Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Chapter 16

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==Page 172==
''''85 Sassicaia''' 
Tenuta San Guido is an Italian wine producer in the DOC Bolgheri in Toscana, known as a producer of "Super Tuscan" wine. Its wine Sassicaia is considered one of Italy's leading Bordeaux-style red wines (ie comparable to the Tignanello appearing on pg 66). Tenuta San Guido is member of the Primum Familiae Vini. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassicaia WIKI].

==Page 173==

'''riyals''' 
The name of the currencies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. There's a slight disconnect here, however, as if hashslingrz's account is "in the Emirates," as mentioned above, the currency should really be Emirati dirhams.

==Page 174==
'''Eternal September''' 
A foreboding name. The Eternal September started September 1993, the month that internet service provider America Online (AOL) began offering Usenet access to its (very many) members . Before then, every year in September, a large number of new university freshmen acquired access to Usenet for the first time, and things took some time to calm down as they become accustomed to Usenet's standards of conduct. After Eternal September the calm never came as more and more people came on line.

==Page 177==
'''"Up to whom they must never miss a chance to suck"''' 
Perhaps Pynchon is riffing on Winston Churchill's alleged marginal note of 27 February 1944, to a priggish civil servant's memo objecting to the ending of a sentences with prepositions: "This is the kind of tedious nonsense up with which I will not put!"

'''Motor City psychobilly Elvis Hitler''' 
Yes. There really is a band called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Hitler Elvis Hitler]. And they're from Detroit (a.k.a., the "Motor City").

'''singing the ''Green Acres'' theme to the tune of "Purple Haze"''' 
And yes, Elvis Hitler really did a version of the ''Green Acres'' theme to the tune of Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." You can hear it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FFgxJsjqkg here].

The bizarro song in question is called "Green Haze, Parts 1 and 2," from their 1988 album "Disgraceland." Is Maxine feeling nostalgia from this particular song, or for "Green Acres" and/or "Purple Haze"? Maxine doesn't strike me as a psychobilly person, but maybe. Also, "Green Haze" is the name of an early Miles Davis tune, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYHoT0ofEjQ YouTube], found on "The Musings of Miles." Who knew?

'''zaftig body''' 
Slightly fat in an attractive way.

==Page 178==
'''''Jules and Jim''''' 
a 1962 French film by François Truffaut, a classic film about a love triangle. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_and_Jim Wikipedia].

'''hours on the LIE''' 
Long Island Expressway

'''money shot''' 
In film-making usage the shot that cannot be repeated (or only at great costs); in porn movies naturally the "cum shot"

'''"sub-vaudeville routine"''' 
So bad, it's not even up to vaudeville's corny standards

==Page 179==

'''Tanger Outlets''' 
An outlet mall with locations throughout the US.

'''"Where could this tape have come from?"''' 
Recalls the mysterious film reels in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' that are used to convey hidden messages to certain characters.

'''Mrs. Grundy''' 
A figurative name for a holier-than-thou, self-righteous person, a goody-two-shoes. Named after a minor character in Thomas Morton's play ''Speed the Plough'' (1798).

According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Grundy Wiki,] she (Pynchonesquely?) never makes an appearance in the play, and is merely talked about.

==Page 180==
'''begins idly to channel-surf. A form of meditating.''' 
Interesting to note the shift from ''Vineland''s 80's Tube addicts to ''Bleeding Edge''s 00's new form of meditating. Could it have to do with the availability of channels?

==Page 181==
'''Homer strangling Bart . . .''' 
Refers to characters from the animated TV show ''The Simpsons'', in which the father (Homer) often gets angry and strangles his son Bart. Pynchon himself (well, his voice, at least) has appeared a couple of times on this television program.

==Page 182==
'''Buddhist Parable of the Burning Coal''' 
Some [http://www.fakebuddhaquotes.com/fake-buddha-quote-holding-on-to-anger-is-like-grasping-a-hot-coal/ musings] on this Buddhist story and similar ones on a "Fake Buddha Quotes" site. Follow the link to see how coal relates to sensuality and excrement. Where have you gone, Brigadier Pudding?

==Page 183==
'''''which she looks up in her crisscross''''' 
Criss-cross directories, or "reverse directories," are specialized address books that list residents and businesses by street address and telephone number rather than alphabetically by name

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Thomas Pynchon Wiki:About

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* navigation
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* wikis
** https://shadowticket.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page|Shadow Ticket
** https://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page|Inherent Vice
** https://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page|Against the Day
** https://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page|MDsidebar
** https://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page|Vineland
** https://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page|Gravity's Rainbow
** https://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page|The Crying of Lot 49
** https://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page|V.
** https://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/index.php?title=Main_Page|Infinite Jest
** https://thomaspynchon.com|ThomasPynchon.com

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[[Image:BE-Final-Cover.jpg|500px|right]]<big>'''Welcome to the ''Bleeding Edge'' Wiki!'''</big>

If you wish to contact us or suggest edits, [https://thomaspynchon.com/contact/ '''use this Contact page.''']

*'''Purchase ''Bleeding Edge''''': [https://amzn.to/3Ic1Xbl Paperback] [https://amzn.to/3Ic2TMT Hardcover]
*[https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=Thomas+Pynchon+Bleeding+Edge&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_odkw=Thomas+Pynchon+Inherent+Vice&_osacat=0 '''Search EBay''' for ''Bleeding Edge'']
*Check out some [[#Featured Articles|'''Featured Articles''']]
*[[Songs_mentioned_in_Bleeding_Edge|'''Musicians and works of music''' mentioned in ''Bleeding Edge'']]


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

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==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.

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==Page by Page Annotations==
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==Featured Articles==
[[File:Michael-Chabon.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Michael Chabon Photo: ''The East Bay Monthly'']]'''Wow! Writer Michael Chabon delivers a wonderful, insightful review of ''Bleeding Edge''.''' Chabon's a long-time appreciator of Pynchon and his perspective on the work is unsurpassed, and his 11/07/13 review for ''The New York Review of Books'' is illuminating... "One ought to be accustomed, by now, to Pynchon’s leaving his mysteries unresolved, or at least prepared to give him credit for having done so on purpose. Incompleteness is the inherent vice of paranoid theories of history, the limitation of such theories that Pynchon has always freely acknowledged. Criticism of Pynchon’s “shaggy dog” or sloppy plotting neglects the emphasis that he has always laid on the dual meaning of the word ''plot''. From ''V.'' forward, nearly all his novels have been founded on a bedrock of detective fiction and underlayed with science fiction, boy’s adventure, westerns, spy fiction, and other genres that rely, like conspiracy theories, on plotting. His broken plots expose the epistemological brokenness of paranoid systems, which are, after all, nothing but attempts, grander but no less doomed to failure than anyone’s, to make sense of a broken world." [https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/11/07/thomas-pynchon-crying-september-11/ Full article »]



[[File:Harpers-Review-Pemberton-Illustration.png|thumb|left|200px|Illustration: Simon Pemberton]]'''An exellent ''Harper's Magazine'' article that combines a review of ''Bleeding Edge'' with detailed biographical and genealogical info on Mr. Pynchon, and a Must Read!''' "''Bleeding Edge'', however, offers an indication that Pynchon has finally given up on seeking the soul of the nation his family helped found. For Pynchon — the embattled bard of the counterculture, disabused of all allegiance — the last redoubt has become the family, and the last war to be waged is between our virtual identities and the bonds of blood; a war to keep the Virtual from corrupting the Blood, if not forever, then for time enough to let the lil’ Ziggy and Otis Tarnow-Loefflers of this world live with the merest pretense of freedom (childhood). Pynchon understands that in the future there will be no secrets, no hidden complots — everything will be aired and any second life, whether in the cloud or in the firmament, will be despoiled or denied us. Adult sanity, then, must depend not on the lives we make online, but on the lives we make off it — our kids — on how we love them, and how we raise them, and the virtues and good-taste imperatives we pass on to them from our progenitors." [https://harpers.org/archive/2013/10/first-family-second-life/ Full article »]



[[File:Lethem-BleedingEdge.jpg|left|200px|thumb|Illustration: Mario Wagner]] '''Jonathan Lethem's review of ''Bleeding Edge'' for ''The New York Times'' is one of the most intelligent and insightful reviews.''' Like Michael Chabon, 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." [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon.html Read the review...]



[[File:Michiko-Kakutani.jpg|left|80px|thumb|Image: Slate]] Noticing that ''New York Times'' critic '''Michiko Kakutani''' has panned every Pynchon novel after ''Mason & Dixon'' (1997) the latest target being [[Bleeding_Edge_Reviews#kakutani|''Bleeding Edge'']] I became curious as to just who this grumpy critic is. If you're curious too, read "Assessing Michiko Kakutani":

"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." [https://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2006/04/michiko_kakutani.html Read on...]


[[File:PubWeekly-logo.png|left]] '''''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." [https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59420-423-4 Read the review...]


== Pynchon Wiki Help and Contributor Guidelines==

[[Help:Contents|'''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 '''[[Special:Allpages|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 <code><nowiki>[[Category:BE]]</nowiki></code>.

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

* [[Help:Contents|More help for this wiki available here.]]

==External Links==

* [https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=thomas+pynchon&oq=thomas+pynchon Latest news on Thomas Pynchon (Google News)]
* [https://www.thomaspynchon.com/ ThomasPynchon.com]
* [http://www.hashslingrz.com/ hashslingrz.com]
* [https://shipwrecklibrary.com/the-modern-word/pynchon/spermatikos-logos/ Shipwreck Library (was The Modern Word) Pynchon page]
* [https://pynchonoid.blogspot.com/ Pynchonoid Blog]
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Edge Wikipedia ''Bleeding Edge'' page]

* [https://literarywiki.org/index.php?title=Main_Page Literarywiki.org] - wiki annotations to works by Pynchon, Umberto Eco, and many others.

==Image Gallery==
Below are some of the images you will find on Pynchon Wiki. {{Special:Newimages}}

Thanks, and enjoy...

Thomas Pynchon Wiki:About

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The Pynchon Wiki was inaugurated on November 21, 2006, the same date ''Against the Day'', Thomas Pynchon's sixth novel, was published. It was created by [https://timware.com Tim Ware], who also built and maintains [https://ThomasPynchon.com ThomasPynchon.com].

We have established wikis for all of Pynchon's novels, but not yet for some "uncollected" works. So far, in addition to ''Shadow Ticket'' (2025), there are wikis for ''Bleeding Edge'' (2013), ''Inherent Vice'' (2009), ''Against the Day'' (2006), ''Mason & Dixon'' (1997), ''Vineland'' (1990), ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (1973), ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (1966) and ''V.'' (1963).

