Another Negative BE Review

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Am 03.11.2013 15:24, schrieb David Morris:

> http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/bonfire-of-the-inanities/

> (...) you’re waiting for
> Thomas Pynchon’s magic to show up.
>
> It never does. What shows up instead, on page after interminable page,
> is yet more tired riffing. Only where such riffing in /Inherent Vice/,
> with its neon California-noir setting, was merely irritating, in
> /Bleeding Edge/ it’s deeply offensive, because the book’s setting is our
> own immediate past and centers on the terrorist bombings of September
> 11, 2001 – a national trauma about which only crackpots and lunatics
> have the bad grace to riff. [...]

Me, I enjoyed the riffing immensely. Several native speakers did as 
well, judging from the reviews and the reactions on the list, so my not 
being fully immersed in the language/culture does not seem to be the 
main reason. But this may be a matter of taste. As for the September 11 
background, the reviewer seems to imply that you are a crackpot or 
lunatic if you allow yourself to have thoughts about 9/11 that are not 
in line with the official version. This is obviously not what Pynchon 
thinks. As the reviewer says and objects to, he lets some of his 
characters riff on the context and the background of the attacks (before 
and after they occur in the novel). These characters' views are not 
depicted as crazy or lunatic but have some legitimacy (one's mileage may 
vary there) attributed to them. Whatever one may think of this, it is 
there. And it is certainly nothing new for Pynchon.

I note that what one thinks about 9/11 is in many cases critical for how 
one judges BE.

> Instead of such divine intervention, the first half of /Bleeding
> Edge/ is full of /shtick/. Almost every character is a jokester ready
> with several grade-A zingers (you’ll never meet busboys and bike
> messengers this funny in real life). [...]

This seems to me to be missing the point completely (though the reviewer 
here seems to inadvertently admit that the riffing in fact IS funny; his 
beef is with funny dialogue, silliness and 9/11 all in the same book, I 
guess). If I want to know about real life busboys and bike messengers I 
read one of the numerous pseudo-realist novels that are published every 
month, not Pynchon. Or I just leave the house.

And this guy liked 'Gravity's Rainbow'? No 'riffing' on deadly serious 
issues in GR, I guess...

Thomas

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