“ Acting Out’ and ‘Working Through’ Departure in T. Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge.”

Abstract

The present article reads post-traumatic anticipation in Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge (2013) against the elegiac and invective literary traditions in order to suggest a realignment of postmodern predicaments in reconciliation with the modernist tradition as a means to work through social and aesthetic trauma. I contend that Pynchon problematizes his typical luddite approach to the posthuman by means of an allegorical use of communication technologies as a site for ritual mourning.