Pynchon Wiki runs on MediaWiki, a wiki software package licensed under the GNU General Public License. It is written in PHP and uses either the MySQL or PostgreSQL relational database management system.

Special thanks go to Kasimir Gabert and David Kipen for either inspiring, encouraging or helping to facilitate this project, to all the registered users — especially the Early Adopters (and especially Erik Ketzan) — for picking up the ball and running with it, to Kasimir Gabert for technical assistance, and finally to the developers and programmers at WikiMedia.org who created MediaWiki software. Wikipedia rocks!

Also a heart-felt thanks to Professor Don Larsson who graciously allowed us to repurpose his Companion's Companion to ''Gravity's Rainbow'' for the ''Gravity's Rainbow'' wiki, and to John Diebold and Michael Goodwin who allowed us to kick-start the ''Vineland'' wiki's page-by-page annotations with the content from their "Babies of Wackiness – A Reader's Guide to Thomas Pynchon's Vineland" website.

And, natch, many thanks to Mr. Pynchon for the gifts that keep on giving!

Stay tuned, as always...

MediaWiki:Sidebar

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Bleeding Edge Reviews

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==Review aggregators==

:[https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/from-the-archives-reviewing-thomas-pynchon/ ''The New York Times'': Reviewing Thomas Pynchon...]

==Reviews==

Please add any relevant reviews as they come in. Blog reviews are fine as long as they're substantial and more than a few paragraphs.

'''10/24/14''' [http://www.popmatters.com/review/187179-bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon/ '''PopMatters'''] - '''Thomas Pynchon: what art can learn from the great pop author''' - Will Layman: "Ultimately, ''Bleeding Edge'' is rich in these worlds and finds ways to present them without undue weirdness, maybe because our own world, in good and bad ways, has finally become nearly as strange as this writer’s imagination. We travel to fantastical bathrooms fashioned with full-service bars and to simple New York streets illuminated with wonder. Ghosts or time-traveling kidnapped children might appear in either place. And when we’re told that the avatars of the dead are given voice by those who grieve them and are given photographic image by cycling GIFs that are loose in the deep web, is that so unbelievable, and is not the power of sorrow and fear that animates that invented world not our, uh, reality in 2014?" [http://www.popmatters.com/review/187179-bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon/ Full article »]

'''06/18/14''' [http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/jun/18/thomas-pynchon-what-art-can-learn-pop-author '''The Guardian'''] - '''Thomas Pynchon: what art can learn from the great pop author''' - Jonathan Jones: "Pynchon demonstrates a bigger and better way of making art out of the reality we inhabit right now. He soaks it all up, ingests a stupendous volume of cultural phenomena then transfigures them into a comic phantasmagoria, where everything is metamorphosed into joyous pastiche, parody, and grotesque fantasy." [http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/jun/18/thomas-pynchon-what-art-can-learn-pop-author Full article »]

'''05/19/14''' [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/fareforward/2014/05/bleeding-edge/ '''Patheos'''] - Katie McGinley: "Life in the world Pynchon depicts is like the DeepArcher program: a meandering journey through a dazzlingly complex landscape where there is no certain purpose or goal and which has only a tenuous connection to the real and the true. Like Maxine in her first DeepArcher experience, it’s dangerously easy for any of us to lose sight of reality and get drawn further and further into illusions — especially when those pseudorealities are more comforting and convenient than facing the reality of a world full of uncertainties and uncomfortable truths." [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/fareforward/2014/05/bleeding-edge/ Full article »]

'''03/22/14''' [http://www.phuketgazette.net/phuket-entertainment/Phuket-Books-Against-machine/27899 '''Phuket Gazette'''] - James Eckardt: "But as one critic has observed, one no more reads Thomas Pynchon for plot than he does Jane Austin for sex. The hip narrative voice, the wild humor, the exuberant pace – these sweep the reader along. No one outside of Elmore Leonard writes such brilliant dialogue, no one outside Faulkner such intricate, rolling and intense descriptions." [http://www.phuketgazette.net/phuket-entertainment/Phuket-Books-Against-machine/27899 Full article »]

'''02/16/14''' [http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140216/PC1201/140219604/1003/pynchons-bleeding-edge-a-challenging-rewarding-read '''The Charleston Post and Courier'''] - Michael Nelson: "Never an easy read, Pynchon's fiction, with intricate plots, post-modern themes, pop-cultural allusions and broadly sketched characters, is not to everyone's taste. And although ''Bleeding Edge'' may not attain the exalted stature of earlier works such as ''Gravity's Rainbow'' or ''V.'', it is the product of one of the most important and influential authors of our time, and therefore worth the time and effort of any reader who cares about American literature." [http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140216/PC1201/140219604/1003/pynchons-bleeding-edge-a-challenging-rewarding-read Full article »]

'''02/03/14''' [http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/imaginary-novelist_775305.html '''The Weekly Standard'''] - Stefan Beck: "Well, there are those of us who believe that variety is the spice of life. Yet that is not to suggest that one must either revere Pynchon or reject him: Even his most exacting critics allow that his novels offer historical and cultural erudition, inventive plots, and crackling (if campy) dialogue and humor. Still, the more Pynchon one reads, the more one is inclined to pick a side, and a skeptic may find in Bleeding Edge proof that the recipe has lost much of its savor. This is, in part, because the manner and matter here are so awkwardly matched. One need hardly be hidebound by propriety to feel that if a 9/11 novel (which is what we have here) can be described as a madcap romp, it will have to demonstrate a clear and worthwhile purpose to earn its audacity and questionable taste." [http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/imaginary-novelist_775305.html Full article »]

'''01/15/14''' [http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/12/30/bleeding_edge_by_thomas_pynchon_review.html '''The Toronto Star'''] - Alex Good: "But underneath it all is Pynchon’s still relevant, sustaining vision: that post-1960s America has lost its innocence and freedom to the forces of big government and big capital. That countercultural spirit is felt when, for example, Maxine walks through the 'new' New York City, discouraged by how real estate developers have made the formerly grubby place 'Disneyfied and sterile,' making her feel 'nauseous at the possibility of some stupefied consensus about what life is to be, taking over this whole city without mercy, a tightening Noose of Horror, multiplexes and malls and big-box stores . . . Aaahh!'" [http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/12/30/bleeding_edge_by_thomas_pynchon_review.html Full article »]

'''01/03/14''' [http://crosscut.com/2014/01/03/books/118136/bleeding-edge-review-thomas-pynchon/ '''Crosscut.com'''] - Don Fels and Benjamin Thelonious Fels: "As the book wanders in and out of place and non-place, Pynchon never loses track of the essential fact that global capitalism has not made all the world the same. It is worthy of consideration then to think through how Pynchon might characterize Boeing’s recent attempt to untether from place; the outsourcing of the 787, and the effort to get Seattle machinists to accept a significant downgrade in pay in exchange for the contract to build the 777X." [http://crosscut.com/2014/01/03/books/118136/bleeding-edge-review-thomas-pynchon/ Full article »]

'''12/19/13''' [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/19/book-review-bleeding-edge/ '''The Washington Times'''] - John Greenya: "This is not, however, a depressing book. As Mr. Pynchon has shown over and over again in both his novels and his nonfiction, somehow he always sees the (mordant) humor in human behavior. In “Bleeding Edge,” as he tells his old-fashioned story within this most modern framework, he never fails to see signs of hope for mankind. No wonder this book was a finalist for this year’s National Book Award." [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/19/book-review-bleeding-edge/ Full article »]

'''12/15/13''' [http://www.kansas.com/2013/12/15/3180360/plenty-to-ponder.html '''The Wichita Eagle'''] - Gordon Houser: "Pynchon also likes to mix comments with his descriptions. For example, he describes 'oil-storage tanks, tanker traffic forever unsleeping,' then adds, 'addiction to oil gradually converging with the other national bad habit, inability to deal with refuse.' He goes on to describe heaps of landfill 'reaching close to 200 feet overhead.' Is there a point to all this? I’m not sure. Perhaps bleeding-edge technology, which one character refers to as having 'no proven use, high risk, something only early-adoption addicts feel comfortable with,' is some metaphor for our world today. ''Bleeding Edge'' is a complex, demanding novel. But it contains much clever writing that’s fun to read. It will also leave readers with much to ponder." [http://www.kansas.com/2013/12/15/3180360/plenty-to-ponder.html Full article »]

'''12/01/13''' [http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books-arts/part-detective-story-part-paean-to-new-york-city-29796570.html '''Sunday Independent.ie'''] - Desmond Traynor: "So, we're not getting another ''Mason & Dixon'' or ''Against The Day'' blockbuster here, and certainly not something as era-defining as ''Gravity's Rainbow''. A bit like ''Vineland'', and even ''Inherent Vice'', this is the kind of thing Pynchon can do in his sleep. But it's still better than what most writers who are wide-awake can dream up. In its own (relatively modest) way, it sums up a historical period of great turbulence and uncertainty just as much as the now canonical works of this great American novelist once did." [http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books-arts/part-detective-story-part-paean-to-new-york-city-29796570.html Full article »]

'''11/17/13''' [http://www.journalnow.com/relishnow/the_arts/books_and_literature/article_057faab6-4f1d-11e3-a490-0019bb30f31a.html '''Winston-Salem Journal'''] - Associated Press: "Pynchon, who received the National Book Award for “Gravity’s Rainbow,” zips the plot along at a frenetic pace and populates his book with dozens of colorful characters and pop culture references: bars with Zima on tap, a messenger from the defunct delivery service Kozmo.com who still mysteriously makes deliveries, a Zenned-out surfer therapist, a Web designer obsessed with Jennifer Aniston’s hair, and so on." [http://www.journalnow.com/relishnow/the_arts/books_and_literature/article_057faab6-4f1d-11e3-a490-0019bb30f31a.html Full article »]

'''11/09/13''' [http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/book-reviews/2013/11/10/Journey-to-the-Internet-s-underbelly/stories/201311100054 '''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'''] - Julia Fraser: "Even in the Deep Web, capitalism defines what freedom means. Capitalism also selects who gets to control freedom, where meatspace hierarchies trickle down, placing power in a dark collaboration with the government and big corporations, leaving the lowly Internet geeks to plunder the remains. An outsider to this world, Maxine's aging father leans into the Internet and its promise of freedom, "Call it freedom, it's based on control. Everybody connected together, impossible anybody should get lost, ever again. Take the next step, connect it to these cell phones, you've got a total Web of surveillance, inescapable." Consumers in 2013 are free to read this work of warning on their own choice of technology." [http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/book-reviews/2013/11/10/Journey-to-the-Internet-s-underbelly/stories/201311100054 Full article »]

