Twisted time : Pynchon's 9/11 in Bleeding Edge

In Bleeding Edge, a highly paranoid character declares: “[after] the 11 September attacks...amid all that chaos and confusion, a hole quietly opened up in American history” (399). Following Pynchon’s suggestion of its historical focus, this chapter examines how Bleeding Edge—Pynchon’s second 9/11 novel, and ostensibly a quite conventional one at that—casts a stark light on the attacks and their literary and historical consequences. This chapter traces Pynchon’s efforts to fill this void of wilful historical blindness. Responding to the September 11 attacks in a way that highlights both the conventionality of so much 9/11 literature and our broader cultural response to the attacks, Pynchon adapts his long-running interest in the subjunctive (the possible future) by twisting time, giving Bleeding Edge an historical perspective on the attacks many other responses are unwilling to purse.