by Thomas Pynchon (2013)

2024 reads, 18/22:

“Sometimes, down on the subway, a train Maxine's riding on will slowly be overtaken by a local or an express on the other track, and in the darkness of the tunnel, as the windows of the other train move slowly past, the lighted panels appear one by one like a series of fortune-telling cards being dealt and slid in front of her.”

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending a friend's thirtieth birthday on a night cruise that sailed on the Hudson River. On this humid summer evening, the city loomed over us, and I caught myself multiple times just staring at the city skyline; in particular, the checkerboarded city windows reminded me of a server room. All the nodes forming one large unit, signifying one breathing, living, city.

New York, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down

Bleeding Edge takes place in New York City in 2001, right after the dot-com bubble of the nineties, the movement from Silicon Valley to Silicon Alley. Maxine Tarnow, mother of two sons (Ziggy and Otis) and Certified Fraud Examiner, is the protagonist, while Gabriel Ice, head of computer security firm “hashslingerz,” is her antagonist; but NYC is right there the whole time, the god-like deuteragonist, looming over the novel.

This alternate NYC is dark, oozing with underworld vibes. As Maxine gets further into her investigation of Ice and his illegal activities, she uncovers more and more of his capitalistic plot. Threats loom, and she meets many others who have succumbed to the city’s shadows.

“Beneath these windows they can hear the lawless soundscape of the midnight street, breakage, screaming, vehicle exhaust, New York laughter, too loud, too trivial, brakes applied too late before some gut-wrenching thud. When Maxine was little, she thought of this nightly uproar as trouble too far away to matter, like sirens. Now it’s always too close, part of the deal.”

This book is a love letter to NYC, as the only other Pynchon book somewhat set in NYC is V., his very first. Since Bleeding Edge is the most recent novel by Thomas Pynchon, published in 2013, this may be his last work; if that’s the case, it’s interesting (and perhaps fitting) how he bookends his oeuvre with The City That Never Sleeps.

A Parallel World

But if the city is the living, breathing environment, then its doppelganger is DeepArcher, a computer program that acts as a utopian parallel world of the imperfect city. Early on, Maxine is exposed to DeepArcher, since one of its two creators (Justin and Lucas) has a daughter at her kids’ school.

“When the program is loaded, there is no main page, no music score, only a sound ambience, growing slowly louder, that Maxine recognizes from a thousand train and bus stations and airports, and the smoothly cross-dawning image of an interior whose detail, for a moment breathtakingly, is far in advance of anything she’s seen on the gaming platforms Ziggy and his friends tend to use….”

The scenes where Maxine explores DeepArcher may as well be taken straight out of Neuromancer – they are incredibly done, and it felt like Maxine and other characters were physically in this cyberspace, like in Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase. But here, it allows for an escape, an underworld where double lives flourish and souls replicate.

DeepArcher is even presented as a pre-capitalistic paradise (or even purgatory), where anyone can come to rest and wander for eternity, but is it what it seems? In describing these scenes, Pynchon expertly straddles the line between comforting and paranoid, and it’s this idealized version of the living, breathing, imperfect NYC that makes this utopia somewhat discomforting. In fact, it’s on Halloween night, a night of masks, costumes, and double identities, that one of Maxine’s friends says, “Children of all ages enacting the comprehensive pop-cultural moment. Everything collapsed into the single present tense, all in parallel. Mimesis and enactment.”

Gabriel Ice, who wants to acquire DeepArcher, is an interesting villain – described as “amiable geek” in college, he is now one of the remaining “nerd billionaires” from the dot-com boom. I love how his last name is a literal reference to “ice”, virtual walls in cyberspace (from, again, Neuromancer) that act as defenses, furthering the secrets that he holds. And it wouldn’t be a Pynchon book without conspiracy and paranoia. Anyone getting close to Ice either disappears or shows up dead, adding weight to the plot, and furthering the consequences for Maxine each step she takes.

“She’s lost. There is no map. It isn’t like being lost in any of the romantic tourist destinations back in meatspace. Serendipities here are unlikely to be in the cards, only a feeling she recognizes from dreams, a sense of something not necessarily pleasant just about to happen.”