'''11/08/13''' [http://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/books/book_reviews/book-reviews-thomas-pynchon-s-bleeding-edge/article_44bbd0d0-e7bc-56f6-b1fe-134ea2182443.html '''Pasatiempo - Santa Fe New Mexican'''] - Bill Kohlhaase: "''Bleeding Edge'' contains the usual imagined and exaggerated scenarios, at times presenting the virtual world as the real one. But its author didn’t have to invent the conspiracies and entanglements the book harbors. Investment fraud, hidden bank accounts, the Mossad, Islamic front groups disguised as charities, the Russian mob, internet gaming cults, blanket internet spying on behalf of businesses and governments — these things exist, and Pynchon makes them part of a whole." [http://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/books/book_reviews/book-reviews-thomas-pynchon-s-bleeding-edge/article_44bbd0d0-e7bc-56f6-b1fe-134ea2182443.html Full article »]

'''11/07/13''' [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/07/thomas-pynchon-crying-september-11/ '''The New York Review of Books'''] - Michael Chabon: "One ought to be accustomed, by now, to Pynchon’s leaving his mysteries unresolved, or at least prepared to give him credit for having done so on purpose. Incompleteness is the inherent vice of paranoid theories of history, the limitation of such theories that Pynchon has always freely acknowledged. Criticism of Pynchon’s “shaggy dog” or sloppy plotting neglects the emphasis that he has always laid on the dual meaning of the word ''plot''. From ''V.'' forward, nearly all his novels have been founded on a bedrock of detective fiction and underlayed with science fiction, boy’s adventure, westerns, spy fiction, and other genres that rely, like conspiracy theories, on plotting. His broken plots expose the epistemological brokenness of paranoid systems, which are, after all, nothing but attempts, grander but no less doomed to failure than anyone’s, to make sense of a broken world." [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/07/thomas-pynchon-crying-september-11/ Full article »]

'''11/07/13''' [http://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/bleeding-edge/Content?oid=2415806 '''The Journal'''] - Bill Cassel: "This being Pynchon, the strangeness is leavened with healthy doses of whimsy, wordplay and comedy, not to mention sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Once best known for ''Gravity's Rainbow'', a famously difficult tome started by many and finished by few, Pynchon has in recent years settled into a style that's relatively accessible, warm even. Maxine, equal parts Sam Spade and Jewish mother, is fun to spend time with and the pages flow by easily. Just don't expect any sort of neatly wrapped ending; ''Bleeding Edge'' will leave you with more questions than answers, but also with a heightened sense of what is possible." [http://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/bleeding-edge/Content?oid=2415806 Full article »]

'''11/05/13''' [http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/books/230697611.html '''Minneapolis Star Tribune'''] - David Wiley: "That’s not to say that Pynchon has become dull at all. His prose is uproariously vibrant and compelling and is filled with relentless poetry and play, spouting outlandish neologisms and novel imagery at every turn. While the state of Pynchon’s art may not be pushing the bleeding edge in the ways that “Gravity’s Rainbow” did, his comic vision is nearly as absurd as ever and is never satisfied unless it outdoes itself, and as a result “Bleeding Edge” is a seriously funny book that’s also deadly serious." [http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/books/230697611.html Full article »]

'''11/13''' [http://tim-tsai.tumblr.com/post/66938858063/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon '''Dancing About Architecture'''] - Tim Tsai: "''Bleeding Edge'' is not a novel that “never ends.” It is a novel that is obsessively concerned with something that never ends—the very act of taking stuff and making it coherent information and communicating it as meaning. It offers a mystery that jerks you around for hours on end and abandons you with no resolution, no clear sign of change or development or progress. " [http://tim-tsai.tumblr.com/post/66938858063/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon Full article »]

'''10/31/13''' [http://www.countylinemagazine.com/November-December-2013/Bleeding-Edge/ '''County Line Magazine'''] - Jeremy Light: "I have always respected Thomas Pynchon, read anything and everything he ever published, and have never regretted any of his books. Even this one. Sometimes Pynchon is too intelligent for his own good, but if that is the greatest sin an author commits, I am more than happy to absolve him. Verdict: on the charge of incandescent brilliance, smugness, and entertainment: guilty as charged. Sentenced to a wonderful time read." [http://www.countylinemagazine.com/November-December-2013/Bleeding-Edge/ Entire review »]

[[File:Harpers-Review-Pemberton-Illustration.png|thumb|right|200px|Illustration: Simon Pemberton]]'''10/13''' [http://harpers.org/archive/2013/10/first-family-second-life/ '''Harper's Magazine'''] - Joshua Cohen: "''Bleeding Edge'', however, offers an indication that Pynchon has finally given up on seeking the soul of the nation his family helped found. For Pynchon — the embattled bard of the counterculture, disabused of all allegiance — the last redoubt has become the family, and the last war to be waged is between our virtual identities and the bonds of blood; a war to keep the Virtual from corrupting the Blood, if not forever, then for time enough to let the lil’ Ziggy and Otis Tarnow-Loefflers of this world live with the merest pretense of freedom (childhood). Pynchon understands that in the future there will be no secrets, no hidden complots — everything will be aired and any second life, whether in the cloud or in the firmament, will be despoiled or denied us. Adult sanity, then, must depend not on the lives we make online, but on the lives we make off it — our kids — on how we love them, and how we raise them, and the virtues and good-taste imperatives we pass on to them from our progenitors." [http://harpers.org/archive/2013/10/first-family-second-life/ Entire review »]

'''10/25/13''' [http://www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/books/Novel+weaves+a+dark+web+of+9/paranoia/9083662/story.html '''Edmonton Journal'''] - Ryan Ingram: "''Bleeding Edge'' meticulously captures the zeitgeist of 2001 with encyclopedic detail, mashing up high and low culture. From Beanie Babies, comedian Mitch Hedberg and then-quarterback Vinny Testaverde, there’s no shortage of pop-culture references that capture the smallest details of the dark era, while building an immersive hyperlinked mystery map to the world-changing important events that may or may not have happened in New York City, serving it all up with lots of garlic." [http://www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/books/Novel+weaves+a+dark+web+of+9/paranoia/9083662/story.html Entire review »]

'''10/20/13''' [http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2013/10/20/1-tale-of-corruption-a-rally-cry.html '''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'''] - Mike Fischer: "''Bleeding Edge'' is stuffed with gorgeous passages that sing in their longing for all we’ve lost in trashing the land and ourselves. But such writing is also a call to arms, making clear that the history we’ll make depends on what and how we remember. As Pynchon has been reminding us for 50 years, there’s always more than one way to tell that story." [http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2013/10/20/1-tale-of-corruption-a-rally-cry.html Entire review »]

'''10/16/13''' [http://lasvegascitylife.com/sections/ae/books/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon.html '''Las Vegas CityLife'''] - Arnold Knightly: "''Bleeding Edge'' is written with such verve and imaginative invention—the sentences crackle with jokes, puns, startling phrases, and can suddenly dive into shocking despairs as fast as it can rise to beautiful epiphanies—that its 77-year old author puts almost every American writer to shame. That I want even more from Pynchon is a testament only that to the fact that he’s already given so much: I still expect him to be an oracle." [http://lasvegascitylife.com/sections/ae/books/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon.html Entire review »]

'''10/15/13''' [http://theusdvista.com/2013/10/15/investigative-novel-bleeding-edge-is-a-hit/ '''The Vista'''] - Kevin Searle: "Detective novels are not generally thought to have high literary merit. Through his career, Thomas Pynchon has written brilliant novels that challenge that conception. As with any novel, “Bleeding Edge” has its flaws but it succeeds in creating a detective novel that is exciting, funny, smart and above all, interesting." [http://theusdvista.com/2013/10/15/investigative-novel-bleeding-edge-is-a-hit/ Entire review »]

'''10/13/13''' [http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/11042-review_bleeding_edge '''The Journal - Scotland's Student Newspaper'''] - Calum Barnes: "A fully realised historical novel, ''Bleeding Edge'' masterfully evokes the early twenty-first century milieu with its sharp attention to detail: from the pop cultural ephemera to the diction and metaphors drawn from the emergent web forms, the novel never resorts to anachronism, and is all bound up in Pynchon’s elegiac prose poetry. It may not be the all-encompassing behemoth of the neoliberal revolution that fans may have hoped for, but after the revelations of NSA’s mass surveillance of the world’s internet activities, the paranoid fantasies of Pynchon’s fictions are more relevant than ever." [http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/11042-review_bleeding_edge Entire review »]

'''10/10/13''' [http://www.full-stop.net/2013/10/10/reviews/daniel-green/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon/ '''Full Stop'''] - Daniel Green: "''Bleeding Edge'' is in general a much more dialogue-dependent novel than ''Gravity’s Rainbow'' or ''V.'' Indeed, much of the novel’s “action” is related not through its direct depiction but by reports conveyed through the dialogue, to the point that this can seem less a novel concerning the events to which it mostly alludes (including the 9/11 attacks) than talk about these events. Some of the talk is mordant and witty in the usual Pynchon fashion, but much of it is surprisingly routine, an impression left only more insistently by the novel’s formal arrangement as essentially a series of scenes organized around verbal exchanges between the characters. Those of us who admire the stylistic audacity and rhetorical power of Pynchon’s prose in previous novels get very little of either in ''Bleeding Edge'', simply because it relies so heavily on dialogue." [http://www.full-stop.net/2013/10/10/reviews/daniel-green/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon/ Entire review »]

'''10/10/13''' [http://gulfnews.com/arts-entertainment/books/book-review-bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon-1.1241575 '''GulfNews.com'''] - Tim Martin: "But this is also Pynchon’s Twin Towers novel, and its good humour alternates with a vivid sense of the post-9/11 crisis in the United States, the period in which, as one character notes, “a hole has quietly opened up in American history, a vacuum of accountability into which assets human and financial begin to vanish”. Conspiracies proliferate, but what might be an unsavoury descent into the netherworld of 9/11 “truthers” is rescued from ignominy by Pynchon’s attribution of the most arcane theories to a paranoid blogger." [http://gulfnews.com/arts-entertainment/books/book-review-bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon-1.1241575 Entire review »]

'''10/09/13''' [http://www.straight.com/life/501126/thomas-pynchon-rachets-paranoia-bleeding-edge '''Georgia Straight'''] - Michael Hingston: "To be honest, Bleeding Edge kind of fried my brain. Pynchon’s last novel, 2009’s Inherent Vice, was a similar attempt to inhabit the detective genre in order to detonate it from within, but at least there the overall mood was one of marijuana-induced stupor. Here, however, in the straight-edge world of computer geeks, it feels more like an accidental short circuit. 404 error. Page not found." [http://www.straight.com/life/501126/thomas-pynchon-rachets-paranoia-bleeding-edge Entire review »]

