tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157342843002612388.post6683469193938218370..comments2024-03-05T15:10:07.370-06:00Comments on A Building Roam: Book Review: How Thomas Pynchon's Novel Bleeding Edge Hit Close to HomePQhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14491626995530401441noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157342843002612388.post-9687420922138346812017-10-01T16:59:56.403-05:002017-10-01T16:59:56.403-05:00Michael: Thanks for your great comment. I've a...Michael: Thanks for your great comment. I've actually been reading 'Against the Day' for the last month or so and had already been reading your "Chumps of Choice" blog. It's been an indispensable resource. Although I hadn't read the comments much--I'll need to go back and check those out.<br /><br />I read 'Vineland' earlier this year and loved it. In fact, I'm hoping to read it again soon. I think about that novel often. Much like 'Bleeding Edge' it's fun to read Pynchon talk about contemporary life and culture. And now that I understand the lineage of Frenesi Gates links back to the Traverse family, I want to look for resonances. PQhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14491626995530401441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157342843002612388.post-3972251431926300782017-09-30T12:24:40.412-05:002017-09-30T12:24:40.412-05:00Wonderful personal essay about a Pynchon favorite ...Wonderful personal essay about a Pynchon favorite that is way more important than is commonly acknowledged. Also happy that Pynchon wrote a New York City book where you could resonate with the real/surreal details that you grew up around. His other New York novel is "V," set in the late 1950s/early 1960s, and you should read that next if only for the antics of the Whole Sick Crew.<br /><br />I am born and have lived all my life in California, so "The Crying of Lot 49" and "Inherent Vice" resonated the same way for me as "Bleeding Edge" did for you. "Vineland," though it was hated by a lot of his "Gravity's Rainbow" fans, hit me in the solar plexus since I was very familiar with the actual events in Humboldt County and Santa Barbara, the unnamed SoCal college beach town, and he got EVERYTHING right, including the mood.<br /><br />"Against The Day" is a difficult read, but since you're a "Finnegan's Wake" guy, you shouldn't have any problem. The only time I have ever been part of a book club is when I joined a communal blog group in 2005 when blogs were shiny and new. We read through ATD over the course of a year, with weekly written commentary on a certain number of pages being alternated between the dozen participants. Then everyone else would chime in the Comments section. There were fights, humor, much information shared, and it was a very interesting way to marinate in that dense masterpiece. Also, the slow reading of 25 pages every week was a wonderful way to absorb it. "Chumps of Choice" is still out there if you're interested in taking a look: http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/<br /><br />Civic Centerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12362422142667230626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157342843002612388.post-47825460773045903612017-08-12T03:51:04.785-05:002017-08-12T03:51:04.785-05:00hmmmmhmmmmJeCksOnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12087778649552689484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157342843002612388.post-72166890171480472632017-08-09T17:02:17.726-05:002017-08-09T17:02:17.726-05:00Layne! Thanks for commenting. Interesting points r...Layne! Thanks for commenting. Interesting points re: GR influence on Metal Gear. Certainly seems feasible. The accuracy of the Metal Gear details he uses in Bleeding Edge are almost surreal. <br /><br />Pynchon is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers. I'm fighting the urge to crack open Against the Day but it's so damn intriguing I foresee the next few months being sucked up by it. PQhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14491626995530401441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157342843002612388.post-66158269581517414352017-08-09T12:40:38.378-05:002017-08-09T12:40:38.378-05:00Michael-
Thanks for the kind words, that means a...Michael- <br /><br />Thanks for the kind words, that means a lot coming from you.<br /><br />Re: Montauk, I'm not totally sure. It seems Pynchon threw it in there to get you thinking about it (and amplify the weirdness vibe a little), then quickly moved on.<br /><br />Joshua Cohen talks about it in his 'Bleeding Edge' review for Harper's:<br /><br />'This actual paranormal conspiracy theory — regarded as the successor to the Philadelphia Experiment — is, in Pynchon’s telling, “a kind of boot camp for military time travelers” that kidnaps, starves, beats, and sodomizes American preadolescents. They — “Boys, typically” — are trained to become the agents of tomorrow, or yesterday, “Assigned to secret cadres to be sent on government missions back and forth in Time, under orders to create alternative histories which will benefit higher levels of command who have sent them out.”'<br /><br />Though Cohen notes this explanation comes to Maxine while she's in the computer simulation of DeepArcher, not out in "meatspace."<br /><br />I don't think I've actually read any cyberpunk novels yet, but this certainly felt like Pynchon's version of cyberpunk. PQhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14491626995530401441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157342843002612388.post-71484978763864203002017-08-09T12:21:59.132-05:002017-08-09T12:21:59.132-05:00This is awesome! My jaw dropped when I saw you men...This is awesome! My jaw dropped when I saw you mention MGS! I tend to think Kojima was super inspired by Pynchon (Solid Snake seems to be a Tchitcherine analogue, and the horse in the novel is named Snake), additionally I think the story of the series is really indebted to Gravity's Rainbow in particular. I was thinking about writing about it someday. I love the book chemist! I just picked up Bleeding Edge and I'm even more pumped to read it now. Lfarmegahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12671643627955668810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1157342843002612388.post-80614869629903541142017-08-08T03:09:42.365-05:002017-08-08T03:09:42.365-05:00Best review of Bleeding Edge I've ever read, P...Best review of Bleeding Edge I've ever read, PQ. Thanks!<br /><br />I was particularly taken by the psychogeographical aspects of your reading of Bleeding Edge. I think about that all the time. My two cities have been Los Angeles/Pasadena and San Francisco/Berkeley, and whenever I've walked or driven through certain areas of those cities (and their 'burbs), I can't help but be palpably "feel" the memories and emotional tones of "fictional" events and characters I've encountered neurologically, in places that really do exist. In this, fiction and "reality" seem to fuse and take on an extra dimension.<br /><br />Add to that: reading and the geographical landscape and the museum-without -walls historical knowledge, as, one day, I walked/rode my bike around Berkeley past houses Leary lived in, not too far from Ishmael Reed, then a known Philip K Dick abode, followed by a Robert Anton Wilson house, Allen Ginsberg house, and one of the acid chemist Owsley's places. <br /><br />Back to Bleeding Edge: what was going on out near Montauk Point? Does it have something to do with wild conspiracy theories about government genetic breeding experiments gone mad?michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.com