Bloggers have called it “bizarre,†“highly bizarre,†“peculiar†and “appropriately odd.†It’s the book trailer for Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, “Bleeding Edge,†which will be published on Sept. 17.
In the low-budget video, a young man calling himself the “king of the Upper West Side†and wearing a T-shirt that reads, “Hi, I’m Tom Pynchon,†wanders around the city discussing his routines: “I try to just sort of occupy Zabar’s for five to six hours; just sort of sweat it out, get that sawdust smell into my lungs.†At the end of the trailer, he uses smoked fish as a face wrap on a bench in Central Park after looking at a display of Philip Roth books and saying, “He’s everywhere.â€
The trailer does briefly mention Maxine Tarnow, a character in “Bleeding Edge,†but otherwise connections to the novel seem scant. The book is set in New York City in 2001. The flap copy says: “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.â€
Reaction to the trailer on Twitter has been mixed. The author William Gibson called it “Absolutely the best novel trailer so far in the history of the world.†The book designer Peter Mendelsund weighed in: “The trailer for Pynchon’s new novel is, um, bad?†And the blog kottke.org hedged its bet, calling the teaser “either brilliant or the dumbest thing ever.â€
Mr. Pynchon is becoming an old hand at generating talk around his sneak peeks. In 2009, the reclusive author narrated the stoner-toned trailer for his private-eye novel “Inherent Vice.†Last year, a slick trailer announced the e-book editions of Mr. Pynchon’s collected works.
Bleeding Edge book trailer from The Penguin Press on Vimeo.