'''10/08/13''' [http://www.cleveland.com/books/index.ssf/2013/10/thomas_pynchon_finds_the_endur.html '''The Plain Dealer'''] - Jean Dubail: "But what in the end gives "Bleeding Edge" its satisfying depth is the way Pynchon portrays the relationships between Maxine and Horst, and between each of them and their sons. These are people whose feelings are managed, people who know, as Maxine says of her city-raised boys, how to "keep a perimeter" in emotionally fraught situations. In the wake of 9/11, however, they need each other, and Pynchon is at his subtle best in showing how the family slowly comes back together. His readers can see, even when his characters cannot, that they -- we? -- are ultimately bound together by love." [http://www.cleveland.com/books/index.ssf/2013/10/thomas_pynchon_finds_the_endur.html Entire review »]

'''10/06/13''' [http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/6/should-thomas-pynchonplaygrandtheftautov.html '''Al Jazeera America'''] - Christopher Byrd: "Thomas Pynchon's eighth novel, "Bleeding Edge," was released on the same day as the newest entry in Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto series. That the most secretive literary genius of our time and the most guarded video-game developer in the world should issue new works on the same day is either a confluence of mystical energy or — on the secular side of the coin — the most startling coincidence of cultural significance since the passing of the European filmmakers Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni on July 7, 2007." [http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/6/should-thomas-pynchonplaygrandtheftautov.html Entire review »]

'''10/04/13''' [http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Pynchon+paranoia+serves+well/8999173/story.html '''The Montreal Gazette'''] - Joel Yanofsky: "That said, the last decade or so has been a good one for making Pynchon look like a prophet again. It would be hard to find — or, for that matter, invent — a novelist better suited to investigating the connections, imagined and real, between the fall of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the rise, since then, of ubiquitous institutions like Google and Facebook. Bleeding Edge also foreshadows recent revelations about the way government agencies have been spying on, well, all of us." [http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/books/Pynchon+paranoia+serves+well/8999173/story.html Entire review »]

'''10/03/13''' [http://www.theawl.com/2013/10/the-year-america-caught-up-to-thomas-pynchon '''The Awl'''] - Brian O'Neill: "There are dozens of other characters and fascinating relationships, more and more. That’s kind of the point. Pull at any thread and 50 others come loose, till you’re stuck tangled in knots you never saw being tied. Pynchon is a master of creating a world that you never can truly see, beyond the dull mirrors of our daily lives. You’re never quite on solid footing, but you know you are searching for something. Things start to clarify, but as they always do with Pynchon, that's when they start to make the least sense. It is our world at an angle, full of basements and secret passageways and snippets of half-remembered songs—dreams?—trying to tell you something vitally important." [http://www.theawl.com/2013/10/the-year-america-caught-up-to-thomas-pynchon Entire review »]

'''09/29/13''' [http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/pynchons-world-has-grown-around-us-20130927-2uhjt.html '''The Sydney Morning Herald'''] - John Bailey: "Think Prism and WikiLeaks: we now live in the reality Pynchon has long prophesied. He leaves us with hope. ''Bleeding Edge'' is as much a story of mothers seeking to understand the world into which their children have been delivered, and of people attempting to carve some space of safety for those around them. It ends with a whispering wistfulness, the sense you might get upon passing a former home that's since been given a monstrous makeover. We lived here once. Didn't we?" [http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/pynchons-world-has-grown-around-us-20130927-2uhjt.html Entire review »]

'''09/28/13''' [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/28/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon-review '''The Guardian'''] - Talitha Stevenson: "No doubt a good genre book is worth more than a bad literary one any day, but when a writer with real genius squanders so much of his energy on clowning – and for an audience it's not at all clear he respects – it's worth asking what's going on. The idea that jokes are a defence against intimacy is a cliche – perhaps they can also be a defence against close reading." [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/28/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon-review Entire review »]

'''09/25/13''' [http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/books/bleeding-edge-pynchon-s-9-11-anticlimax-1.6138612 '''Newsday'''] - Craig Seligman: "Structure has never been Pynchon's strong point. The all-over-the-placeness didn't matter so much in the gargantuan ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (1973) -- at least, not until the last quarter -- because the sentences were so intense, sensually and emotionally, that the acid trip they constituted flattened every other concern. ''Bleeding Edge'' is more like the kind of trip in which you keep asking from the backseat, 'When are we going to get there?'" [http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/books/bleeding-edge-pynchon-s-9-11-anticlimax-1.6138612 Entire review »]

'''09/25/13''' [http://www.salon.com/2013/09/25/thomas_pynchon_understands_the_power_of_conspiracy_theories/singleton/ '''Salon'''] - Justin St. Clair: "But wait — there’s more. Re-presenting his previous work isn’t the only way that Pynchon weaves his web. He also plays the insider game by overloading the text with obscure particulars. There is, in other words, a lot of zooming in and out for what you’d have to call its own sake, a welter of specific — and occasionally unsettling — minutiae. The vertiginous effect that results does not come from a rapid change in perspective, but rather from the banality of the details themselves — plain, ordinary, and inconsequentially real. The most paranoid among us (Andrew Leonard at Salon?) begin to believe that Pynchon must actually be reading ''us'', and, in a way, he is." [http://www.salon.com/2013/09/25/thomas_pynchon_understands_the_power_of_conspiracy_theories/singleton/ Entire review »]

'''09/22/13''' [http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20130922/NEWS0107/309220319/1020 '''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'''] - Mike Fischer: "''Bleeding Edge'' is stuffed with gorgeous passages that sing their longing for all we’ve lost, in trashing the land and ourselves. But such writing is also a stirring call to arms, making clear that the history we’ll make depends on what and how we remember. As Pynchon has been reminding us for 50 years, there’s always more than one way to tell that story." [http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20130922/NEWS0107/309220319/1020 Entire review »]

'''09/21/13''' [http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books-arts/pynchon-the-invisible-man-of-literature-emerges-again-29594931.html '''Irish Independent'''] - Darragh McManus: "I couldn't compare it, though, to something like DeLillo's ''Underworld'', which really did feel like it encircled entireties of time and space: the so-called "American century", distilled. ''Bleeding Edge'' is less ambitious, anyway, more quirky and endearingly odd in personality. It won't make any 'greatest novels ever' lists. But it's a hell of a lot of fun to read." [http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books-arts/pynchon-the-invisible-man-of-literature-emerges-again-29594931.html Entire review »]

'''09/20/13''' [http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Bleeding-Edge-by-Thomas-Pynchon-4831196.php '''San Francisco Chronicle'''] - Steven G. Kellman: "''Bleeding Edge'' is stocked with panicky cartoon figures trying to claw their way through labyrinths. Its primary impulse is not realistic but verbal. Pynchon's true confederates are not Emile Zola and Theodore Dreiser as much as Algernon Charles Swinburne and Ronald Firbank - writers more intent on kneading words than noting the world. Pynchon is like a balloon man in the park who twists inflated plastic into the grotesque shapes of familiar animals. But this dog doesn't bark." [http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Bleeding-Edge-by-Thomas-Pynchon-4831196.php Entire review »]

'''09/20/13''' [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/thomas-pynchon-on-911-american-literatures-greatest-conspiracy-theorist-finally-addresses-his-countrys-greatest-trauma-8830225.html '''The Independent'''] - John Walsh: "There are hints of underground bunkers harbouring child assassins. There’s a satisfyingly nasty villain called Gabriel Ice, head of the tech company. There’s a murder… Then 9/11 erupts and transforms the world and the book. Suddenly the air is full of conspiracy theories. And Maxine – and the reader – is lured into suspicions that the new-fangled internet is affecting the American mind. She has “the bleak feeling, some mornings, that the country itself may not be there any more, but being silently replaced screen by screen with something else.”" [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/thomas-pynchon-on-911-american-literatures-greatest-conspiracy-theorist-finally-addresses-his-countrys-greatest-trauma-8830225.html Entire review »]

'''09/20/13''' [http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/09/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon-dotcom-survivors '''New Statesman'''] - Leo Robson: "In the novel’s beautifully settled final moments, Maxine, walking the Upper West Side after an all-nighter, spots a “blear of light” reflected in a top-floor window: yes, it’s probably the sun but it might be “something else”. Then she turns the corner and “leaves the question behind” – as Pynchon seems to be leaving behind his past, brilliant but narrowly extrovert, with its virtually exclusive focus on the world as distinct from the self." [http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/09/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon-dotcom-survivors Entire review »]

'''09/18/13''' [http://www.jacksonsun.com/viewart/20130919/ENTERTAINMENT09/130918008/ '''Wisconsin Public Radio'''] - Mae Anderson: "In ''Bleeding Edge'', Pynchon draws parallels between a relatively young Internet and a pre-Sept. 11 Manhattan — both ever-evolving landscapes marked by so much change over the past 12 years that the spring of 2001 seems like an ancient era." [http://www.jacksonsun.com/viewart/20130919/ENTERTAINMENT09/130918008/ Entire review »]

'''09/17/13''' [http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Reviews-Essays/Bleeding-Edge/ba-p/11289 '''Barnes & Noble'''] - Liesl Schillinger: "With ''Bleeding Edge'' , he shows that he has mastered the move from the shock of the new to the shock of the now, while cushioning the blow. If Maxi, in the post-9/11 world, keeps finding it "harder to tell 'real' NYC from translations" and "keeps getting caught in a vortex taking her farther each time into the virtual world," she is not alone. Pynchon throws her, and us, a rope. Where, we wonder, can it go?" [http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Reviews-Essays/Bleeding-Edge/ba-p/11289 Entire review »]

'''09/17/13''' [http://news.wpr.org/post/predictably-pynchonian-take-internet-and-sept-11 '''Wisconsin Public Radio'''] - Meg Wolitzer: "The book is alternately shticky and profound. Some of the time I wanted to live in its world, other times I found it unreadable. But much of the time I was satisfied to let the prose build and build around me." [http://news.wpr.org/post/predictably-pynchonian-take-internet-and-sept-11 Entire review »]

