Inherent Vice (2009)

Oh, Pynchon. How you disappoint me.

This time, it's personal. (Cue the overblown Schwarzenegger theme song.)

It's difficult to review Pynchon without coming to him with a lot of baggage. Like, after DFW, is there any other author so worshipped for straddling the line between mainstream narrative and experimentalism? Who has international average-Joe name recognition and major critic cred? You know, the ones at The New York Times not us proles. Does not Gravity's Rainbow carry the weight of...well, gravity? So I enter expecting certain things that may very well be hard to live up to.

Here's what I expected when I picked this book up based on past experience and based on the back cover description: something experimental (not delivered) and something far-out and trippy (not delivered). I also expected it to be either realistic or way not realistic. Sadly for me, I found it to be neither.

Experimental. What can I say, [b:The Crying of Lot 49|2794|The Crying of Lot 49|Thomas Pynchon|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327917732s/2794.jpg|1477756] was my first love in college. It was surreal and eerie. Probably the first novel I had ever read that was deeply (and intentionally) ambiguous. Even the crazy fantasy novels I read in high school--they might have been out there and trippy, but they didn't leave the reader with more questions than answers. TCoL49 requires the reader to take in the story actively not passively (if you want to get anything from it). It asks you to make your own assumptions and connections. For me, all Pynchon after it must live up to TCoL49. Inherent Vice is so mainstream it bled The Da Vinci Code. I just couldn't believe how straightforwardly narrative it was. Not even a hint of out-of-the-ordinary. I was outrageously let down.

The Story. So it's not experimental. It's a straightforward narrative. A book may have to work a little harder to win me over, but I have enjoyed many straightforward narratives. It's not that I didn't give it a chance, but there were so many things that bothered me that I just couldn't enjoy it. First of all, the tone and style lived in a neverland between satire and realism. It never landed a solid foot in either camp. That just did not work for me. None of the characters felt deep enough to convince me they were real (and other than the main character, we don't meet any of them long enough to believe in them; they glance off the plot like pool balls). For example, the personality traits of the police officer named Bigfoot seemed like a grab bag of quirky lines, attitudes, and sixties critiques shaken up without coherence. Bigfoot's relationship with his wife was a joke rather than sincere. It felt like Pynchon trying too hard to make characters quirky and contradictory. On the other hand, Pynchon includes so many nods toward "realism" that I couldn't absorb the story as satire. Occasionally blatant moments of satire crept in that felt completely out of place against the majority of the scenes. For example, in chapter 8, Pynchon relates the summary of a soap opera being watched on TV. The summary is so far-fetched that it is obviously a satirical joke. A pretty lame joke.

How about psychedelic? Hardly. Writing a book about stoners and druggies is not psychedelic. Writing a book that makes the reader feel stoned or trippy is psychedelic. Inherent Vice felt stone cold sober with the subject matter being stoners.

I could see Inherent Vice being turned into a movie as I read it, clichéd movie that was trying to be "about the sixties." And talk about clichés, the repeated gag where diverse characters express granular details of obscure actors and movies in casual conversation in order to represent L.A.'s obsession with movies? Which was paralleled by the way in casual conversation that so many people talked about sexual fetishes as if they were mundane? These techniques read like stereotypes. Almost bugged me as much as the use of music (especially over the car radio) again and again as a technique to capture "that sixties vibe." I mean, could it be more obviously a writer's device? Most of the characters seemed like shallow simulacra of the sixties, artificial simulations. So I didn't care about them.

The plot itself was rather ridiculous, which would lend itself toward Inherent Vice being a satire if Pynchon didn't seem to be working so hard to make his characters sound realistic. One technique that nodded toward naturalism was Pynchon having characters who used a sort of insidery lingo with each other. A kind of hipster quality of dialogue that skipped reader clarity (what exactly is going on here? why is there only dialogue with no scenic description?), because the "characters" would understand each other's meaning even though we don't. It smelled so blatantly like Pynchon "cutting the fat" that I can only say, his writing was showing.* And here's another gimmick that bothered me: the repeated use of question marks at the end of statements (which were not questions) in dialogue for multiple characters. It felt like a failed attempt at realistic dialogue that became a gimmick with overuse. The characters and their interactions all seemed contrived to me. Since they never jelled, everything felt like a setup (by the author). I was sludging my way through the plot just to see what twist came up next. I was not invested in Sportello, the main character, because he didn't seem real (nor the people who he was trying to save, since we hardly met them) so I didn't care about what twist came next. Perhaps I'm spoiled by the hilarious and brilliant [b:Fan Man|815527|The Fan Man|William Kotzwinkle|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1178650475s/815527.jpg|1555119]. At times, I felt like Sportello read as a poor man's Fan Man. Fan Man with a gun, which was oxymoronic enough to be irritating. Sportello also echoed The Dude in The Big Lebowski. Here's a trait of his that was remarkably unrealistic: getting a boner at the mention of an actresses name in the middle of casual conversation while undercover. Please. Is this realism? Satire? Funny? Just phony.

