Bleeding Edge - A Rolling Assessment

[Laura Kelber]

Opening paragraph from Chapter 29 (SPOILER):

I'm not going to retype the whole thing, just comment that it's possibly the worst paragraph Pynchon has ever written - an utter bore. Now, there might be people who say that he's being deliberately boring to emphasize the horror of what follows. But his description of that day is minimalist. Are we to believe that Maxine wasn't glued to the news that day? Was she in denial? If so, Pynchon never explores that. Instead, by the end of the chapter, he's giving page time to conspiracy theories. Minimal description of what the city was like,in the aftermath, and none of it eloquent or interesting by any stretch. Believe me, I was as cynical as the next person about all the Giuliani rah-rah jingoism that followed. But Pynchon's cold, perfunctory treatment of what we as a city went through offended the shit out of me. 

Still think GR is the greatest novel 
I've ever read. But, oh Tom, how could you have stooped to Chapter 29?

Laura





On Sep 26, 2013, at 6:48 AM, Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >I'm not sure how BE is a decline from IV. 
> 
> I was thinking in terms of the quality of the writing.
> 
> 
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