And just in case you need further convincing that DeepArcher is an escape from reality, somewhere to run to, then just sound out the word.

How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?

It's funny – some say this is Pynchon’s weakest work, saying that the references are out of touch; but I think that's just the times. This is the most recent setting Pynchon has written about, and I adored the many pop culture references, e.g., Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, even Kenan and Kel. It feels like this book is Pynchon’s love letter to the generations after him, especially his son, who grew up during this age. And continuing with the cyberspace theme, one of the DeepArcher creators even describes their software using references from the cyberpunk age:

“‘Only the framing material,’ Lucas demurely, ‘obvious influences, Neo-Tokyo from Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Metal Gear Solid by Hideo Kojima, or as he's known in my crib, God.’”

There are actually a few cyberpunk references throughout the book, maybe touching on how the politics of the Cold War and secret government doings parallel that of Gabriel Ice and his megacorporation. One character even says, “paranoia's the garlic in life's kitchen, right, you can never have too much.” Or maybe Pynchon’s son just loves Metal Gear Solid. Side note, it's the aforementioned Halloween night scene that gives one of my favorite pop culture references in the book (for obvious reasons):

“‘Fiona, nice getup, help me out, you’re supposed to be–’ ‘Misty?’ ‘The girl in Pokemon. And this is–’ Fiona’s friend Imba, who’s got up as Misty’s chronically bummed out companion Psyduck. ‘We flipped for it,’ Fiona sez.”

The Barroom Floor of History

“They gaze at each other for a while, down here on the barroom floor of history, feeling sucker-punched, no clear way to get up and on with a day which is suddenly full of holes—family, friends, friends of friends, phone numbers on the Rolodex, just not there anymore . . . the bleak feeling, some mornings, that the country itself may not be there anymore, but being silently replaced screen by screen with something else, some surprise package, by those who’ve kept their wits about them and their clicking thumbs ready.”

I’m sure the setting of 2001 NYC immediately sets off alarm bells in your head. And yeah, the September 11 attacks are a pretty central plot point to the story. The actual attack itself is quickly mentioned, which is to be expected – there’s no need for Pynchon to rehash what happened that day. But the effects of the attacks are felt reverberating throughout the novel and plot afterwards.

Pynchon books are said to take place at times when America went down the wrong path, the bifurcation of the “fork in the road America never took” (taken from Gravity’s Rainbow). Publishing this in 2013, Pynchon had at least a decade’s worth of post 9/11-trauma to pull from and deconstruct. Our reaction to the attacks, however patriotic they might have seemed, has had devastating consequences in the context of conspiracy theories and the rise of white nationalism. The aftermath, felt for years to come, is alluded to during a conversation between Maxine and another character, as they walk around the city.

“They’re up on the bridge again, as close to free as the city ever allows you to be, between conditions, an edged wind off the harbor announcing something dark now hovering out over Jersey, not the night, not yet, something else, on the way in, being drawn as if by the vacuum in real-estate history where the Trade Center used to stand, bringing optical tricks, a sorrowful light.”

The immediate reaction of September 11 as a government conspiracy mirrors that of Ice and his transgressions; that everything that’s happened so far to her, to her colleagues, to her clients, is all part of one big collusion between larger powers and darker forces. This is, and has always been, the central theme to all of Pynchon’s books. The last third of the book really embraces this darkness, with a plot becoming more and more unclear.

Bleeding Edge falls in the second camp of Pynchon books, the not-so-dense but relentlessly-shady detective story of someone just trying to find their way in a world that isn’t theirs. Maxine has similar characteristics to Doc Sportello in Inherent Vice, or Oedipa Maas in The Crying of Lot 49 – but one thing she has is children and a healthy family life, which is put on the line every time she goes investigating. Don’t be intimidated to pick this one up, but as with many Pynchon books, you might find yourself wishing for an America that could have been, instead of down here, on the barroom floor of history.

“…they settle in behind Island of Meadows, at the intersection of Fresh and Arthur Kills, toxicity central, the dark focus of Big Apple waste disposal, everything the city has rejected so it can keep on pretending to be itself, and here unexpectedly at the heart of it is this 100 acres of untouched marshland, directly underneath the North Atlantic flyway, sequestered by law from development and dumping, marsh birds sleeping in safety. Which, given the real-estate imperatives running this town, is really, if you want to know, fucking depressing, because how long can it last? How long can any of these innocent critters depend on finding safety around here? It’s exactly the sort of patch that makes a developer’s heart sing—typically, ‘This Land Is My Land, This Land Also Is My Land.’”