'''09/17/13''' [http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/17/pynchon-takes-manhattan/ '''CounterPunch'''] - Alan Cabal: "This is unquestionably Pynchon’s most sober novel. Anyone who was in Manhattan at the time will recognize the characters, and the landscape is perfectly drawn. Aside from DeepArcher (which may be haunted) and a truly disturbing subplot referencing Preston Nichols’ outrageous assertions of time travel experiments at the Air Force base in Montauk, Long Island, there is barely a whiff of surrealism here. Pynchon’s depiction of Long Island is appropriately perverse in a David Lynch sort of way, and his easygoing contempt for the Upper East Side (embodied by no less than Bernie Madoff) provides a rare glimpse into the deeper parochialism of the New Yorker mindset. A healthy detestation of the Upper East Side is as much a hallmark of the true New Yorker as hating the Red Sox." [http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/17/pynchon-takes-manhattan/ Entire review »]

'''09/14/13''' [http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/14/thomas-pynchons-silicon-alley '''Reason'''] - Mike Godwin: "Even more than the accuracy of Pynchon's millennial Manhattan mise-en-scène, the most striking thing about ''Bleeding Edge'' is that its theme inverts that of those books on which he first built his reputation. The Pynchon of ''V.'', ''The Crying of Lot 49'', and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' was certain (or so I thought as an undergraduate) of the destructive power of human delusion, vanity, and aspirations towards transcendence. In ''Bleeding Edge'', by contrast, it is precisely those human failings that have shielded us, for better or for worse, from the harsh realities of historical forces that more or less ignore our vanity and aspirations." [http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/14/thomas-pynchons-silicon-alley Entire review »]

[[File:Telegraph-Review.jpg|right|225px|thumb|Image: Wesley Merritt]]'''09/14/13''' [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/fictionreviews/10304078/Bleeding-Edge-by-Thomas-Pynchon-review.html '''The Telegraph'''] - Tim Martin: "''Bleeding Edge'', Pynchon’s eighth novel, is the best and most surprising thing he’s written since those great books. It dispels any suggestion that, after spawning an entire tradition of comic-digressive and shamelessly intellectual American novels, he had gone peacefully off the boil when he reached his seventies. [...] But now, 50 years after the publication of Pynchon’s debut novel, ''Bleeding Edge'' is at a stroke his 9/11 book, his internet book and – even though it’s set in 2001, back when the suggestion that the state was spying 24/7 on its citizens was still tinfoil-hat speculation rather than vivid reality – the first great fictional work of the post-PRISM age." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/fictionreviews/10304078/Bleeding-Edge-by-Thomas-Pynchon-review.html Entire review »]

'''09/14/13''' [http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2013/09/14/review-bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon/ozcKjaFOgrvKqs5xTtDQ4K/story.html '''The Boston Globe'''] - John Freeman: "In the pantheon of Pynchon books, which are either skybound – ''V.'' ''Gravity’s Rainbow'', ''Against the Day'' — or earthly — ''Vineland'', ''Inherent Vice'' — this one is decidedly of the latter sort. It’s a book that fights mightily against the landfill by taking all the random pieces of that wastrel-conman era and putting them into a plot that is both ridiculous and far too close to reality to laugh at without a back-draft of dread. " [http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2013/09/14/review-bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon/ozcKjaFOgrvKqs5xTtDQ4K/story.html Entire review »]

'''09/14/13''' [http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/09/14/bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon-book-review/2803381/ '''USA Today'''] - Don Oldenburg: "The truth is, Pynchon writes like no one else. He somehow injects love and humanity as the antidote to the dehumanization he fears and obsesses about. He convincingly warp-speeds from one setting and characters to another within the same sentence. Even in his hyper-narrative ways, he remains the master of phrasing — cool, hip, explosive narrative fragments overstuffed with meaning." [http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/09/14/bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon-book-review/2803381/ Entire review »]

'''09/13/13''' [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/13/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon-review '''The Guardian'''] - Theo Tait: "But, in the postmodern way, ''Bleeding Edge'' combines apparently unserious, even puerile, means with deadly serious ends. It is nearly 500 densely packed pages long, and carries a clear message about America's current direction: about the "emerging technopolitical order"; about the "hole" that "opened up in American history" after 9/11 and about the "global pyramid racket" of "late capitalism" ... . Inevitably, the outline of a conspiracy looms up – involving a Bond-villainous character named Gabriel Ice, international hawala networks, shell companies in the Middle East, various sinister government agencies and men with Stinger missiles on Manhattan rooftops. Eventually, it spreads its tentacles to 9/11; though, as often in Pynchon, it is left uncertain what is conspiracy and what is paranoia." [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/13/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon-review Entire review »]

'''09/13/13''' [http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/scarswell/2013/09/getting-constructively-lost-a-review-of-thomas-pynchons-bleeding-edge/ '''The Nervous Breakdown'''] - Sean Carswell: "The complexity within ''Bleeding Edge'' extends far beyond Pynchon’s explorations of late capitalism into the unexplored and perhaps rapidly-shrinking potential of the internet, into gender issues, meta-commentary on the role of the novel itself, and numerous other fields. There is plenty of fodder for scholars to aim their cannons at here." [http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/scarswell/2013/09/getting-constructively-lost-a-review-of-thomas-pynchons-bleeding-edge/ Entire review »]

'''09/13/13''' [http://www.vnews.com/lifetimes/8448386-95/pynchons-novel-of-the-dot-com-era-and-the-end-of-history '''Valley News'''] - Troy Patterson: "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. Who else but Pynchon can indict the sins of power while giving the sinner noogies of love? Who else could invent, as the name for a Queens strip club, Joie de Beavre? Who you gonna call when a screaming comes across the sky?" [http://www.vnews.com/lifetimes/8448386-95/pynchons-novel-of-the-dot-com-era-and-the-end-of-history Entire review »]

'''09/12/13''' [http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-thomas-pynchon-20130915,0,399058.story '''The Los Angeles Times'''] - Carolyn Kellogg: "But with ''Bleeding Edge'', Pynchon is drawing new attention to himself. Long a Manhattan resident who, according to the cognoscenti, walked his son to school and otherwise lived a quiet but not hermetic life there, Pynchon has set this novel in his own territory. It is full of lived-in details of pizza parlors and bars and delis and where to get a turkey for Thanksgiving that could serve almost as a road map to the author himself. In this way, the book is an unexpected coming together: He has brought his fictions into the (almost) present day, into what appears to be very close to his own stamping grounds. It's as if with ''Bleeding Edge'' Pynchon is ready to acknowledge that he lives in this world with the rest of us." [http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-thomas-pynchon-20130915,0,399058.story Entire review »]

[[File:Lethem-BleedingEdge.jpg|right|225px|thumb|Image by Mario Wagner]]'''09/12/13''' [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon.html '''The New York Times'''] - Jonathan Lethem: "Despite the lack of personal information supplied about the author, it’s plain, from the sweep and chortle of his sentences, from the irascible outbreaks of horniness, from the pinpoint rage at popular hypocrisy and cant, that young Pynchon is a writer of boundless promise, sure to give us a long shelf of entrancing and charismatic novels. I believe he has a masterpiece or three in him. I look forward to seeing what he’ll do next." [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon.html Entire review »]

'''09/11/13''' [http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114675/thomas-pynchons-bleeding-edge-reviewed-adam-kirsch '''The New Republic'''] - Adam Kirsch: "The best thing that can be said about ''Bleeding Edge'' is that Pynchon seems to recognize the unseriousness of his own mystery-making, and so doesn't insist on taking the novel's paranoia too seriously. All those comic names, all those puns and references, keep the tone playful and the pace quick. However odd it may seem, this is a September 11 novel that is light reading—a genre parody, genial and rambunctious. Its very portentousness is a kind of game, and so it remains safe, like Maxine Tarnow, even as it wanders down the darkest of alleys." [http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114675/thomas-pynchons-bleeding-edge-reviewed-adam-kirsch Entire review »]

'''09/11/13''' [http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-thomas-pynchons-bleeding-edge/2013/09/11/05d661d2-1a2d-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html '''Washington Post'''] - Michael Dirda: "Full of verbal sass and pizzazz, as well as conspiracies within conspiracies, “Bleeding Edge” is totally gonzo, totally wonderful. It really is good to have Thomas Pynchon around, doing what he does best." [http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-thomas-pynchons-bleeding-edge/2013/09/11/05d661d2-1a2d-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html Entire review »]

<div id="kakutani"></div>
'''09/09/13''' - [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/books/bleeding-edge-a-9-11-novel-by-thomas-pynchon.html '''New York Times'''] - '''Michiko Kakutani''': "The result, disappointingly, is a scattershot work that is, by turns, entertaining and wearisome, energetic and hokey, delightfully evocative and cheaply sensational; dead-on in its conjuring of zeitgeist-y atmospherics, but often slow-footed and ham-handed in its orchestration of social details." [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/books/bleeding-edge-a-9-11-novel-by-thomas-pynchon.html Entire review »] What? You expected praise? [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2006/04/michiko_kakutani.html '''HAH!''']

'''09/09/12''' - [http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/09/pynchon-bleeding-edge-snowden/ '''Wired'''] - Jason Tanz: "Thomas Pynchon Returns as a Prophet of the Post-Snowden Era". [http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/09/pynchon-bleeding-edge-snowden/ Entire review »]

'''09/08/13''' - [http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20130908_Pynchon_s_potboiler_explores_9_11_attacks.html '''Phily.com'''] - Andrew Ervin: "Line by line, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, ''Bleeding Edge'' reveals the workings of an uncommonly humane thinker and uniquely American voice working at the peak of his talents." [http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20130908_Pynchon_s_potboiler_explores_9_11_attacks.html Entire review »]

'''09/06/13''' - [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/09/thomas_pynchon_s_bleeding_edge_reviewed.html '''Slate'''] - Troy Patterson: "His view of the tech world is captivating. Though he doesn’t attempt any grand-scale Balzacian social analysis of Silicon Alley, he gives the full Fitzgerald swoon to passages describing the ritual sacrifice of innocence on the altar of IPO ambition..." [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/09/thomas_pynchon_s_bleeding_edge_reviewed.html Entire review »]

'''09/05/13''' - [http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/09/05/pynchonicity/ '''The Paris Review'''] - Gary Lippman: "More than any other recurring Pynchonian concept, paranoia receives nuanced treatment in the novelist’s work. A tendency toward the “p” word would seem to color his personal life as well: although he reputedly lives in plain sight on New York’s Upper West Side, he keeps his private life more private than that of any other major American artist. And, after being a stone Pynchonophile for nearly thirty years, I’ve finally started feeling a bit paranoid myself. It’s not the dot-com “hashslingrz,” Pynchon’s latest fictional conspiracy, that’s freaking me out, but the author himself."
[http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/09/05/pynchonicity/ Entire review »]

'''09/03/13''' - [http://www.berfrois.com/2013/09/really/ '''Berfrois'''] - Albert Rolls. Originally published in [https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/51/136 '''Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon''']: "The lightness, like that of Pynchon’s other short novels, is deceptive. ''Bleeding Edge'' is not simply the tale of Maxine’s investigation but an examination of the cultural direction America is headed in..." [http://www.berfrois.com/2013/09/really/ Entire review »]

'''08/19/13''' - [http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59420-423-4 '''Publishers Weekly'''] - David Kipen: "Published 50 years ago by long-gone J.B. Lippincott & Co., Thomas Pynchon's ''V.'' wasn't just the best first novel ever, it was a blueprint for his entire career. Much as that book yoyo-ed between an international femme fatale and a feckless contemporary klutz, the Pynchon shelf has alternated between globe-trotting, century-spanning bricks like ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (1973), and impish, only slightly historical, California-set bagatelles like ''Inherent Vice'' (2009). Now comes ''Bleeding Edge'', a lovably scruffy comedy of remarriage, half-hidden behind the lopsided Groucho mask of Pynchon's second straight private-eye story. Like Ornette Coleman's riff on ''The Rite of Spring'', it starts out strong, misplaces the melody amid some delightfully surreal noodling, and finally swans away in sweet, lingering diminuendo."
[http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59420-423-4 Entire review »]

[[#top|top of page^]]

Chapter 38

2025-08-05T19:27:44Z

WikiAdmin:

{{BE PxP Header}}

==Page 423==
'''idiot-surfant''' 
Play on idiot-savant.