The plot attempted to be a detective story as well, which I found to be kind of a drag. Since none of the characters mattered to me I really didn't care what was being investigated. Worst of all there was NO urgency! The main character just meandered from scene to scene with little drama except near the end when he actually had to use some physical violence to escape a situation. No urgency is bad for stories but even worse for a detective story. Where's the tension? I also fluctuated between finding holes in the plot and finding scenes designed to provide information that moved the story forward. I've also come to realize I generally dislike close third person narrative. It's not quite omniscient and not first person either, so who's it kidding?

Here is a brief list of additional moments that bothered me:


Near the beginning of Chapter 5 (Pg 56 in paperback) Sportello calls up Marv Wolfmann's wife on the phone and she says, "...Mr.—is it Sportello?" even though in the previous portion of the conversation he had not mentioned his name.

Marv Wolfmann's wife believing Sportello's cover story simply hands over her bank account number. Who does that? Plus, I immediately knew it was a plot device so that Sportello could do some investigation of the bank account to reveal some additional information. Detective Story 101.

The phrase "couple-three" used twice.

Beginning of chapter 7 when Sportello and his lawyer simultaneously realize an unspoken multi-layered metaphor. When does that happen?

Having the lawyer obsessed with yachting and the Golden Fang boat—another contrived backstory to advance the plot.

Bigfoot's philosophical rant in chapter 13 that seemed like an attempt to further summarized the sixties.

Chapter 14, the limo coming to Sportello's rescue just in time. Deux ex machina is not welcome in realistic fiction.

Why is Riggs, Marv Wolfmann's wife's lover, in Vegas? (Also chapter 14.) Because Pynchon needs a conversation to happen.

The black guy big-dick joke.

Toward the end, Sportello rushes to hide the heroin terrified that the cops will catch him. (He was set up after all). But then...after a while...he can't find a hiding place so he just takes it home and delivers it the next day to someone. Huh?



Well, it's not a one star book. I didn't hate it. It had a few moments of stoner humor that tickled my funny joint. But I certainly didn't much care for it. Thanks for nothing, Mr. Pynchon.

*Let's just admit, writing realism is very difficult. To make a scene become visible in the imagination of the reader requires enough detail so that it is not ambiguous, confusing or abstract and yet must be done without being heavy handed or writing down to your reader. Ain't easy. ( )

"Cop killer, better you than me
Cop killer, fuck police brutality
Cop killer, I know your family's grievin'
(Fuck 'em)
Cop killer, but tonight we get even." Once rapped Law & Order: SVU's Ice-T.

