Bleeding Edge

By: Thomas Pynchon

Narrated by: Jeannie Berlin

Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Thomas Pynchon brings us to New York in the early days of the Internet. It is 2001 in New York City, in the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11th. Silicon Alley is a ghost town, Web 1.0 is having adolescent angst, Google has yet to IPO, Microsoft is still considered the Evil Empire. There may not be quite as much money around as there was at the height of the tech bubble, but there's no shortage of swindlers looking to grab a piece of what's left.

Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics - carry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people's bank accounts - without having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom - two boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-ex-husband Horst, life as normal as it ever gets in the neighborhood - till Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm and its billionaire geek CEO, whereupon things begin rapidly to jam onto the subway and head downtown. She soon finds herself mixed up with a drug runner in an art deco motorboat, a professional nose obsessed with Hitler's aftershave, a neoliberal enforcer with footwear issues, plus elements of the Russian mob and various bloggers, hackers, code monkeys, and entrepreneurs, some of whom begin to show up mysteriously dead. Foul play, of course.

With occasional excursions into the Deep Web and out to Long Island, Thomas Pynchon, channeling his inner Jewish mother, brings us a historical romance of New York in the early days of the Internet, not that distant in calendar time but galactically remote from where we've journeyed to since.

Will perpetrators be revealed, forget about brought to justice? Will Maxine have to take the handgun out of her purse? Will she and Horst get back together? Will Jerry Seinfeld make an unscheduled guest appearance? Will accounts secular and karmic be brought into balance?

Hey. Who wants to know?

©2013 Thomas Pynchon (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

A New York Times Notable Book of 2013

"Brilliantly written...a joy to read.... Full of verbal sass and pizzazz, as well as conspiracies within conspiracies, Bleeding Edge is totally gonzo, totally wonderful. It really is good to have Thomas Pynchon around, doing what he does best." (Michael Dirda, The Washington Post)

"A precious freak of a novel, glinting rich and strange, like a black pearl from an oyster unfathomable by any other diver into our eternal souls. If not here at the end of history, when? If not Pynchon, who? Reading Bleeding Edge, tearing up at the beauty of its sadness or the punches of its hilarity, you may realize it as the 9/11 novel you never knew you needed...a necessary novel and one that literary history has been waiting for, ever since it went to bed early on innocent Sept. 10 with a copy of The Corrections and stayed up well past midnight reading Franzen into the wee hours of his novel’s publication day." (Slate.com)

Painful narrator--can't listen for 18+ hours!

I managed 10 minutes, then quit. The narrator is literally painful to listen to. Halts and pauses chaotically. No inflection. No emotion. Apparently reading--if she knows how to read--the words for the first time and doesn't comprehend Pynchon's syntax. I could not listen to her for 18 hours!

Instead of using a credit, I accidentally bought this book for full price. Audible didn't give me the chance to tap "bought this book by mistake" as in the past, so I'm stuck with it. It is not worth the money or the credit.

Narrator turn off

I sent this book back because the narrator grated on me so badly I could not focus on the story. Nasal, monotoned, grating. This is a rating for the narrator, not the book.

I want my money back!

Would you try another book from Thomas Pynchon and/or Jeannie Berlin?

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find out anything about the story since I have been constantly put off by the unbelievable horrible narration. I probanly underrate Thomas Pynchon, but I am absolutely unable to follow the story since I constantly lose trail due to the bad, bad, bad, reading Jeannie Berlin does. I do not know about Thomas Pynchon, but I will definitively regard the Name Jeannie Berlin as a red flag for my future purchases. And, yes, it really is that bad. Do not buy that audio book before you have lilstened to a sample of Ms. Berlins voice. And, no, neither does it get any better as the story progreesses, nor do you get used to the monotone, lifeless croak of Ms. Berlins voice.

Would you ever listen to anything by Thomas Pynchon again?

Not if read by Jeannie Berlin!

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Jeannie Berlin?

Someone with the ability to intonate and not only read a story but to fill it with a living performance, someone with a less noticeable accent and the ability not to let every character sound as if he or she was utterly drunk.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Bleeding Edge?

All of them, based on Ms. Berlins performance.

Any additional comments?

If I had any authority at Audible, Inc, I would immediately fire the person responsible for the choice of narrator as well as any other person with direct responsibility for the release of this incredible bad performance.

the worst narration ever

What would have made Bleeding Edge better?

I couldn't finish the book. The narration was so bad, I would have preferred a robot reader

What could Thomas Pynchon have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Different narrator

How could the performance have been better?

Yes, a five year old learning English as a second language would have done a better job narrating

What character would you cut from Bleeding Edge?

Don't know, I couldn't stand the narration long enough to listen

Any additional comments?

Refund me my credit, this was the worst narration I've ever heard

Truly Insufferable Narrator

Would you try another book from Thomas Pynchon and/or Jeannie Berlin?

Definitely Thomas Pynchon. Jeannie Berlin, never. Neverl

How could the performance have been better?

I cannot honestly understand why anyone would choose to have this narrator read a book.

Any additional comments?

Stopped listening after 15 minutes. Going to get a refund. There's no way to recommend 18 hours of listening to this voice.

Horrible reader makes book unlistenable.

What would have made Bleeding Edge better?

Any other reader. The reader is so bad that I cannot finish the first 2 hours. It is more than just distracting. I find myself ignoring the story because I cannot stand the readers voice, lack of intonation, and the total lack of continuity in the reading. She pauses in the middle of phrases and leaves the reader hanging.

Please redo this book. I bought the hard copy to read it as Pynchon is a master.. But the reader totally butchers this book.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Bleeding Edge?

I cannot remember being able to follow the story because the reading is so bad.

What didn’t you like about Jeannie Berlin’s performance?

EVERYTHING!. THe worst reader I have ever heard on audible.

Any additional comments?

Please redo this book. You owe it to Mr. Pynchon.

Defending the narrator

Pynchon (who presumably wrote the jacket copy) says he’s channeling his inner Jewish mother in Bleeding Edge, and I suspect this is what inspired the choice of reader. Jeannie Berlin is soon to be seen as Aunt Reet in the film version of Inherent Vice, and sounds like a middle-aged New York Jew. Older than Maxine, the main character, so perhaps we're hearing Maxine’s chronically disapproving mother tell her story. Like all the other reviewers to date, my initial reaction to the narration of this audiobook was, to quote from the text: Wahhabi Transreligious Friendship (to the unitiated, that’s Whisky Tango Foxtrot)! But I made it to the end, then read through my hard copy, and finally started the audiobook again (yeah, I’m that big a Pynchon fan). Now I’m liking it quite a bit.

True, the cool jazz rhythms of Pynchon’s prose become jarringly stilted at times, and the characterizations are hit and miss, particularly with the male characters. She doesn’t even try to perform the songs, and I don’t think I’d want to hear her try. Nevertheless, it has grown on me, and I think it got better as it went on. I wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that Pynchon himself advised on and approved this production. It's unique.

About the book, if you’re not already a Pynchon fan this is a good place to start, though if you’re going to start with an audiobook I’d suggest Inherent Vice, with is masterfully performed. If you’re already a fan you’re going to get it (in one form or another) no matter what I say, so try the sample of the audiobook and decide from there.

terribly read

too distracting to complete I'm just going to buy the physical book and read it myself

Boring and uneventful

This is the most boring and uneventful book I’ve ever read in my entire life

difficult to get into

What disappointed you about Bleeding Edge?

The narration was bland and not a very clear voice.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

she was very gravelly and bland in expression.