Inherent Vice (2009)

Far out. ( )

Thomas Pynchon is insanely talented but this isn't one of his best works. It's probably one of the easiest ones to follow in terms of plot (though this is relative to his other volumes, not the total canon of all literature ever published or anything) It's set in the late 60s in California and sometimes I wonder if, given the fact that Pynchon is a famous recluse, he's just used to recalling this time period most vividly if he was actually experiencing life amongst other people more frequently. One can't be sure but there seems to be little in the way of point in this novel for me. What's the over-arching take away? The reason behind this work? It seems more like an adventure of a hippie-druggie detective who has just enough brain cells left to make a few discoveries without killing himself along the way.

The plot is complex involving real estate tycoons, famous cops who are well known actors (again, this is California), people of various socioeconomics who have preferred drugs of choice and seem so loyal to these drugs it's sad that they couldn't find something else to be so passionate about. You see rich housewives, failed actresses trying to get rich, the daughters of the incredibly wealthy, skinheads, surfer musicians, and everything in between...however, this is mainly a character study about Doc Sportello who should be a great deal more nervous about falling into traps when murders are being committed all around him. He takes things as they come and has this over arching it's all going to work out in the end type of sense to him instead.

Also, Pynchon still doesn't know how to write a sex scene. I feel I should re-iterate this. It makes me concerned for him that he's needed a woman to keep him comfort all these times to remember what it's like..well, at least to help him write about it. OR, more preferably, he could just stick to what he knows and leave the sex scenes out altogether. That would be my preference.


I'm not sure why PT Anderson felt this novel was so special he should do a film adaptation of it but, seeing as how I respect PT's work, I felt I should read this book to see. I admit I couldn't open the cover for so long because the cover itself made me extremely nauseous. In this case, it would have been okay to have judged the book by the cover. I think Pynchon still shows us an adventurous plot and an interesting character study but only read this one if you've read many of his others and can't get enough and also if you somehow want to read about California in the late 1960s...God knows there just isn't enough literature about that already. #sarcasm

Memorable quotes:

pg. 7 "In the real estate business, God knows, few of us are strangers to moral ambiguity. But some of these developers, they make Godzilla look like a conservationist..."

pg. 22 "Maybe it was all the exotic sensory input that caused Doc to then swoon abruptly and lose an unknown amount of his day."

pg. 132 "English zombies! look at them, man, American zombies are at least out front about it, tend to stagger when they try to walk anywhere, usually, in third ballet position, and they go, like 'Uunnhh...uunnhh' with that rising and falling tone, whereas English zombies are for the most part quite well spoken, they use long words and they glide everywhere, like, sometimes you don't even see them take steps, it's like they're on ice skates..."

pg. 171 "This was not a moment he'd been either dreading or hoping for, though now and then somebody would remind him of the ancient American Indian belief that if you save somebody's life, you are responsible for them from then on..."

pg. 334 "What goes around may come around, but it never ends up in exactly the same place, you ever notice? Like a record on a turntable, all it takes is one groove's difference and the universe can be into a whole 'nother song."


( )

Enjoyed it for awhile, mainly due to the SoCal culture of the 60s stuff, but it eventually became tedious and hard to read. And the writing itself didn't have much of Pynchon's usual flair. ( )

Vintage Pynchon with a strong dose of humor, mockery, unreliability, strangeness and an endless bouquet of magnificent language. ( )

Failed to finish this in Feb 2012. I'll try again when I've got more time to concentrate on it.