#readingyear2024 #pynchon

by Thomas Pynchon (1997)

2024 reads, 17/22

“Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr'd the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware,-- the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking'd-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the ringing Lids of Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie-Spices, peel'd Fruits, Suet, heated Sugar,-- the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax'd and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy December, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.”

The textual equivalent of a cinematic long take, the first sentence of Mason & Dixon sets the stage of the story into which you are about to embark. On a cold December evening in 1786, Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke sits down with the children of his family and commences an epic retelling of the lives of astronomer Charles Mason and surveyor Jeremiah Dixon. Already, we’ve got two levels of narrative: Pynchon, the author, is relaying to us the Reverend’s retelling of the history of Mason and Dixon, and on a greater level, the birth of America. It’s a fitting book to finish this past Independence Day weekend.

What is History?

Within the Reverend’s retelling, however, he is noticeably absent from most of the events with Mason and Dixon, only crossing paths with them a few select times when they are not travelling together in America. So, how do we know that the Reverend is relaying an exact story, down to the exact dialogue? How do we know that Pynchon is communicating the Reverend’s exact story? The narrative framing of M&D brings us to the first major theme: what is history, who tells it, and how we can trust what we learn about the truth of America’s past?

“History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power,— who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been.”

While M&D is rife with accurate historical fiction, Pynchon also fills this book with anachronistic references to Star Trek, Doctor Who (“the stagecoach is bigger on the inside than the outside!”), and other future events. Maybe it’s all just fun for us readers of the modern era, but on a deeper level, is Pynchon saying that history is continuously doomed to repeat itself?

For now, let’s put aside the fact that history is interpreted and retold, possibly by those with an agenda. What happens in M&D? Why should we believe what the Reverend (or Pynchon) tells us?

Brutality Uncheck’d

In the first section of the book, Latitudes and Departures, Mason and Dixon stop at Cape Town, South Africa on their way to observe the Transit of Venus. Here, they are horrified to see how the Dutch colony treats their slaves, raising the question early on: what happens when colonialists are given unrestricted power, out of sight from the laws that govern them? I’m sure you can tell where I’m going with this, as it’s in the middle section, America, we see this lawlessness continue as Mason and Dixon set sail toward America in 1763.

“The long watchfulness, listening to the Brush. Ev'ry mis'rable last Leaf. The Darkness implacable. When you gentlemen come to stand at the Boundary between the Settl'd and the Unpossess'd, just about to enter the Deep Woods, you will recognize the Sensation”

Upon reflection, I really appreciated this first section: not just for foreshadowing the colonialist regimes in early America, but also getting to know our main characters before traveling west. To be honest, their personalities and dialogue reminded me of Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens: Mason, ever so depressive and gothic, recovering from the death of his wife, while Dixon being wide-eyed and optimistic, happy to work with Mason and go on this journey together.

Ghosts of America’s Past

After smoking a joint with Colonel George Washington, and drinking some ale with Ben Franklin, our two protagonists set off westward from Philadelphia (“a Heavenly city and crowded niche of Hell”) to create the boundary that today defines the border between Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware.

“They saw Brutality enough, at the Cape of Good Hope. They can no better understand it now, than then. Something is eluding them. Whites in both places are become the very Savages of their own worst Dreams, far out of Measure to any Provocation.”

The colonialist tendencies mentioned above noticeably continue in this section, as they arrive just after the Paxton Massacre. Like the Herero genocide in V. and Gravity’s Rainbow, it makes for uncomfortable reading, even if our main characters aren’t actively involved in these travesties. When Dixon wonders (absentmindedly) to a group of Native Americans if they are in any danger in America, a Mohawk chief responds: “‘Yes of course you are in danger. Your Heart beats? You live here?’ gesturing all ‘round. ‘Danger in every moment.’”

