The bleeding continues...

[jody2.718]

"It's just code,"  "It is what it is,"  and, in one form or another, "It's finite," as in the planetary pyramid scheme known as Late Capitalism. These takes on what "It" is, as in what is real and what is virtual, are refrains that keep echoing through my re-read of Bleeding Edge, surfing along on Maxine's streaming feminine secular/Jewish consciousness. Which, it seems to me, should lay to rest any critical carping regarding Pynchon's failure to do "character," like it or not.

Another refrain- probably the most striking: "And whose business is it anyway," or, "And who wants to know", coming either from Maxine or the narrator, challenges even the legitimacy of the reader's "self," in a world where the virtual and the real continue to bleed together.

One other point: Bleeding Edge is one of Pynchon's better works, insufficiently discussed, probably because its publication was somewhat overshadowed by the expectation of, and finally the release of, the rather lame film version of Inherent Vice.

jody

Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email.