Bleeding Edge

I recently re-read Thomas Pynchon's novel, Bleeding Edge. I am not a huge fan of Pynchon's His early books are fairly incoherent and his middle books are far too long and rambling. I did find Inherent Vice amusing, but not very substantial, sort of literary fast food.

Bleeding Edge has many flaws. The humor is sophomoric and the Heroine is fairly unpleasant. The plot is convoluted and only barely coherent, although, by the end it comes together, sort of. The novel is somewhat political and Pynchon's politics are sort of a blend of old hippy and old Democrat.

However, it does have a redeeming value. Pynchon takes on our obsession with the internet and the damage it has done and likely will continue to do. The creation of a virtual world is like building a house of cards and trying to live in it. What do we do when, as is inevitable, the house comes crashing down. How can we build our futures around something as ephemeral as electronic runs of 1's and 0's.

I am not a luddite. I love technology and I find the internet useful, if occasionally frustrating. However, looking at our evolutionary tree, we should note that species who become overspecialized, too dependent on one tactic, do not last too long.

He also skates around the issue of what this does to the soul, a fascinating question that, to be fair to Pynchon, can only be skated around.  What does attaching a great deal of your consciousness do to the soul? Can you lose yourself in a virtual world? Upon your death, can you hide yourself, at least for a while in virtual space? I have no answers to those questions, but they are worth contemplating.

Most important, what do we do when the system fails. All systems fail and the internet is extremely vulnerable. The Earth will be hit by Solar flares and, sometime, one will be crippling. Or, in our current age of terrorism, what happens when some radical group gets its hands on an electric pulse weapon. Such things exist and anything that exists will be used.