my highlights of ‘bleeding edge’

Bleeding Edge

The long-standing practice at these AMBOPEDIA get-togethers is to visit literal geographical borderlines, a different one each year. – Ch. 2

…Giuliani and his developer friends and the forces of suburban righteousness have swept the place Disneyfied and sterile… – Ch. 5

There is also her mostly unavowed fascination with Latrelle Sprewell and his history of coach assault, on the principle that Homer strangling Bart we expect, but when Bart strangles Homer… – Ch. 16.

…a steamy August evening out to Queens to a strip club called Joie de Beavre. – Ch. 20

once you get past the fact this is pynchon, the book is enjoyable. it reads like 41 different short stories that have the same plot thread unifying them. it’s certainly not as obtuse as gravity’s rainbow, and you can get through the book fairly quickly.

of course with the story set in 2001, i was constantly going back to the state of the web back then. and as futuristic this story may seem — a tech-ish mystery caper novel — it’s also quite retro. it reads like film noir