Throughout the novel, there’s also this constant examination of man-made and natural borders, and more importantly, the consequences as to when these artificial boundaries are imposed in our natural world; the biggest example of course is the Mason-Dixon line itself. This border separated the free northern states from the southern slave states, with consequences for years to come. M&D uses this example among others to ask us about the consequences as humans try to fight against the “natural order” of things, and I’m reminded of the concept of “desire paths,” where again, imposed boundaries are no match for human nature — this theme throughout the book was one of my favorites to think about.

“Mason groans. ‘Shall wise Doctors one day write History's assessment of the Good resulting from this Line, vis-à-vis the not-so-good? I wonder which List will be longer.’”

Mystical Beings of Control

Much like history herself, this book is veiled in a fog of uncertainty, the narrative always slightly out of focus. And with this, we get to the theme that pervades throughout all of Pynchon’s work: control. But in an age where the highest form of technology is represented by John Harrison’s marine chronometer and a mechanical digesting duck , the “shadowy technocratic forces” that I’m used to seeing in Pynchon’s other books must resort to a more primitive means of control – and what was more controlling at the time than religion?

“If Chimes could whisper, if Melodies could pass away, and their Souls wander the Earth...if Ghosts danced at Ghost Ridottoes, 'twould require such Musick, Sentiment ever held back, ever at the Edge of breaking forth, in Fragments, as Glass breaks.”

These sinister back-room societies emerge from the shadows just enough to steer our heroes under the guise of “free will,” withholding a kind of necessary gnosis from them. And it’s not just the Catholic church that has the invisible hand: the mystic arts play their own key role, as ley lines pervade their voyage, Jesuits control their messages, and forest creatures such as golems and fairies all surround our two characters. As they explore caverns, temples, and mountains, I could imagine a soundtrack of Gregorian chants in the background – or even Enya.

Religious allusions pervade their entire quest throughout America, as their journey is compared to the Stations of the Cross – some scholars even suggest that their daily morning cup of coffee is one of the blessed sacraments. These allusions had me doing a deep dive into religious mysticism, the occult, and other fantastical beings. Some are harmless, such as the TARDIS-like stagecoach or ghastly visits from Mason’s deceased wife. But remember when we put aside the fact that history is told to us through someone else’s rose-colored lens? M&D leads me to believe that these theocratic forces were the ones ultimately controlling not just Mason and Dixon, but steering America down the wrong path from the very beginning.

“Hell, beneath our feet, bounded,— Heaven, above our pates, unbounded. Hell a collapsing Sphere, Heaven an expanding one. The enclosure of Punishment, the release of Salvation. Sin leading us as naturally to Hell and Compression, as doth Grace to Heaven, and Rarefaction.”

Where is She Now?

The dynamic duo returns to England in the third section of the book, Last Transit. This section is more of an epilogue, filled with hypnagogic expository and much less “action” overall, which I think works really well after reading 700 pages of misadventures. It’s in this section that the true friendship of Mason and Dixon blooms, something that you realize was growing the whole time – I can see why people say that Pynchon’s later works showed a lot of character development, as this last section was heartening and bittersweet at the same time.

If you are interested in reading this one, know that M&D is written in 18th century style English (as you've probably surmised from the quotes above), even though it was published in 1997. This took some adjusting when I started reading, but it really helps with immersion, making you feel like you’re reading an actual primary source re: the travels of the Reverend, Mason, and Dixon. And even though M&D is set in the 1700s, it is still incredibly relevant centuries later. Are there still invisible hands at play, pulling our strings under the guise of free will? Are there still colonialist tendencies, patriarchal hierarchies, and systemic racism? I'll let you answer that yourself.

“Does Britannia, when she sleeps, dream? Is America her dream?— in which all that cannot pass in the metropolitan Wakefulness is allow'd Expression away in the restless Slumber of these Provinces, and on West-ward, wherever 'tis not yet mapp'd, nor written down, nor ever, by the majority of Mankind, seen,— serving as a very Rubbish-Tip for subjunctive Hopes, for all that may yet be true,— Earthly Paradise, Fountain of Youth, Realms of Prester John, Christ's Kingdom, ever behind the sunset, safe till the next Territory to the West be seen and recorded, measur'd and tied in, back into the Net-Work of Points already known, that slowly triangulates its Way into the Continent, changing all from subjunctive to declarative, reducing Possibilities to Simplicities that serve the ends of Governments,— winning away from the realm of the Sacred, its Borderlands one by one, and assuming them unto the bare mortal World that is our home, and our Despair.”

