Bleeding Edge

By: Thomas Pynchon

Narrated by: Jeannie Berlin

A New York Times Notable Book

"Brilliantly written...a joy to read...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

"Exemplary...dazzling and ludicrous." - Jonathan Lethem, The New York Times Book Review

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.

Maxine Tarnow runs a fine little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side. All is ticking over nice and normal, until she starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm and its billionaire geek CEO. 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, and an array of bloggers, hackers, code monkeys, and entrepreneurs, some of whom begin to show up mysteriously dead. Foul play, of course.

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

Hey. Who wants to know?

Jarring Narration

How did the narrator detract from the book?

From the first few sentences I was surprised at how amateurish the narration was. She is reading; not narrating. Her voice is grating. She misreads words (Silicone Valley vice Silicon Valley). I love Thomas Pynchon but it is going to be a long slog getting through 15 hours of Jeannie Berlin.

Really poor narration

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

This is a wonderful book, but the narration is terrible. I have a high tolerance for different voices but I couldn't listen to this narration. It is so flat and the inflections are so poor the humor of the story is lost.

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

Roslyn Landor is my favorite narrator although I'm not sure she would be right for this. Pynchon requires an ironic voice like the narrator who read Inherent Vice

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Offer a new version of the narration and try and get the rest of Pynchon available on audiobook.

Ruined by narration

This is a challenging book to read, and I'm sure it's a nightmare to narrate. The narrator seems like she's giving it her best shot, but has awkward pauses that make it hard to follow the already difficult sentences. Near 6:31 there's a perfect example of this, she's got a sentence about characters going to a diner and digging in. There's an awkward pause before "dig in" and it's clear she didn't quite understand the sentence the first time around.

Characters don't have sufficiently distinct voices and the dialogue, which has characters interrupting each other and not finishing sentences requires a lot of focus to follow.

I've listened to a few books of similar difficulty where the narration actually helped make the book easier to follow.I have no idea if I'll make it through this one.

Narrator ruins this book

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

I can tell the book is well written and funny, but out of the many, many audio books my wife and I have listened to we both agree the narrator is the worst we have heard -- almost unlistenable. Her voice is grating and very unpleasant. But even worse than that, she reads in a monotone, completely missing the normal cadences of speech and of the writing. It makes the sentences difficult to understand and makes most of the funny passages fall flat. I would certainly recommend reading this book and passing on this version.

Someone is playing a joke

I have listened to hundreds of books over the years and this is by far the worst reader I've heard.