Inherent Vice review New York Magazine

[Carvill, John]

<< That final sentence: As though Pynchon's paranoid characters talking about their paranoia represents some sort of new, clichéd direction in Pynchon's late work.

But they have been doing it all along, especially in Lot 49 and GR! In fact, this self-consciousness was one of the NEW things about Pynchon's take on paranoia back in the sixties. World literature before Pynchon is crammed with paranoid characters - Dostoevsky's Underground Man, for instance, or the governess in Henry James' 'The Turn of the Screw'. Only those characters don't really know that they're paranoid; that's up to the reader to discover. Whereas Pynchon's characters have been aware of their paranoia all along, and have spoken of it at great length, cf. Oedipa's musings about the four different alternatives she faces toward the end of Lot 49, or Pig's theories of We-systems, They-systems, and creative paranoia in GR. >>

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Don't mention Henry James!

Agree that the reviewer is at least honest enough to admit he just doesn't like Pynchon. 

And some of what he said was quiote entertaining, even if I don't agree with him. That bit about enjoying the first 15 pages or so, but then 'the author throws a big !Pynchon! switch' made me smile. It's a negative review, in a sense, but it doesn't make you angry or depressed, the way Laura Miller's Salon piece did.

So far, the reviews seem to be averaging out as reasonably positive, which is a step up from ATD I think.

Personally, I'll be more interested in how the p-list people rate IV. And of course we'll be able to discuss any negative feelings, work through them, maybe over a joint or two...