#readingyear2024 #american #history #postmodern #physicallyowned #pynchon

by Thomas Pynchon (1990)

2024 reads, 1/22:

“When the sixties were over, when the hemlines came down and the colors of the clothes went murky and everybody wore makeup that was supposed to look like you had no makeup on, when tatters and patches had had their day and the outlines of the Nixonian Repression were clear enough even for the most gaga of hippie optimists to see, it was then, facing into the deep autumnal wind of what was coming, that she thought, Here, finally — here's my Woodstock, my golden age of rock and roll, my acid adventures, my Revolution.”

The year is 1984, and surrounded by the old-growth redwoods in northern California, Vineland thrusts us into the lives of ex-hippie Zoyd Wheeler and his daughter Prairie, who must go into hiding because of the return of a federal agent from Zoyd’s past. As they go into hiding, Prairie starts to learn more about the life of her mother she never knew, Frenesi.

This is a Russian doll of a novel; we gradually loop, alongside Prairie, from the eighties to the sixties and even earlier, to learn about the events surrounding her mother. As part of a film collective in the late sixties, we see the dismantling of the counterculture movement through Frenesi’s eyes, through her old flings, her mistakes, and ultimately, her disappearance.

Along the way, different characters’ histories are also explored, such as Frenesi’s kunoichi friend DL, ‘karmic adjuster’ Takeshi Fumimota, and mathematics professor Weed Atman. Not only were these characters three-dimensional, but their relationships were more defined. For example, I loved reading the history of how DL and Takeshi met, their back-and-forth bickering like an old married couple. Furthermore, the love that Zoyd has for his daughter, Prairie, is so clearly carried throughout the whole book, and I found myself caring for them both. Vineland is, so far, Pynchon’s most sentimental book.

“Following the wisdom of the time, Zoyd, bobbing around among the flotsam of his sunken marriage, had been giving in to the impulse to cry, anytime it came on him, alone or in public, Getting In Touch With His Feelings at top volume, regardless of how it affected onlookers, their own problems, their attitude toward life, their lunch.”

The backdrop of Vineland, like Inherent Vice, is the decline of sixties counterculture; however, taking place a little over a decade after the events of IV, the anti-counterculture faction is much stronger now. Reagan is president, federal agencies such as the D.E.A. are in full force, and the sixties youth is feeling the pressure to come and participate in the current times. Businesses are booming, and everything is now commodified, able to be procured at the local mall. Case in point, the ‘designer seltzer dispenser’ produced by Yves St. Laurent, or even the local pizza joint where Prairie worked, serving a high-quantity yet low-quality product:

“Its sauce was all but crunchy with fistfuls of herbs only marginally Italian and more appropriate in a cough remedy, the rennetless cheese reminded customers variously of bottled hollandaise or joint compound, and the options were all vegetables rigorously organic, whose high water content saturated, long before it baked through, a stone-ground twelve-grain crust with the lightness and digestibility of a manhole cover.”

Delicious, right?

I also loved the theme of communication and hidden signals that Vineland exhibits so well: messages are seemingly constantly bombarding Zoyd, Prairie, Frenesi, DL, and others, usually originating from the ‘Tube’ (the always-capitalized TV slang, signifying its place in the eighties as a Proper Noun). For Zoyd specifically, these Videodrome-esque messages had me constantly asking: is some technocratic higher power forcing these messages unto him? Or is Zoyd, maybe subconsciously, getting himself into his own situations, unable to resist? Maybe, it’s some intertwined combination of the two, like Todd from BoJack Horseman.

“He bounced slowly from one Honolulu bar to another, allowing himself to trust to the hidden structures of night in a city, to a gift he sometimes thought he had for drifting, if not into intersections of high drama and significant fortune, at least away, most of the time, from danger.”

In many ways, this novel reminded me of White Noise, with its similar themes on technology & commodification, pop culture, and changing times. Jack Gladney and Zoyd Whee