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I'm no pro from Dover, but I think that there are as many ways of looking at a work by Pynchon as he has storylines in each book. Inherent Vice is definitely one of the more approachable works by a guy who can have the reader wading hip-deep through unbelievably complex prose on one hand and up to your nose in Indica, weapons, and cartoonish character names on the other. On a general level, it'd be easy to say it's closely akin to the other "California" pieces (The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland), much more so than the sprawling tomes of Against the Day or Mason and Dixon (for page count alone — phew!) or the byzantine plots of V and Gravity's Rainbow.
If I cut out every third word from Inherent Vice and paste it into another book, I'd come up with Cheech and Chong's encyclopedia of '70s L.A. Now I cut out every second word and I have a post-retro-détournement of a serpentine, techie noir, William Gibson-esque thriller. And what I'm left with reminds me of the resonant emotion, individuality, and very personal tone of the likes of Haruki Murakami. But, ultimately, Pynchon's voice is always his own. Recommended by Jeff G., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, and all Pynchon, Inherent Vice spotlights private eye Doc Sportello who occasionally comes out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era, as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog.
It's been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for her to say. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite which, he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers, and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists.
In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there... or... if you were there, then you... or, wait, is it...
Review:
For more than 45 years, Thomas Pynchon has been the hidden god of modern letters, rarely photographed, never interviewed, but nonetheless revered and worshiped, his name pronounced by the devoted with a hiccup of pure awe: Thomas, gulp, Pynchon. Fans even collect the few books for which he has given a dust-jacket blurb. Every word of the Master is precious. Nonetheless, Pynchon has... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) often been — at least until "Inherent Vice" — a writer more admired than loved. Such imposing epics as "Gravity's Rainbow," "Mason & Dixon" and the recent "Against the Day" daunt even the most rugged readers. Assaults on such Everests require not only the usual climbing gear — pitons and belaying ropes and what all — but also oxygen canisters and Sherpa guides, as well. These majestic works are more than worth the effort, but they aren't what most people would call page-turners or comfort books. Which is just what "Inherent Vice" is. Imagine the cult film "The Big Lebowski" as a novel, with touches of "Chinatown" and "L.A. Confidential" thrown in for good measure. Imagine your favorite Raymond Chandler or James Crumley mystery retold as a hippie whodunit, set in Gordita Beach, Calif., at the very end of the 1960s. Imagine a great American novelist, one who is now a septuagenarian, writing with all the vivacity and bounce of a young man who has just discovered girls. Most of all, imagine sentences and scenes that are so much fun to read that you wish "Inherent Vice" were twice as long as it is. Imagine saying that about a Thomas Pynchon novel. Of course, there have been short Pynchon books in the distant past, and this new one might be thought of as part of a California cycle that includes the novella-length "Crying of Lot 49" and "Vineland." But you don't need to have ever opened either of these, or even to remember the hippie days of yore, to just kick back and enjoy the smoke-filled psychedelic pages of "Inherent Vice." Here, lovingly mythologized — OK, sentimentalized — is California livin' on that long summer's day we call the '60s, when the Age of Aquarius was about to dawn and all that mattered were longboards and high surf and drugs and sex and rock-and-roll. True, nothing then was ever quite that simple, except in our now faulty and selective memories. There was a lot of horror, too — Vietnam, Nixon, urban riots, Charles Manson, assassinations — and these form part of the backdrop of "Inherent Vice." And yet. As Wordsworth once wrote, and he wasn't even there: "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven!" "Inherent Vice" opens just as any California private-eye novel should — with a faint air of wistfulness and regret: "She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always used to. Doc hadn't seen her for over a year." She is Shasta Fay Hepworth, aspiring actress and current mistress of real estate mogul Mickey Wolfmann. Doc is Doc Sportello, an aging hippie pushing 30, who now runs LSD Investigations, the initials standing for "Location, Surveillance, Detection." He and Shasta had once upon a time been lovers. He's never gotten over her. But you knew that. Worried that she's been followed, a breathless Shasta hurriedly tells Doc about a scheme to kidnap Wolfmann. She's caught in the middle and needs help. But before she can go into all the details, Shasta disappears, and Doc finds that he's in the middle of something he doesn't understand at all. Even after a joint or two. First, the long-haired private eye is visited by Tariq Khalil, a formidable black ex-con, who wants him to locate an old prison buddy, Glen Charlock, now a bodyguard for Shasta's very same sugar daddy. Then Doc, while exploring the massage parlor Chick Planet, is conked from behind and awakens to find that he's a murder suspect and that Wolfmann is either dead or kidnapped. Next, a blonde named Hope plaintively insists that her supposedly deceased husband, a sax player named Coy Harlingen, is still alive. And finally, a tough cop named Bigfoot Bjornsen warns our "hippie scum" hero to stop snooping around. Instead, Doc goes to call on Mrs. Wolfmann: "As if auditioning for widowhood, Sloane Wolfmann strolled in from poolside wearing black spike-heeled sandals, a headband with a sheer black veil, and a black bikini of negligible size made of the same material as the veil." Before long Sloane sidles up to her visitor, "close enough for her to be seized and violated, a