Inherent Vice is the thing inside of you that you can't avoid, your inability to resist your own self destruction. I'm gonna consider it a self medication of the void with the therapy resembling (they could be sisters) chemo that kills you as it takes care of you because while I wasn't ever a moth in the flame of drugs or drink, I have lost my life, skidded my own heels, to my own voice of escapism. I've lost time to self induced unreality, if reality is getting out of bed every day and not sleeping in your clothes. How does that story go... It probably isn't good that there's a check list of rock bottom that I could nod my head to of giving myself over to longed for unlasting highs. I could stand in the path of impending doom and not move. Inherent Vice is stepping outside of your own hell trip to watch yourself not move. You could avoid it, if you didn't kiss the boo boo away with a face altering punch. There's no some kind of poetic justice, no keeping score or even. It's turns. One character utters something similar to the "Choose life" speech from Trainspotting. Get a day job, hit the time card. Talk, talk talk (too fast) about how we all share this life. They don't share it. Look away, it's not you, this time. Look at your neighbors in the eyes. Charlie Manson and his girls have switched the lights on the calendar (probably a Far Side calendar with bits to stick on your fridge when you go in to mindlessly eat). The first time it works, the second time less, the third the ghosts are eaten by Pac-men. The days step backwards into when it worked and it is dark side on the future. Your neighbors aren't meeting your eye. Come home from the war and "the freaks" are on the streets with their grand monologues. Everyone is a haircut. Change your hair, change your life they say. No soap boxes or a bath, please. Don't meet each other's eyes. Who has time for junkies? I have a feeling that I have written about mirrors and eye-meeting in my reviews fairly often. It speaks to my loneliness in the dreams. That's the feeling I had about all of these counter cultures. When do they all touch? All of these inherent vices running around in all of these people who are running around trying not to think about what it is they are trying to cover up. No one has time for anyone else. It is after Charles Manson getting down on his knees to look you straight in the eye because you are on your knees (where your vice will inevitably tell you to go) but did anyone really have time for anyone else? Hope you still have days when it still works.

Private Investigator stories have historically been my least favorite kind of story. I shouldn't say "favorite" at all because that implies any kind of preference. I actually have always really hated them. It's the posturing, the easy slide in of a rigid persona. A man's manly man. A "Hey, why not?" like if you spoke in the ill at ease slang of a few years past. Grooving in the broken record in the far out time. Hey, it's the 1960s, man. It's a Hey, why not? existence like a pick up line of they were there and that was that. I once had this boss that dropped in "Hey now, you're an all-star" pop lyrics (another time it was "Whoomp! There it is!"). The only response possible was "Please, don't". It wasn't him and it wasn't anyone. I couldn't put that period of time on any post card and wish anyone was there. I don't know this 1960s of lost hippie dream. I just thought that they weren't tied to the tracks of the war on drugs just yet. I know that Doc wanted to save Coy from the fate he won't step out of the way of for himself. Someone else tells him this. Of course someone else had to tell him this. The point isn't any of the people he meets in his career as a P.I. It isn't that Big Foot tells him he can tell the difference between being childish and child-like. It's that he can see himself not moving, that's all. The persona is kind of the point. A persona I'd do anything to avoid. Hey, why not? I hate the constant day dreaming. I wish the inherent vice wasn't there to medicate.

Hey, it's the 1960s. I wonder what it would have been like to have been welcomed open arms into long hair, free love, drug trips, banana leaves. Hey, I like the Bonzo Dog Band too. Could it have really been like that? I doubt it. The girls with their asses welcomingly pointed outwards, their tiny t-shirts. One of my recent reads was William Gaddis' J R. There's a scene in Inherent Vice of discussing the finger points of a set of nudie photographs. Dream girls who feel heat. I liked the J R scene better. It felt like the difference between watching strangers and making up what you think they might be saying. It at least comes out of you, it's really your own conversation. Turn the sound down and dream. The nude girls in Inherent Vice reminded me of watching porn and feeling ridiculous over the facial expressions the tanned guy with the lily white ass makes as he pounds away into the loudly exalting girl (with a tan to match). Someone else made up the conversation for you and it wasn't a good one. Have you seen a super hot girl who goes into jail for prostitution to get drug money? She does not stay a hot girl. I kind of felt like I was in a Murakami nightmare of what a great fantasy it is to be a prostitute. I could see the Chinese pimps acupuncturing Shasta like a pin cushion. Not pretty. No one gets murdered. They don't lose their teeth or arms. I guess that's the point of look away and hope it lasts longer for your own turn before it's their turn for the high to work and YOUR turn to die or end up in prison.


Oh yeah, I always hated the statuesque blonde shit in those hard-boiled noirs. Pin-ups against doorways. Smoke rings and lip stick calling cards. Cinderella's shoe could fit on any foot for how interchangeable they are to me. I liked that this P.I. Doc falls in love with everyone he meets. That would be a neat trick to manage. I'm terrified of heart break. I don't fall in love and don't linger in the pleasant feelings of crushes in case they'll lead to those hunger pains. I was envious of Doc who could be mildly lovelorn over one girl pining away for her homosexual ex con to fuck her up the ass. If only they loved me... Doc himself feels a directionless pang in his rectum for... something. It's his talent to be all possibilities and Hey, why not? to anyone that comes his way. That's the best when you can be vaguely lurid without anyone in particular in mind. No possibility of rejection. That's what I hated about these noirs of the stud that always gets the girl, though. It ruins it to get off. The ache of loneliness is no stronger than hunger before fast food. Prosecutors are all too willing to give Doc a blow job and a fuck (or two, or three). So he can affect about this girl of his dreams always wanting some other dude. His ex runs out on him on another guy. It's all spank me and sex fantasies and everyone pretending that everyone is someone else. But when everyone IS everyone else, always putting on a role?

