IVIV reception: "Inherent Vice is a terrifically written bad book."

[Doug Millison]

http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/saturdayextra/story.html

Pynchon spins a tie-dyed yarn
EZRA GLINTER, Special to the GazettePublished: Saturday, August 22

Inherent Vice  By Thomas Pynchon  The Penguin Press, 384 pages, $35
Inherent Vice is a terrifically written bad book.

American author Thomas Pynchon may be known for such post-modern  
doorstops as V. and Gravity's Rainbow, but his latest opus is a  
straight-ahead mystery novel in the crime noir tradition of writers  
like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Only, Pynchon's novel isn't noir, exactly. It's more like paisley, or  
tie-dye or some other psychedelic, rainbow-coloured style.

The story takes place in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, against the  
backdrop of the Manson Family murders, Ronald Reagan's governorship,  
and an L.A. Lakers vs. New York Knicks NBA championship.

The novel's hero, Larry (Doc) Sportello, is a lovable, hippy-ish  
private investigator with a penchant for John Garfield movies, groovy  
tunes and a fresh joint every three pages.

When Doc's ex-girlfriend comes to him for help unravelling a plot  
against her current lover, the real estate mogul Mickey Wolfmann, Doc  
dives right in, despite being heartbroken and having no hope of ever  
getting paid. From there, the action unwinds at a bewildering pace, as  
Doc confronts a skinhead motorcycle gang, searches for a junkie  
saxophone player who may or may not be dead, investigates a private  
militia employed on the hush-hush by the LAPD, and everywhere finds  
the fingerprints of an elusive schooner/dental clinic/heroin cartel  
called the "Golden Fang." In his laid-back, perma-stoned way, however,  
Doc doesn't solve anything so much as wander around pursuing random  
leads, secure in the faith that the pieces will all fall together  
eventually. In the end, whatever happened to Mickey Wolfmann is less  
important than the mad spectacle of Doc's scrapes and scraps, from his  
visits to tony boating clubs with their debt- ridden "plasticratic  
yachtsfolk" to his pursuit of Aryan Brotherhood ex-cons in sleazy Las  
Vegas casinos frequented by "ladies of the evening and ladies of the  
later shifts." While the novel's hairpin twists and turns may be hard  
to keep up with, Inherent Vice is considerably breezier than Pynchon's  
previous work. But it does include a few characteristic elements,  
including a labyrinthine plot, shadowy criminal-corporate  
organizations, a deep immersion in pop music and culture, and original  
song lyrics sprinkled liberally throughout.

Most of the novel's characters also have goofy, Pynchonesque names,  
like Sauncho Smilax, Doc's maritime-cum-criminal lawyer who is  
obsessed with daytime soap operas, or Leonard Jermaine Loosemeat,  
a.k.a. El Drano, a heroin dealer with a bad case of conscience. Then  
there's Bigfoot Bjornsen, a hippie-hating police officer with a murky  
past who uses the coroner's freezer to store chocolate dipped bananas  
and with whom Doc has a private eye's traditionally adversarial  
relationship.

Still, even if Inherent Vice has some of the hallmarks of Pynchon's  
previous work, one of the mysteries here is why the author chose to  
produce what amounts to a fluffy crime novel, albeit a stylishly  
written one.

Until such time as Pynchon cares to explain, however, the more  
immediate question posed by Inherent Vice is simple: whodunit? Ezra  
Glinter is a Montreal freelance writer and journalist.


© The Gazette (Montreal) 2009