on the source of the title.

1 Penguin Press's "Trailer" for Bleeding Edge
2 Featured Articles
3 How to Use this Wiki
4 Alphabetical Index
5 Page by Page Annotations
6 Pynchon Wiki Help and Contributor Guidelines
7 External Links
8 Image Gallery

Penguin Press's "Trailer" for Bleeding Edge

Here's Penguin's trailer (Hmm...) for Bleeding Edge ... No Pynchon narration this time, and I wonder how successful it'll be in motivating potential readers, but it's definitely, um, interesting... Penguin Press said that the video was produced by Riz Sauvage (French: "Wild Rice") Productions, but they have zero presence online which does lead one to suspect....

However, on another note, writer William Gibson tweeted "Absolutely the best novel trailer so far in the history of the world" on September 4!

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Read — and participate in — a discussion of this video »

Featured Articles

Image: Slate Magazine

Jonathan Lethem's review of Bleeding Edge for The New York Times, may be the most intelligent and insightful review of them all. Lethem gets it! "[There is] the sheer vitality and fascination, the plummets into beauty and horror, the unique flashes of galactic epiphany, in Pynchon’s method. Our reward for surrendering expectations that a novel should gather in clarity, rather than disperse into molecules, isn’t anomie but delight. Pynchon himself’s a good companion, full of real affection for his people and places, even as he lampoons them for suffering the postmodern condition of being only partly real. He spoils us with descriptive flights." Read the review...

Image by Mario Wagner

Michiko Kakutani has disliked, and panned, every Pynchon novel after Mason & Dixon (1997). It seems she wants Pynchon to be something he isn't. It made me curious about who this critic is and her approach to reviewing fiction. "Assessing Michiko Kakutani" helps: "Kakutani doesn't offer the stylistic flair, the wit, or the insight one gets from Kael and other first-rate critics; for her, the verdict is the only thing. One has the sense of her deciding roughly at Page 2 whether or not a book is worthy; reading the rest of it to gather evidence for her case; spending some quality time with the Thesaurus; and then taking a large blunt hammer and pounding the message home." Read on...

Bleeding Edge Review by David Kipen, for Publishers Weekly, is a well written and insightful appreciation of Pynchon's craft and his new novel! "No one, but no one, rivals Pynchon's range of language, his elasticity of syntax, his signature mix of dirty jokes, dread and shining decency." Read the review...

How to Use this Wiki

There are two major ways to use this wiki. The first is the Bleeding Edge Alphabetical Index, used to keep track of the myriad characters, real and imagined, as well as events, arcana, and lots of other stuff. The second is the Spoiler-Free Annotations by Page, which allows the reader to look up and contribute allusions and references while reading the book, in a convenient and spoiler-free manner.

Apart from those, it's up to you.

Alphabetical Index

Information on the characters, events, and everything else in Bleeding Edge, organized alphabetically:==Bleeding Edge Alpha Guide to Characters, Places & More==

A·B·C·D·E·F·G·H·I·J·K·L·M·N·O·P·Q·R·S·T·U·V·W·XYZ TOP↑

Page by Page Annotations

Chapter 1 pp. 1-7	Chapter 2 pp. 8-19	Chapter 3 pp. 20-29	Chapter 4 pp. 30-40	Chapter 5 pp. 41-52
Chapter 6 pp. 53-67	Chapter 7 pp. 68-79	Chapter 8 pp. 80-86	Chapter 9 pp. 87-95	Chapter 10 pp. 96-111
Chapter 11 pp. 112-120	Chapter 12 pp. 121-133	Chapter 13 pp. 134-144	Chapter 14 pp. 145-159	Chapter 15 pp. 160-171
Chapter 16 pp. 172-184	Chapter 17 pp. 185-197	Chapter 18 pp. 198-210	Chapter 19 pp. 211-218	Chapter 20 pp. 219-229
Chapter 21 pp. 230-238	Chapter 22 pp. 239-246	Chapter 23 pp. 247-255	Chapter 24 pp. 256-264	Chapter 25 pp. 265-273
Chapter 26 pp. 274-287	Chapter 27 pp. 288-300	Chapter 28 pp. 301-313	Chapter 29 pp. 314-326	Chapter 30 pp. 327-337
Chapter 31 pp. 338-346	Chapter 32 pp. 347-353	Chapter 33 pp. 354-364	Chapter 34 pp. 365-382	Chapter 35 pp. 383-394
Chapter 36 pp. 395-407	Chapter 37 pp. 408-422	Chapter 38 pp. 423-438	Chapter 39 pp. 439-447	Chapter 40 pp. 448-462
		Chapter 41 pp. 463-477

Pynchon Wiki Help and Contributor Guidelines

Click here for help with editing and creating pages.

We have a few conventions we ask that you follow:

When creating a new page, first check to make sure a page/article about what you want to write about hasn't already been created, by checking the list of all Wiki pages on this Bleeding Edge Wiki. If a page already exists, please modify that one.

When creating a new page, if its information pertains to one (and only one) specific Pynchon novel, please categorize it with the appropriate identifier. For example, a page pertaining to Bleeding Edge, should use the syntax [[Category:BE]].

To open a discussion on an individual listing of the Alpha Index, create one using the entry on Peter Tait as an example. Basically, give it a name that identifies the alpha listing (eg [[Name Discussion|DISCUSSION]]) and notice that the visible name will be "DISCUSSION" in full caps, so it stands out a bit.