==Page 424==
'''Depending of course what your definition of the word 'is' is''' 
President Bill Clinton said something close to this while trying to explain that he had not lied when he denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky: "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is..." 
You can hear it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0 here].

'''the kid in the teen horror movie who turns out to be possessed''' 
A likely candidate for which teen horror film Pynchon is referencing here is ''Night of the Demons'' (1988) (aka ''Halloween Party''). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Demons_(1988_film) Wikipedia]

==Page 425==
'''air in a can''' 
CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) were banned in Europe in 1990 and in the U.S. in 1994, with a phase-out period. Fluoroethane (R-134a, no chlorine) was one of the replacements and can be purchased compressed in a small canister (with a nozzle) for removal of dust from camera lenses and other optical equipment. Since it's a refrigerant, fluoroethane cools down to something like -50 C when it expands, so even if it had psychoactive properties (which afaik it doesn't) it wouldn't be much good for spraying up your nose. Most photographers use compressed air instead (for lens cleaning, not as a recreational pharmaceutical). Maybe a play on "ice", who appears again in the next paragraph.

'''patafamiliarass around here''' 
A pun on ''pater familias'', defined below. Avi becoming a “patafamiliarass around here” is Pynchon punning on it with “pat a familiar ass” which would be Avi’s being treated in condescending or patronizing way in a place where he's taken for granted. A "pet" of sorts, not totally unlike Chandler Platt's assistant Darren, whose rap on [[Chapter_26#Page_283|page 282-283]] is so defiant while Darren himself remains, essentially, Platt's subservient pet.

The ''pater familias'', also written as ''paterfamilias'' (plural ''patres familias''), was the head of a family in ancient Rome. The ''paterfamilias'' was the oldest living male in a household, and had complete control of all family members until he died. Once the ''paterfamilias'' died the next oldest male would then have control. The pater familias was always a Roman citizen. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paterfamilias WIKI].

'''lunchhooks''' 
1940s-era slang for "hands" often seen in the pulp/hardboiled/noir/detective fiction of the time.

To understand the origins of this slang term, hold an imaginary sandwich, with both hands, in front of you. A couple of hooks, eh?

==Page 426==
'''the company tambourine''' 
The company's moneymaker. "Shake your moneymaker" is an old blues lyric, recycled, just like blues riffs, throughout the history of the blues and rock 'n' roll. Variations include "shake your tailfeather" and "shake your tambourine." [http://everything2.com/title/Shake+your+money+maker]

Similarly, the rapper Eve in her 2007 song "Tambourine" used both "shake your tambourine" (shake your ass) and "shake your tambourines" (shake your tits). [http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eve/tambourine.html]

'''RPG heretics''' 
RPGs are Role-Playing Games

==Page 428==
'''Mrs. Cheung's bleak announcement''' 
cf. p. 335: "Ms. Cheung, an English teacher who if Kugelblitz were a town would be the neighborhood scold, has announced that there shall be no more fictional reading assignments."

==Page 429==
'''Eddie Fisher''' 
Edwin John "Eddie" Fisher (August 10, 1928 – September 22, 2010) was an American entertainer. He was the most successful pop singles artist of the first half of the 1950s, selling millions of records and hosting his own TV show. Fisher left his first wife, actress Debbie Reynolds, to marry Reynolds's best friend, actress Elizabeth Taylor, when Taylor's husband, film producer Mike Todd, died. This event garnered scandalous and unwelcome publicity for Fisher. He later married Connie Stevens. Fisher is the father of actresses Carrie Fisher (with Reynolds), Joely Fisher (with Stevens), and Tricia Leigh Fisher (with Stevens). From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Fisher_%28singer%29 WIKI].

[[File:Goomba.PNG|80px|thumb|caption|A Goomba|left]]'''factual elements have started popping up like li'l goombas''' 
Goombas, known in Japan as Kuribo ("Chestnut People"), are a fictional species of sentient mushrooms from Nintendo's Mario franchise. Their appearance is based on shiitake mushrooms. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goomba Wikipedia]

==Page 430==
'''here comes a plastic top from a nine-inch aluminum take-out container...''' 
When Maxine sees the plastic top from a take-out container rolling on its edge down Broadway, seemingly with a mind of its own, reader Diana Poskrop recalled that in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1970 novel [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude ''One Hundred Years of Solitude''], after Jose Arcadio's murder his blood took a direct route through town to Ursula, his mother. (HarperPerennial Classics, 2006, pp. 131-132).

==Page 431==
'''meet my man Ketone''' 
In chemistry, a ketone is an organic compound with the structure RC(=O)R', where R and R' can be a variety of carbon-containing substituents. Ketones feature a carbonyl group (C=O) bonded to two other carbon atoms. Many ketones are known and many are of great importance in industry and in biology. Examples include many sugars (ketoses) and the industrial solvent acetone. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketone WIKI].

''ketones, when inhaled, also produce a sort of high, as discovered by glue-sniffers. The disadvantage is that inhalation of ketones (including acetone) causes significant, permanent and irreversible brain damage.''

==Page 432==
'''strange feeling about the Internet, that it's over''' 
Sounds like a replay of Doc Sportello's thoughts about the Sixties at the end of ''Inherent Vice''?

==Page 433==

'''''Granada Asbury Park Uncertainty Question''''' 
From the lyrics of "At Long Last Love" (written by Cole Porter for the 1938 musical *You Never Know*; first sung by Clifton Webb; recorded by Frank Sinatra for the 1957 album *A Swingin' Affair!* and the 1962 album *Sinatra and Swingin' Brass*)
 
''Is it for all time or simply a lark?''
 
''Is it Granada I see or only Asbury Park?''

==Page 434==
'''Wagnerian brass section''' 
Richard Wagner's writing for the orchestra's horn section has always been sublime, and (at least in my short and long term memory) never "blaring". Perhaps Maxine is thinking of the helicopter scene in Apocalypse Now, where Ride of the Valkyries does blare from the mobile speakers.

One of Wagner's contributions to music was the invention of the "Wagner tuba", an instrument about halfway between a tuba and a French horn. It was derived from an instrument popular in German military bands of the day, and as a result his music probably would have had a distinct martial feel to operagoers of the time, but I don't think that's what TP is getting at here.

Also, recall that Maxine is Jewish, and Richard Wagner was hailed by the Nazis and Hitler himself. "Wagner was promoted during the Nazi era as one of Adolf Hitler's favorite composers. Historical perception of Wagner has been tainted with this association ever since, and there is debate over how Wagner's writings and operas might have influenced the creation of Nazi Germany." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Richard_Wagner Wikipedia]

==Page 435==
'''''sillage''''' 
From this [http://boisdejasmin.com/2011/02/perfume-vocabulary-fragrance-terms-sillage.html page:] a term used to describe a scented trail left by the fragrance wearer.

'''''The Ray Milland Story''''' 
Ray Milland (3 January 1907 – 10 March 1986) was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in ''The Lost Weekend'' (1945), a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in ''Reap the Wild Wind'' (1942), the murder-plotting husband in ''Dial M for Murder'' (1954), and as Oliver Barrett III in ''Love Story'' (1970). Milland, who was at one time Paramount Pictures highest paid actor, co-starred alongside many of the most popular actresses of the time including Gene Tierney, Grace Kelly, Lana Turner, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers, Jane Wyman, Loretta Young and Veronica Lake. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Milland WIKI].

==Page 436==
'''breaker breaker good buddy''' 
"breaker breaker" is trucker CB-radio talk for a request to interrupt the conversations on a channel and start a new one with anyone on the channel, in this case Maxine. "Good buddy" is also common CB-radio vernacular used by truckers in addressing each other.

'''Redmond campus''' 
a.k.a., Microsoft headquarters

'''racks of electronic gear receding into infinity''' 
Describing the ''Bleeding Edge'' front and back cover photograph. On the next page, Eric speaks of "Bleeding-edge developments"...

''and another tardis-like "bigger-inside-than-outside" shot''

'''going as you might expect for rock bottom prices''' 
After the dotcom bust of 2000, all of the hardware bought by now-bankrupt tech startups was released onto the used equipment market, and this did cause a big drop in the going price for both new and used servers.

==Page 437==
'''Ray Milland...''The Thing with Two Heads''''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Milland Ray Milland] starred in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_with_Two_Heads ''The Thing with Two Heads'',] whose movie poster reads "They transplanted a WHITE BIGOT'S HEAD onto a SOUL BROTHER'S BODY!"

'''not even Fort Sumter''' 
The first battle of the American Civil War. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter Wikipedia]

'''Bleeding-edge development phase''' 
On the previous page, Pynchon describes a server farm that matches the ''Bleeding Edge'' cover photo.

'''We could be heading anywhere, Alberta, Northwest Territories, Alaska''' 
If Horst is correct, they are westbound on I-90 in southern Montana. At Butte, they could head north on I-15 to get to all of these places. Looking for cold weather to run their server farm?

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 38

2025-08-05T19:27:06Z

WikiAdmin: /* Page 433 */

{{BE PxP Header}}

==Page 423==
'''idiot-surfant''' 
Play on idiot-savant.

==Page 424==
'''Depending of course what your definition of the word 'is' is''' 
President Bill Clinton said something close to this while trying to explain that he had not lied when he denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky: "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is..." 
You can hear it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0 here].