I liked Inherent Vice enough. Basically, it was okay. When I finished it I had the feeling that if I had never read it I wouldn't have missed anything. It's entertaining... It's actually pretty lonely feeling to wise crack and cover up feelings. I'm going to need a cure. I guess I didn't say anything about the humor until now. Have you seen the first episode in the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? The one Buffy runs away to Los Angeles and the parts with Buffy are same old brilliant Buffy and the parts of her friends back in Sunnydale trying to carry on without her is a weight on your escapism cure. It's a story without its protagonist, without a driving force. Willow and Xander the sidekicks try to pun their way into vampire slayage. The punchline sound in the forest doesn't happen with the one undead and the wannabes to hear it. Inherent Vice is a lot of lives without their protagonists. The punch lines don't really make me laugh but more nod along "that's cute" like when Xander and Willow try to be smart asses. My inherent vice is sick of trying to entertain itself. Hey, what's the difference between being childish and child-like? So this guy Doc lives in this world when no one knows anyone and they all hope it's not their turn. He has this motif of that thing if you save someone's life you are responsible for it? People keep telling him that he saved their lives. No one saves Doc. What you're left with in the inherent vice. I kinda wish I could have pushed past the ironical cutesy stuff some and not wait to fall in love with the NEXT person who came along. And the next one. I know what their world looks like now. I don't mean to hate on what wasn't a bad book... but the P.I. moving throughout these groups of people... And this time and place... Well, it all happened and it was a whole lot of people happening at the same time. It hasn't changed. The feeling that I really had more than anything else was when Shasta doesn't even want to think about Coy. He's a junkie and she's trying to live the passed glory. She's trying to be a pin-up on a door that's shutting. Doc does to avoid thinking about himself. If that is what all of these people are doing... Well, it kind of annoys me to be all far out and groovy and hey, why not P.I. posturing and everyone is doing it counter culture. What is the inherent vice covering up? There's a hive mind in here some where and what happens when one of them gets sick? I had the feeling out of this entertaining book about something sick, about time past and getting even and the past and Charles Manson and the war on drugs and cops and pigs and hippies and freaks and for me it is going to be fun while it lasts. Please, no more.
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This book drops you into the life of a private investigator named Doc who lives in Gordita Beach, in southern California. The book is written as though it is one in a series, referencing events that happened in the past and other cases Doc has worked on. I like that Pynchon has picked of these markers of the genre in which he is writing.
It is the very beginning of the 70s and Doc is a hippie. He is not the kind of hippie who goes on war protests or hides out with Black Panthers, but instead is what was probably the much more common type of hippie that smokes a lot of pot and finds himself friends with people who believe that a mythic island is going to rise out of the water off the coast or who send him on an acid trip in order to piece together the clues he has floating around in his brain. He is hired to fight a disappeared real estate mogul which links into a number of different conspiracies which were fun to thread together.
At times I felt like I was reading Hunter S. Thompson...some of the same random, driving through the night running into random characters and taking various substances kind of vibe. Although there is more of a plot than the standard Hunter S. Thompson and, it also seems, a different kind of point. Although Doc is very much of the time in which he is living, there are significant clues that the author is commenting on the times from the future. The Manson murders weave throughout the book as background and signal the darker side of the hippie culture which is to turn even worse as the 70s progress. One of Doc's associates has found out how to log into an early version of the internet and forecasts a time when we will all be under constant surveillance.
I really enjoyed this book. I would say, however, that if you are super hung up on plot this might not be the book for you. It does have an interesting plot but it takes almost too much concentration to follow it. It is better just to appreciate the vibes that are being sent out by this book and the commentary that is offered on the era in which it takes place and our own era. ( )

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."


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