thought which unavoidably crossed Doc's mind, taking its time, in fact, and more than once looking back and winking." But the sexy housemaid Luz interrupts and soon Doc is back among his various druggy friends — the "stewardii" Lourdes and Motella, a surfer who speaks of gigantic waves out in the Pacific where there should be no such waves, a clairvoyant named Sortilege obsessed with the image of sunken Lemuria rising from the sea, a bounty-hunter who has just discovered the uses of ARPAnet — the precursor to the Internet — and a marine lawyer named Sauncho, who tells Doc lurid stories about an evil ship called the Golden Fang. But the Golden Fang may also be a criminal syndicate, or maybe it's even something else. ... Sauncho does tend to doper conspiracy logic, even when watching television commercials, like the old classic about the dapper, well-dressed Charlie the Tuna: "'It's all supposed to be so innocent, upwardly mobile snob, designer shades, beret, desperate to show he's got good taste, except he's also dyslexic so he gets "good taste" mixed up with "taste good," but it's worse than that! Far, far worse! Charlie really has this, obsessive death wish! Yes! he, he wants to be caught, processed, put in a can, not just any can, you dig, it has to be a StarKist! suicidal brand loyalty, man, deep parable of consumer capitalism, they won't be happy with anything less than drift-netting us all, chopping us up and stacking us on the shelves of Supermarket Amerika, and subconsciously the horrible thing is, is we want them to do it. ... ' 'Saunch, wow, that's ... ' 'It's been on my mind. And another thing. Why is there Chicken of the Sea but no Tuna of the Farm?' 'Um ... ' Doc actually beginning to think about this. "'And don't forget,' Sauncho went on to remind him darkly, 'that Charles Manson and the Vietcong are also named Charlie.'" Throughout, Pynchon keeps up the rush of quips and sexual encounters and increasingly complicated plot threads, nearly all of them paying homage to traditional hard-boiled fiction. Wherever our tripping hero goes he meets bikers, mystics and miniskirted knockouts, including various "ladies of the evening and ladies of the later shifts." Doc is our old friend the tarnished knight of the mean streets, a sucker for losers down on their luck. He even flies to Las Vegas to help a young woman who is madly, sadly, in the sexual thrall of one Puck Beaverton, notable for the swastika tattoo on his head: "She had that lovelorn look on her face. Doc had already deduced that he could be Mick Jagger, pay fees in the range of six figures per fleeting smile, even give up watching the Lakers, and nothing he did would make the least impression — for this chick it was Puck Beaverton or nobody." But what has happened to Shasta? Is Wolfmann alive or dead? What does the Los Angeles Police Department have to do with the Golden Fang? Pynchon does finally solve all the riddles, but they hardly matter. On any page of "Inherent Vice" you'll pause to smile over a simile or pun or a bittersweet description: "Inside, the woman at the front counter gave Doc the impression of having been badly treated in some divorce settlement. Too much makeup, hair styled by somebody who was trying to give up smoking, a minidress she had no more idea of how to carry than a starlet did a Victorian gown. He wanted to say, 'Are you OK?'" As often with Pynchon, his jokiness recalls that of the smartest kid in sixth grade who is also the class clown. But I love his humor (even the flurry of allusions to "Gilligan's Island"). An automobile collision emporium is called Resurrection of the Body. Two bikers are named Aubrey and Thorndyke. The Price of Wisdom is a vegetarian restaurant located on the second floor above a joint called Ruby's (see Job 28:18: "The price of wisdom is above rubies"). An ultra-rich Californian is said to be "looking tanned and fit, and as if somebody had just run a floor buffer all over his face." But great humor always verges on heartbreak: Talking of lost love, a woman tells Doc, "As one who's been down that particular exit ramp, you can only cruise the boulevards of regret so far, and then you've got to get back up onto the freeway again." "Inherent Vice" may not be the Great American Novel, but it's certainly a Great American Read — a terrific pastiche of California noir, wonderfully amusing throughout (and hard to quote from in a family newspaper because of the frequent use of, uh, colorful spoken language) and a poignant evocation of the last flowering of the '60s, just before everything changed and passed into myth or memory: "Sunrise was on the way, the bars were just closed or closing, out in front of Wavos everybody was either at the tables along the sidewalk, sleeping with their heads on Health Waffles or in bowls of vegetarian chili, or being sick in the street, causing small-motorcycle traffic to skid in the vomit and so forth. It was late winter in Gordita." Reviewed by Michael Dirda, whose e-mail address is mdirda(at symbol)gmail.com, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group) (hide most of this review)
Review:
"[Pynchon] applies language to what we know and all we've missed — giving new shape to both.... The book is exuberant, delightfully evocative of its era, and very funny." O Magazine
Review:
"[M]aster writer Pynchon has created a bawdy, hilarious, and compassionate electric-acid-noir satire spiked with passages of startling beauty." Booklist
Review:
"[A] slightly spoofy take on hardboiled crime fiction, a story in which the characters smoke dope and watch Gilligan's Island instead of sitting around a night club knocking back J&Bs." New Yorker
Review:
"With whip-smart, psychedelic-bright language, Pynchon manages to convey the Sixties — except the Sixties were never really like this. This is Pynchon's world, and it's brilliant." Library Journal
Review:
"Inherent Vice feels fizzily spontaneous — like a series of jazz solos, scenes, and conversations built around little riffs of language." Newsweek
Synopsis:
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, and all Pynchon, Inherent Vice spotlights private eye Doc Sportello who occasionally comes out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era, as the free love of the 1960s slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog.