'''the kid in the teen horror movie who turns out to be possessed''' 
A likely candidate for which teen horror film Pynchon is referencing here is ''Night of the Demons'' (1988) (aka ''Halloween Party''). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Demons_(1988_film) Wikipedia]

==Page 425==
'''air in a can''' 
CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) were banned in Europe in 1990 and in the U.S. in 1994, with a phase-out period. Fluoroethane (R-134a, no chlorine) was one of the replacements and can be purchased compressed in a small canister (with a nozzle) for removal of dust from camera lenses and other optical equipment. Since it's a refrigerant, fluoroethane cools down to something like -50 C when it expands, so even if it had psychoactive properties (which afaik it doesn't) it wouldn't be much good for spraying up your nose. Most photographers use compressed air instead (for lens cleaning, not as a recreational pharmaceutical). Maybe a play on "ice", who appears again in the next paragraph.

'''patafamiliarass around here''' 
A pun on ''pater familias'', defined below. Avi becoming a “patafamiliarass around here” is Pynchon punning on it with “pat a familiar ass” which would be Avi’s being treated in condescending or patronizing way in a place where he's taken for granted. A "pet" of sorts, not totally unlike Chandler Platt's assistant Darren, whose rap on [[Chapter_26#Page_283|page 282-283]] is so defiant while Darren himself remains, essentially, Platt's subservient pet.

The ''pater familias'', also written as ''paterfamilias'' (plural ''patres familias''), was the head of a family in ancient Rome. The ''paterfamilias'' was the oldest living male in a household, and had complete control of all family members until he died. Once the ''paterfamilias'' died the next oldest male would then have control. The pater familias was always a Roman citizen. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paterfamilias WIKI].

'''lunchhooks''' 
1940s-era slang for "hands" often seen in the pulp/hardboiled/noir/detective fiction of the time.

To understand the origins of this slang term, hold an imaginary sandwich, with both hands, in front of you. A couple of hooks, eh?

==Page 426==
'''the company tambourine''' 
The company's moneymaker. "Shake your moneymaker" is an old blues lyric, recycled, just like blues riffs, throughout the history of the blues and rock 'n' roll. Variations include "shake your tailfeather" and "shake your tambourine." [http://everything2.com/title/Shake+your+money+maker]

Similarly, the rapper Eve in her 2007 song "Tambourine" used both "shake your tambourine" (shake your ass) and "shake your tambourines" (shake your tits). [http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eve/tambourine.html]

'''RPG heretics''' 
RPGs are Role-Playing Games

==Page 428==
'''Mrs. Cheung's bleak announcement''' 
cf. p. 335: "Ms. Cheung, an English teacher who if Kugelblitz were a town would be the neighborhood scold, has announced that there shall be no more fictional reading assignments."

==Page 429==
'''Eddie Fisher''' 
Edwin John "Eddie" Fisher (August 10, 1928 – September 22, 2010) was an American entertainer. He was the most successful pop singles artist of the first half of the 1950s, selling millions of records and hosting his own TV show. Fisher left his first wife, actress Debbie Reynolds, to marry Reynolds's best friend, actress Elizabeth Taylor, when Taylor's husband, film producer Mike Todd, died. This event garnered scandalous and unwelcome publicity for Fisher. He later married Connie Stevens. Fisher is the father of actresses Carrie Fisher (with Reynolds), Joely Fisher (with Stevens), and Tricia Leigh Fisher (with Stevens). From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Fisher_%28singer%29 WIKI].

[[File:Goomba.PNG|80px|thumb|caption|A Goomba|left]]'''factual elements have started popping up like li'l goombas''' 
Goombas, known in Japan as Kuribo ("Chestnut People"), are a fictional species of sentient mushrooms from Nintendo's Mario franchise. Their appearance is based on shiitake mushrooms. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goomba Wikipedia]

==Page 430==
'''here comes a plastic top from a nine-inch aluminum take-out container...''' 
When Maxine sees the plastic top from a take-out container rolling on its edge down Broadway, seemingly with a mind of its own, reader Diana Poskrop recalled that in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1970 novel [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude ''One Hundred Years of Solitude''], after Jose Arcadio's murder his blood took a direct route through town to Ursula, his mother. (HarperPerennial Classics, 2006, pp. 131-132).

==Page 431==
'''meet my man Ketone''' 
In chemistry, a ketone is an organic compound with the structure RC(=O)R', where R and R' can be a variety of carbon-containing substituents. Ketones feature a carbonyl group (C=O) bonded to two other carbon atoms. Many ketones are known and many are of great importance in industry and in biology. Examples include many sugars (ketoses) and the industrial solvent acetone. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketone WIKI].

''ketones, when inhaled, also produce a sort of high, as discovered by glue-sniffers. The disadvantage is that inhalation of ketones (including acetone) causes significant, permanent and irreversible brain damage.''

==Page 432==
'''strange feeling about the Internet, that it's over''' 
Sounds like a replay of Doc Sportello's thoughts about the Sixties at the end of ''Inherent Vice''?

==Page 434==
'''Wagnerian brass section''' 
Richard Wagner's writing for the orchestra's horn section has always been sublime, and (at least in my short and long term memory) never "blaring". Perhaps Maxine is thinking of the helicopter scene in Apocalypse Now, where Ride of the Valkyries does blare from the mobile speakers.

One of Wagner's contributions to music was the invention of the "Wagner tuba", an instrument about halfway between a tuba and a French horn. It was derived from an instrument popular in German military bands of the day, and as a result his music probably would have had a distinct martial feel to operagoers of the time, but I don't think that's what TP is getting at here.

Also, recall that Maxine is Jewish, and Richard Wagner was hailed by the Nazis and Hitler himself. "Wagner was promoted during the Nazi era as one of Adolf Hitler's favorite composers. Historical perception of Wagner has been tainted with this association ever since, and there is debate over how Wagner's writings and operas might have influenced the creation of Nazi Germany." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Richard_Wagner Wikipedia]

==Page 433==

'''''Granada Asbury Park Uncertainty Question''''' 
From the lyrics of "At Long Last Love" (written by Cole Porter for the 1938 musical *You Never Know*; first sung by Clifton Webb; recorded by Frank Sinatra for the 1957 album *A Swingin' Affair!* and the 1962 album *Sinatra and Swingin' Brass*)
 
''Is it for all time or simply a lark?''
 
''Is it Granada I see or only Asbury Park?''

==Page 435==
'''''sillage''''' 
From this [http://boisdejasmin.com/2011/02/perfume-vocabulary-fragrance-terms-sillage.html page:] a term used to describe a scented trail left by the fragrance wearer.

'''''The Ray Milland Story''''' 
Ray Milland (3 January 1907 – 10 March 1986) was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in ''The Lost Weekend'' (1945), a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in ''Reap the Wild Wind'' (1942), the murder-plotting husband in ''Dial M for Murder'' (1954), and as Oliver Barrett III in ''Love Story'' (1970). Milland, who was at one time Paramount Pictures highest paid actor, co-starred alongside many of the most popular actresses of the time including Gene Tierney, Grace Kelly, Lana Turner, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers, Jane Wyman, Loretta Young and Veronica Lake. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Milland WIKI].

==Page 436==
'''breaker breaker good buddy''' 
"breaker breaker" is trucker CB-radio talk for a request to interrupt the conversations on a channel and start a new one with anyone on the channel, in this case Maxine. "Good buddy" is also common CB-radio vernacular used by truckers in addressing each other.

'''Redmond campus''' 
a.k.a., Microsoft headquarters

'''racks of electronic gear receding into infinity''' 
Describing the ''Bleeding Edge'' front and back cover photograph. On the next page, Eric speaks of "Bleeding-edge developments"...

''and another tardis-like "bigger-inside-than-outside" shot''

'''going as you might expect for rock bottom prices''' 
After the dotcom bust of 2000, all of the hardware bought by now-bankrupt tech startups was released onto the used equipment market, and this did cause a big drop in the going price for both new and used servers.

==Page 437==
'''Ray Milland...''The Thing with Two Heads''''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Milland Ray Milland] starred in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_with_Two_Heads ''The Thing with Two Heads'',] whose movie poster reads "They transplanted a WHITE BIGOT'S HEAD onto a SOUL BROTHER'S BODY!"

'''not even Fort Sumter''' 
The first battle of the American Civil War. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter Wikipedia]

'''Bleeding-edge development phase''' 
On the previous page, Pynchon describes a server farm that matches the ''Bleeding Edge'' cover photo.

'''We could be heading anywhere, Alberta, Northwest Territories, Alaska''' 
If Horst is correct, they are westbound on I-90 in southern Montana. At Butte, they could head north on I-15 to get to all of these places. Looking for cold weather to run their server farm?

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==Page 288==
'''Prairie du Chien or Fond du Lac'''<br\>
cities in Wisconsin

'''as Ace Ventura sez''' 
Jim Carrey played the whacky character Ace Ventura in two movies (1994 and 1995). His signature catch phrase was "allllll righty then."

==Page 289==
'''Kum & Go''' 
A chain of convenience stores popular in the Midwest. Hard to believe Pynchon didn't make up that name!

According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kum_%26_Go WIKI,] the name is "a play on the phrase "come and go" using the initials of founders Krause and Gentle."

'''Floyd's Knobs, Indiana''' 
A real city with a Pynchonesque name.

'''Merc ... CME'''<br\>
Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Although New York City is the center of stock and bond trading in the U.S., the main locus of futures and options trading is in Chicago, with activity split between the CME and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).

'''double trading'''<br\>
Double trading is an options strategy that experienced traders use to (hopefully) double their profits. After they have purchased a contract, if traders notice that price of the asset is on a continued upward (or downward) trend, then they will buy more of the asset. (At least that's the only definition I could find. I can't imagine why the strategy would be banned, and couldn't find any instance of such a ban ever taking place, at CME or anywhere else.) 
:The passage makes a much better sense if one assumes that by "double trading" Pynchon actually means "dual trading", i.e. the practice whereby futures traders trade for customers as well as for themselves at more or less the same time, which was banned at CME, for high-volume futures contracts executed on the same day, in May 1991 (see CME Rule 552).

'''...They sing her the Hy-Vee commercial. More than once.''' 
Appears Horst was successful in giving the boys a crash Iowa-childhood experience.

==Page 290==
'''at the CBOT, and to the Brokers Inn, where they ate the legendary giant fish sandwich''' 
This is all true....

