Inherent Vice

Although the rear cover of the book says that Pynchon's working here in an unaccustomed genre, it felt like pretty familiar territory to me: People with funny names become embroiled in criss-crossing hijinks, often at odds with the authorities. Also: drugs (guess I'd call the unaccustomed genre here "stoner noir"). It was an ok book, better in the last 100 pages than elsewhere. The thing I think I've finally put together about Pynchon is that it's hard for me to get in the heads of any of his characters, and without that access, it's hard for me to feel like I have much of a stake in their plights, which tends to make his books hard for me to really engage with. There's plenty of humor here, and a handful of moments of real humanity, but mostly it reads like Pynchon riffing on The Big Lebowski. ( )

I've got interested in Pynchon after watching P. T. Anderson's adaptation of this novel, so I shyly and carefully entered his world with his Bleeding Edge (2013) and The Crying of Lot 49 (1965, Croatian translation), thus got a bit familiar with his style and way of constructing plots.

In my opinion this crazy, psychedelic and hallucinogenic world he built is on par with those in his two other novels. This time revolving around a private head, Doc Sportello, trying to unwind the mystery of a missing construction magnate, Mickey Wolfmann, that his ex-girlfriend, Shasta Fay, asked him to find. In this investigation many other mysteries and characters emerge, gradually twisting the plot and disorienting the reader. Throughout the story Doc, and also the reader, gets more and more sure in the presence of the invisible and dark forces that pull the strings around our main and other characters, which is one of the recurring motives in Bleeding Edge and Lot 49.
On the surface this works as a great detective story with it's memorable characters set in the late 60's Los Angeles. The twingling story keeps the reader engaged, while also disorienting him, with every chapter bringing front another mystery that gets untangled as the book gets closer to the end. And it works on this level as good as it gets.
On the other hand, under the surface this is a great testimony and an analysis of a lost American culture, the creeping appearance of neoliberalism and the fascist and bullying reign of the USAs establishment leaders, in this case those of republicans R. Nixon and R. Reagan.

The only thing I didn't like in some instances is the treatment of some of the female characters, whereas they often seem to be victims of some really aggressive sexual assaults.
The book demands a lot of focus, and I can't wait to read it again, this time in English.

By the way, there's a good read on the subject of the movie and the book on this link: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/02/inherent-vice-review-counterculture

Enjoy. ( )

At the heart of Thomas Pynchon’s shaggy 70’s funny serious meta-noir, is a mystery greater than the plot presented. As revealed by Roman Polanski’s CHINATOWN (wonderful screenplay by Robert Towne) and Raymond Chandler’s every lit only by streetlight foray into Los Angeles and its environs, there is a river of turpitude flowing beneath the shiny hard gloss of Southern California. Whereas the earlier works dealt with that river seeping up through the cracks into the lives of individuals, Pynchon’s INHERENCT VICE places his plot just after a moment where such a crack became a seismic fault line—Charles Manson and the Tate-LaBianca murders. Barely addressed during the actual novel, this event was personal to Los Angeles in a way that the other death knells of sixties idealism were not. The clinical savagery of the murders by the blindly obedient seemingly harmless followers of a charismatic madman, stunned and horrified the public beyond startled head shaking and dismay. The murders crept down into the core of who we thought we were and many never quite saw the world the same again. (Can we trust authority to protect us—does authority even care?) Onto this unsettled plain, come the quirky goofballs and malevolent forces of Pynchon’s world. A music mogul’s disappearance seems to be the trigger of events, but as Pynchon unfolds his tale gradually and gracefully you realize that all the events of his story are just aftermath. We are only playing catch up to events that unfold without our knowledge and beyond our power and will likely escape our understanding when we come upon them. Pynchon also brings in one of his favorite recurring themes, identity. There are people undercover, people finding out who they are or were, people leading double lives and people who are so slightly connected to the world that they may be said to not to exist at all. Doc Sportello, Pynchon’s names are always marvelous, the PI that leads the reader through the tale is easy to dismiss as a drugged out hippie but he will grow in your esteem and affection while the music mogul at the center of the mystery does a character 180….and then another. He remains almost little more than a shadow figure that the other characters try to mold into the image they want to see. In the midst of this are the things we choose to distract ourselves with sex, drugs, rock n’ roll and television and munchies. Mix in Pynchon’s usual array of unusual characters who seldom do quite what you expect them to do for reasons you won’t see coming and what I have presented as a heavy and ominous tome reads more like an ingenious PI story rolled up in a pothead’s lark. The humor is often sly, sometimes bawdy and lewd but the trip always rewarding. An amusing romp amidst the tombstones of our culture. ( )

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A pesar de las críticas que ha recibido esta novela por parte de críticos medio snobs, Inherent vice me pareció un libro genial. Divertido, complejo, coloquial, laberíntico. ( )