Synopsis:
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon- private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog
It's been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for her to say. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite which he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists.
In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there . . . or . . . if you were there, then you . . . or, wait, is it . . .
Synopsis:
Watch a video
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon- private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era
In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre that is at once exciting and accessible, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there.
It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Undeniably one of the most influential writers at work today, Pynchon has penned another unforgettable book.
Thomas Pynchon is the author of V, The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Slow Learner (a collection of short stories), Vineland, Mason and Dixon and, most recently, Against the Day. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.
Katsuya, December 28, 2012 (view all comments by Katsuya)
I really enjoyed this book and think that anyone who likes Elmore Leonard or Raymond Chandler would find this book a blast. It also could be the book for all of you interested in social history; with a need to find out what caused something to turn from a dream into now a nightmare.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
Ryan Carter, April 22, 2010 (view all comments by Ryan Carter)
I keep falling asleep (this is in no way a reflection on the book. I just happen to pick it up late at night) while reading this, but I'm pretty sure it enhances the whole" Whoa, I'm a stoner...what's happening?" vibe Doc has going for him.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (5 of 10 readers found this comment helpful)
Donald Hackett, January 14, 2010 (view all comments by Donald Hackett)
So what if Pynchon is imitating himself. So what if the story sags about two-thirds of the way through. So what if I keep seeing the protagonist as Freewheeling Frank from The Furry Freak Brothers. So what if it's not Wolf Hall, Lark and Termite, Tinkers, or 2666. So what if I'm a victim of hippy nostalgia--wanting to remember being that high, that much sex, or adventures that interesting.
This book made me laugh at the madness of the world we live in--the same madness that made me want to cry in 2666, but seen from the other side of the mirror. Paranoia is heightened awarenss.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (7 of 14 readers found this comment helpful)
I'm no pro from Dover, but I think that there are as many ways of looking at a work by Pynchon as he has storylines in each book. Inherent Vice is definitely one of the more approachable works by a guy who can have the reader wading hip-deep through unbelievably complex prose on one hand and up to your nose in Indica, weapons, and cartoonish character names on the other. On a general level, it'd be easy to say it's closely akin to the other "California" pieces (The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland), much more so than the sprawling tomes of Against the Day or Mason and Dixon (for page count alone — phew!) or the byzantine plots of V and Gravity's Rainbow.
If I cut out every third word from Inherent Vice and paste it into another book, I'd come up with Cheech and Chong's encyclopedia of '70s L.A. Now I cut out every second word and I have a post-retro-détournement of a serpentine, techie noir, William Gibson-esque thriller. And what I'm left with reminds me of the resonant emotion, individuality, and very personal tone of the likes of Haruki Murakami. But, ultimately, Pynchon's voice is always his own.
by Jeff G.
"Review"
by ,
"[Pynchon] applies language to what we know and all we've missed — giving new shape to both.... The book is exuberant, delightfully evocative of its era, and very funny." O Magazine
"Review"
by Booklist,
"[M]aster writer Pynchon has created a bawdy, hilarious, and compassionate electric-acid-noir satire spiked with passages of startling beauty."
"Review"
by New Yorker,
"[A] slightly spoofy take on hardboiled crime fiction, a story in which the characters smoke dope and watch Gilligan's Island instead of sitting around a night club knocking back J&Bs."
"Review"
by Library Journal,
"With whip-smart, psychedelic-bright language, Pynchon manages to convey the Sixties — except the Sixties were never really like this. This is Pynchon's world, and it's brilliant."
"Review"
by Newsweek,
"Inherent Vice feels fizzily spontaneous — like a series of jazz solos, scenes, and conversations built around little riffs of language."
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, and all Pynchon, Inherent Vice spotlights private eye Doc Sportello who occasionally comes out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era, as the free love of the 1960s slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog.
"Synopsis"
by Penguin,
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon- private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog
It's been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for her to say. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite which he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists.
In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there . . . or . . . if you were there, then you . . . or, wait, is it . . .
"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,
Watch a video
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon- private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era
In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre that is at once exciting and accessible, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there.
It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Undeniably one of the most influential writers at work today, Pynchon has penned another unforgettable book.
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