:Years ago, before the new 10,000 CBOT floor was open, and the CBOT was only one building, there used to be a restaurant in the building just to the east. It was called Broker's Inn. [...] As a tradition, on Ash Wednesday and every Friday, Broker's Inn would serve "the fish sandwich". The fish sandwich was a large yellow bun, served open-faced, with fried whitefish piled as high as the plate could hold before falling off. The fish was light, tender on the inside, and crisp on the outside. This was served with their famous tartar sauce and fresh wedges of lemon. One person could never finish this sandwich if they ordered anything else. This was all before the new floor was installed. [http://www.yelp.com/biz/chicago-board-of-trade-building-chicago]

'''Maid-Rites''' 
Here's a recipe for a [http://iowagirleats.com/2010/11/01/you-know-youre-from-the-midwest/ Maid-Rite].

'''Louisville Hot Brown''' 
Wow, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Brown WIKI] has a page on this sandwich.

'''Nolan Bushnell''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Bushnell Founder] of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese.

==Page 291==
'''Scooby-Doo shades''' 
Another Scooby reference to go with chapter 18's "Daphne and Wilma's."

Which makes us wonder, what would Scooby Doo?

'''Hydro Thunder''' 

As with the other arcade games mentioned in the chapter, Hydro Thunder really exists. [http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro_Thunder Wiki]

==Page 292==

'''covering a margin call''' 
Horst has purchased some derivatives (options or futures) with a significant fraction of the purchase price loaned to him by his broker ("purchased on margin"). Since the time of purchase, the price of the derivative has gone down, and the broker has given Horst a "margin call", ie a couple of hours to put up some more cash to limit their level of exposure. If Horst fails to do so, and the price keeps dropping, the broker stands to lose money. To prevent this possibility, the broker will just sell the derivatives at the going price, which would generate an instant loss for Horst. In this case, Horst believes the price drop is just temporary, so he deposits the extra cash as requested ("covers the call") and the derivatives don't get sold. It looks like he has a number of other positions open, so this margin call is not necessarily a big deal. It does indicate that Horst is engaging in high risk trading though: leveraging his capital in a market that is already very volatile and risky.

'''Berghoff longnecks''' 
Beer made by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Huber_Brewing_Company Joseph Huber Brewing Company,] second oldest brewery in the United States. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeungling Yuengling] is the oldest.

Berghoff is also a German restaurant on West Adams near the financial district. In the window, Berghoff displays Chicago liquor license #1.

==Page 294==
'''Rachel . . . Green''' 
Rachel Green is the character played by Jennifer Aniston on the TV show ''Friends''. She had an on-again, off-again love affair with Ross.

'''ha ha only serious''' 
A phrase from "nerd"-ier circles and mentioned in [http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html the Jargon File]:

<blockquote>
[from SF fandom, orig. as mutation of HHOK, ‘Ha Ha Only Kidding’] A phrase (often seen abbreviated as HHOS) that aptly captures the flavor of much hacker discourse. Applied especially to parodies, absurdities, and ironic jokes that are both intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of truth, or truths that are constructed on in-joke and self-parody. This lexicon contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both form and content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider, a wannabee, or in larval stage. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master.
</blockquote>.

==Page 295==
'''Tworkeffx''' 
Could be an abbreviated form of "network effect," where a good or service becomes more valuable when more people use it, which is the case for many websites such as YouTube, Amazon.com, Wikipedia &c &c.

There's also "Twork It Out," a tune on Usher's third studio album, ''8701'' which was originally intended for an October 31, 2000 release but was delayed numerous times following the leak of several tracks onto the online music store Napster and finally released in July 2001. The title is derived from Usher singing for the first time in his local church in 1987 and the album's release date of 2001. From [http://www.metrolyrics.com/twork-it-out-lyrics-usher.html the lyrics], "tworking" is pretty much having sex.
{{#ev:youtube|IezNzO7asCg}}

'''End of the World As We Know It''' 
A reference to the song "It's the End of the World as We Know It" (1987) by R.E.M.

==Page 296==
'''As Labor Day approaches''' 
which, in 2001, was on Sept. 3rd

'''El Atildado''' 
"Atildado" is Spanish for elegant, stylish

Or more pointedly, it means, The Dapper Man.

''you mean 'Dude'?''

'''Johnny Pacheco''' 
Johnny Pacheco is a Dominican musician, arranger, producer, and bandleader of Cuban music. He is one of the most influential figures in Latin music, best known for being the creator of the Fania All-Stars, and for coining the term "Salsa" to denote the genre. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Pacheco WIKI].

==Page 298==
'''A barstool, named Sven?'''<br\>
Maybe a bit of poetic license here? IKEA has a stool named "Svenerik", but it's more of a piano stool. The max height is 58 cm, so it's too short to be much good as a bar stool.

==Page 299==

'''Jemima, Keziah, and Kerenhappuch''' 
Job's three daughters, as in, from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Job Book of Job].

==Page 300==
'''merengue''' 
Merengue is a style of Dominican music and dance. Partners hold each other in a closed position. The leader holds the follower's waist with the leader's right hand, while holding the follower's right hand with the leader's left hand at the follower's eye level. Partners bend their knees slightly left and right, thus making the hips move left and right. The hips of the leader and follower move in the same direction throughout the song. Partners may walk sideways or circle each other, in small steps. They can switch to an open position and do separate turns without letting go each other's hands or releasing one hand. During these turns they may twist and tie their handhold into intricate pretzels. Other choreographies are possible. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merengue_%28dance%29 WIKI].

'''"Copacabana"''' 
Classic song by Mr. Barry Manilow.

{{#ev:youtube|uZejMyIrghc}}

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==Page 395==
'''Twelfth Night''' 
''Twelfth Night''; or, ''What You Will'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of the occasion, with plot elements drawn from the short story "Of Apollonius and Silla" by Barnabe Rich, based on a story by Matteo Bandello. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_night WIKI].

==Page 396==
'''shoulder surfers''' 
In computer security, shoulder surfing refers to using direct observation techniques, such as looking over someone's shoulder, to get information. It is commonly used to obtain passwords, PINs, security codes, and similar data. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoulder_surfing_%28computer_security%29 Wikipedia]

==Page 397==
'''in loco Santaclausis''' 
A play on the Latin phrase "in loco parentis," which means "in the place of a parent" and refers to the legal responsibility of an organization (e.g., a university) to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent.

==Page 398==
'''friends who warbike around town''' 
Warbiking is, in Internet vernacular, searching for unsecured wireless networks by bicycle. [http://www.sophos.com/en-us/security-news-trends/security-trends/bottom-line/project-warbike.aspx]

==Page 401==

'''''All About Eve'' and shit''' 
The 1950 film is about a successful actress and her young fan Eve Harrington, who insinuates herself into the older actress's life.

==Page 402==
'''mohel''' 
A mohel is a Jewish person trained in the practice of brit milah, the "covenant of circumcision." From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohel WIKI].

'''Out there somewhere in that nomad's field of indifference, riding the Chinese bus into a futurity of imprecise schedules and reduced options''' 
This is reminiscent of the fate of Tyrone Slothrop, in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ''Gravity's Rainbow''], pages 738-742 (original Viking editions), where he is "scattered" and eventually sort of disappears from the action, dissolves.

Windust's fate echoes Slothrop's:
<blockquote>He's silent, wherever he is. One more American sheep the shepherds have temporarily lost track of, somewhere in the high country of this ruinous hour, cragfast in the storm.</blockquote>

==Page 403==
'''wadis of deep purity''' 
Wadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some cases, it may refer to a dry (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadis WIKI].

'''Omar Sharif''' 
Another ''Lawrence of Arabia'' reference, following from convo with Vyrva on p. 400. See Sharif's info and a photo on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Sharif WIKI].

'''melismas of desert wind''' 
Melisma is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, in which each syllable of text is matched to a single note. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melismas WIKI].

==Page 404==
'''SVG Alice Blue'''<br\>
SVG is Scalable Vector Graphics, an image format used on the web, dating from 1999. Alice Blue is one of the standard colors in SVG. It is a very pale blue, 240,248,255 in rgb.

==Page 405==
'''a pair of fishhooks''' 
"Fishhook" is gambling lingo for a Jack of any suit.

==Page 406==
'''a music track heavy on the hijaz scale''' 
The hijaz scale aka the Phrygian Dominant, Hijaz-Nahawand, Fraigish is distinguished by the augmented interval between the 2nd and 3rd degrees of the scale, which is commonly heard in Jewish, Greek, Turkish, Arab, Persian, and Flamenco music. The scale is: D Eb F# G A Bb C. [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_dominant_scale Wikipedia]

'''Omar Sharif ... playing bridge''' 
Not only an actor, Sharif was also an international-level bridge player.

==Page 407==
'''his careless gift of boy's cruelty''' 
A "careless" gift is a meaningless gift given with little thought. It's Windust giving the Montauk Project his gift of "boy's cruelty" which was nurtured and developed. See [[Chapter_31#Page_339|page 339]] Windust would be "a preadolescent boy [...] abducted circa 1960" by the Montauk Project, as described on [[Chapter_22#Page_243|page 243]].

'''GS-1800-series job''' 

General Service 1800 series numbers are used to designate various government special agents. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_agent#Federal_government WIKI].
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[[File:BE-Final-Cover.jpg|350px|thumb|''Bleeding Edge'' '''Cover design:''' Evan Gaffney '''Jacket Image:''' Luis Martinez/LuisMMolina//Getty Images '''Publication date:''' Sep 17, 2013|right]]The dust jacket for the first American hardcover edition, although technically in grayscale, has a shiny finish that reflects light in shifting colors depending on the angle from which it's viewed. There's likely a name for this effect, but I don't know it! The effect (absent from the British first edition, published by Jonathan Cape) would seem to be consonant with the title of the novel which speaks of technology that is still so blazingly new that it is hard to pin down and shimmers just beyond the reach of ordinary people.

The image of the server farm, which is on both the front and back covers, evokes two of the main themes in ''Bleeding Edge'' the Internet and the World Trade Center twin towers.

[[File:Server-Farm-At-Night_sm.jpg|left|200px|thumb||Image: Luis Martinez / Getty Images]]The fact that the back cover shows this same image with no type over it, completely unadorned, really reinforces the twin towers connection. It wasn't until I saw the back cover that I made this connection.

Also, with its receding vanishing point perspective, the front and back cover image brings to mind the dust jacket design on the first American edition of [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=V. ''V.''] (1963).

Furthermore, the cover image seems to resonate with this famous passage from the closing pages of ''The Crying of Lot 49'', where Pynchon's first female sleuth, Oedipa Maas, imagines herself inside a great computer:

:"For it was now like walking among matrices of a great digital computer, the zeroes and ones twinned above, hanging like balanced mobiles right and left ahead, thick, maybe endless" (p. 181)